Category: Dream Yoga And Astral Travel

Navigating the Internal Worlds

12/3/2022

We have been explaining how to awaken within dreams, and what is particularly beautiful about the writings of Samael Aun Weor is that he talks about what we can practically experience when we dream, the different possibilities that await a competent investigator of the higher worlds. It is my purpose to end this course by talking about precisely this principle―what is there, what we can do, what we can experience, and more importantly, how do we navigate that landscape, the unknown. I want to help us be inspired in our practice, to know that there are things that are within our consciousness, of which we are capable, and that we can do if we train, if we work, and if we are patient.

Exploring Our Internal Worlds through Self-Observation

Navigating the higher worlds depends upon knowing the psychological sense of self-observation.

How do we perceive ourselves? How do we observe ourselves? In the same way that we learn to walk, to eat, to speak, these are qualities that we learn as we develop maturity and familiarity and experience with the dream state. We learn through experience, and it is essential that we practice self-observation, like we did with the brief meditation. Be aware of our mind, our mood, our body, constantly watching ourselves and looking for any inkling of a disturbance, of agitation, of dis-ease, so that, in a state of perfect serenity and stillness, we acquire new knowledge. It is that faculty that allows us to navigate the higher dimensions.

As we may know from personal experience, if we are afraid, if we are angry, if we are fearful, those emotions take us out of the dream. Any intensity of a negative state pulls us out. So what we want is to observe our psychological qualities, to develop and maintain, through mindfulness, that presence of being, not only physically, but when we dream.

The reality is that there are dangers to this work―not dangers of a physical type, of receiving a knife wound, but instead, it is psychological, because, if we are observing ourselves, we are learning what states in us are harmful, how our own pride, and anger, and fear may cause pain, not only for ourselves, but for humanity.

In the same way that it is indispensable for one to learn how to walk in the external world, so as not to fall into a precipice, or not get lost in the streets of the city, or to select one's friends, or not associate with the perverse ones, or not eat poison, etc., likewise, through the psychological work upon oneself, we learn how to walk in the internal world, which is explorable only through Self-observation. ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, “The Two Worlds”

We see, in this image, a woman looking in a mirror, and she sees a figure behind her shoulder that is invisible. You cannot physically see your thoughts, but we can sense them. This sense needs to be developed. It is that sense that will teach you how to navigate the higher worlds, because, if you are not seeing the reality of that state, you will not learn how to interact with it.

Real Occult or Esoteric Knowledge is Experiential

This is the beginning of a truly infinite knowledge. It is really limitless, and while I am going to talk about a lot of different aspects of astral travel, the truth is that this is very limited to my experience, because, truly, if you have read Samael Aun Weor's writings, you know that there are things that he talks about which are truly mind-boggling. These are things that amaze the heart, which inspire us to want to change, to want to know divinity, to experience the truth.

Physical books are a doorway. They offer practices that allow us to experience the truth. But it is that very experience that is the true key to unlocking why we suffer and how we can change. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated in The Major Mysteries:

Occult science is studied in the internal worlds. Therefore, the one who does not know how to be willingly projected in the astral body does not know occultism. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

The word "occult" comes from the “hidden," to cultivate that which is invisible, and so we are aspirants to learning how to cultivate this knowledge.

So let's talk about how we do it.

The Lunar and Solar Astral Bodies

On the left, we have an image of a ghostly feminine figure in prayer, like a blue silhouette, beneath the words kama rupa. Those who are familiar with Theosophy know that this is the body of desire. We travel with this every time we dream. Some people call it the lunar astral body. It is a vehicle made of matter or energy, of substance. It has its biology. It has its chemistry. The lunar astral body eats. This might seem strange for us, because our dreams may be very vague and ephemeral. But if you awaken within the astral world, you find that you consume, and eat, and live like you do physically. We just don’t tend to remember it, but obviously, this matter and energy is of a very subtle type, and this body, which is of a ghostly appearance, is what we all inherit from nature.

We are given a body to travel in the astral dimension, because that is how we function and live. You could not live physically if you didn't sleep, and we could not travel in the internal dimensions if we did not have this body. But unfortunately, for us, it is very limited. It is a mechanical vehicle. It is not substantial or real compared to what we call the solar astral body, the body of luminosity, of brilliance, of light.

The solar astral body, the authentic vehicle of our spirit, is something that is created. We are not born with it unless, in a past existence, we created it intentionally through a very specific science. We call that the perfect matrimony, where a couple can learn to use the energies of life, to transform them, to conserve them, and to create something different. This is why Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:5). That birth is creating a body, a vehicle in the astral world that can allow you to navigate higher planes with ease. It will not take effort. But it does take effort to create this vehicle, which we can study in Samael Aun Weor's writings.

The difference between the two is like looking at the sun and the moon. If you are in the astral plane, and you meet a master who is awakened, they have light. They are brilliant. They are truly terrifying in that they are so divine, and that that compassion, which comes from the heights, is fully expressed in them. We are like a shadow, a beginner, learning to take what we have been given by nature and to create something that is superior. The difference between the two is that, in the beginning, we can learn to travel with our kama rupa, our body of desires.

The Superior and Inferior Astral

But obviously, it attracts us to lower planes of existence, like we see in this image.

Some people don't make a distinction about astral travel, that there are superior planes and there are inferior planes, and where we are, psychologically, determines where we gravitate within nature. So if we are burdened or heavy with desire, we will go to planes that resonate with that plane of being. But if we refine our psychology, our mind, our heart, we will elevate to planes of being that truly are heavenly, sacred, eternal.

This image here has a bit of a ghostly appearance of a fragmented statue lying in ruin, a ghostly atmosphere, and a shadowy plane. We tend to gravitate in realms like this every time we dream, but we are not aware of it, and the importance of this is serious. It can't be emphasized enough. If you want knowledge, we always approach the people who are most competent, who have maybe trained themselves, or educated, or professionals, have a degree. In the same way, we don't go to a criminal, perhaps, for advice about higher principles. Because the lifestyle and the psychology of those persons are very distinct. In the same way, the higher and lower planes are very distinct, depending on our psychological state.

As we do not go into the lower levels of society to meet great minds, neither do we enter the inferior astral planes for wisdom, for they possess very little of true worth. ―Morya, The Dayspring of Youth

So we should seek to enter the higher dimensions.

Receive Divine Teachings

We do that so that we can receive divine teachings. Anybody who approaches astral projection wants to know directly from their inner Being, from God, from the divine, what to do in life. This is, perhaps, the most important thing to accomplish and to practice when we study dream yoga, to receive that teaching directly from our spirit. Our Being can teach us things that we need to know, how to live our life, whether it is through symbols or allegories, situations, dramas, characters, narratives. These things, these symbols, these dream-like narratives, teach us about the story of our life, and these symbols, which come from the higher planes, originate from our Being. The Being takes on forms into the astral world so that we see something about ourselves, and when we receive those experiences, we are inspired. We feel genuine joy, that now we have a message that we can apply. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated in Practical Astrology: The Zodiacal Course:

The disciple must learn how to speak with his own Innermost. He must be demanding with his own Innermost. The disciple must receive instructions from his own Innermost, and the duty of the Innermost is to instruct his bodhisattva, that is to say, his soul, who is anxious for light. ―Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: The Zodiacal Course

We have to be very demanding. If you really want to know the answer to a question when you are practicing astral projection, I would suggest you maintain your question for as long as it takes, until you get the answer that you want. We have to be very demanding with God. "Please, teach me what I need to know." If you have a thing that you want to investigate and know, whether it is like a past life, or to speak with a certain master, go to bed every night, pray, "Show me this result. Help me to achieve this,” and practice again and again, if necessary, until you get the experience. Could take a year. Could take more. But it can happen, and I speak from my own experience.

Levitation

Let's talk about some of the metaphysics. When you are in the astral dimension, you can fly. That is always a joyful aspect of dream yoga and astral travel, where you jump in the air, you find that you are levitating. You are floating in the air. Obviously, with the practice we did with the Key of SOL: subject, object, location, you observe your surroundings, you question, "Am I in the astral world?" You jump in the air. You do this physically, and then you would see if you float. If you train yourself over your physical existence, day by day, you will practice this when you dream, and then, when you are in the astral world itself, you can fly. In this way, you get to experience a type of joy that perhaps you can't get in video games or on TV. There is really something magical about the fact of flying in the atmosphere, above the mountains, above the seas, to willingly travel, like you drive your car, but within your astral body. There is no greater feeling of mystical awe when you are able to explore, literally, with more vivid intensity and color and vision than we have physically. It is a joyful experience. It is also very practical when you try to get from place to place, and just in the same way that you physically get your body up to move, with the astral body, you learn to do the same.

The Magnetic Pull

But something can help us. We call this the magnetic pull. You can pray to your Being, "Take me to Egypt." You jump up in the air, and you feel like a force, the presence of your Being carrying you up in the air, will take you where you want, if we deserve it, if we have earned it. But if we are very sincere, and we are working psychologically to improve our behaviors in life, divinity says, "Okay." It takes you there. That way, you don't feel like you are flying solo, but instead, you are literally carried up by this type of energy, the presence of your Being, up into the atmosphere and beyond. You can ask your Being to take you to other planets. You will feel yourself lifting in the air, up and through space. Sometimes, you can invoke a master, and they will―you will sense them―they will take you to where you want to go, so that you can attend, perhaps, a temple or a sacred mystery school.

Woman in white overlooking cliff and floating island in dream

Teleportation

This also relates to teleportation. We know, from the practice of the mantra Fa Ra On, which you sing and vocalize when you go to sleep, that you can visualize and imagine the pyramids of Egypt. You imagine Giza, because that place is still a temple in the higher dimensions. It is active. There are masters who are working in that part of the world, who are very awake, and who will initiate you into their mysteries if we meet the requisites. So you can imagine, when you are falling asleep, "Take me to this place." You visualize it. You concentrate on it. You pray. You fall asleep. Then suddenly, you will find yourself there. Or, in the astral plane, you are awake, you imagine the place, you visualize it, you pray, "My God, take me there... take me to Egypt." Suddenly, you will appear spontaneously. That is one way of travel, too.

Elasticity, Plasticity, and Ductility

Another cool thing about astral travel is that the astral body is elastic. It is ductile, able to bend, move, stretch. You can pass through walls. You can pass through stone. Pass through the waters. Go under the ocean. Be able to breathe underwater without fear.

We also talked about pulling your finger to see if it stretches when you are testing to see whether you are dreaming or you are awake. If your finger stretches, you know you are in the astral plane. So you also can take your hand and push it through a window, like glass. It will feel like it is, like, crackling and bending, and you will see the matter bend to your touch. Obviously, physically, you can't do that, so you know that you are dreaming. But what is particularly interesting is that you don't have to fear that you are going to get injured. Sometimes, that state is so vivid and beautiful and awake that you feel that it is physical, because it is so real, and in fact, it is more real than your physical body, the physical life. But the thing to remember is that, if you want to be sure that if you want to, say, perhaps, jump into the atmosphere to go fly, but you are afraid, take your hand, pull your finger, see if you are in the astral dimension. If it does, you know where you are at.

The Mantra “Open Sesame”

We have a very powerful mantra that we use when we are dreaming. It is very vulgarized today. It comes from The Arabian Nights: “Open Sesame.” If you are in the astral plane, and you are trying to get through a locked door, or trying to get through a wall, you say the mantra. “Open Sesame.” Door will unlock. The wall will move. It was a very powerful practice for dream yogis, which, obviously, people make fun of today. But if you are astral traveling, and you want to get through a locked door, trying to get somewhere, "Open Sesame." Go through. Door opens, like we see in this image. Because some people may find that they are dreaming, and they get into some type of obstacle. You feel like they can't get through. They are being impeded. Try it.

How to Prolong Astral Experiences

There is also another technique you can use to prolong your experiences. We have an image here of Hermes, or the god Mercury, with the winged boots. So what you do is you click your heels together. If you feel that, in the astral plane, that your physical body is going to pull you back, and then you are going to wake up, but perhaps you are talking with a master, and you want to stay in that state, click your heels together. This is the meaning of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz clicking her heels, "I wish I was home," with the red ruby slippers in the film version. These are the winged boots of occult science.

There are chakras in the heels of your feet, which relate to your stability. It keeps you grounded, and if you click them together, you form a lock, and even though your body is trying to pull you and wake you up, or maybe your partner is trying to nudge and wake you up from bed because it is time to wake up, but you keep your heels together astrally, you will stay in that state because you are trying to learn and receive something of value, because that happens a lot. If you are talking with an initiate, and suddenly, you feel your body calling you, you may lose something important. Instead, lock your feet together, and then, when it is time to return to your body, release.

Some people prematurely end their experiences, and they don't know how to stay practically there, but this is how. It is because, as in relation to Greek mythology, the winged boots of Hermes relate to forces in our feet and our heels, which can also apply to Jinn science, that we have talked about previously, and that we are going to talk about later on.

Transcending the Lower Sephiroth

When you are in the astral plane, or when you are meditating, you can learn to successively enter deeper and deeper states. So physically, you may be practicing meditation whereby you are observing the body. You are relaxing. You are settling in. Your body falls asleep, but you, as a consciousness, are attentive and awake. Suddenly, you find that your body is in bed, or is asleep, and you have entered the vital world.

So there are spheres, in this diagram called "the Tree of Life," which relate to spheres of being, dimensions, as well as states of consciousness, from more material states to more subtle and spiritual states, and there are ways to meditate in each sphere in which you are relaxing each body, whether it's the physical body (מלכות Malkuth), the vital body (יסוד Yesod), even the astral body (הוד Hod), the mental body (נצח Netzach), even up through תפארת Tiphereth, the causal body; גבורה Geburah, the body of the spirit, or the spiritual soul; and finally, the Innermost, the Being (חסד Chesed). So these are vehicles and bodies that we inhabit when we dream, and each level becomes more rarefied and subtle. But if you are practicing meditation, and are really deep into it, you can learn to let go of each body and enter more and more inside, deeper, until you reach your inner God. This is how you transcend the lower sephiroth, the lower spheres of the consciousness.

Samael Aun Weor gives this practice in his book Igneous Rose. He talks in detail about it. If you want to practice that meditation, he gives it in full. But that is something that you can do, too, is learn to meditate, even in the astral plane. You find that you are awake. You are in your astral body. You can sit in meditation and go even deeper. It is an option.

Investigate the Hell Realms

And while you are traveling, you can learn to investigate many spheres of being, and many of them are not even good ones. Obviously, religions talk about hell, the inferior planes. Dante, with Virgil, described his exodus, or, better said, his journey through the different spheres of being in his Divine Comedy. While some people take that poem as a work of literature, and which it is, a great work of art, it is also a practical teaching about astral travel, not only to the heavenly world, but obviously, more famously, Inferno.

Some people think of it as a place of fire. Different religions teach different symbols. These are signposts. They are not literal. But you can learn to investigate, for yourself, what those dimensions are like, and there is a practical utility to this. When you see the fate of those people who don't change, or perhaps are afflicted with great anger in life, many vices that we, to a degree, have, we will learn a valuable lesson. It is a place that we ourselves have connections to. Any time we have pride, anger, lust, vanity, fear, those elements, or egos, belong to that sphere of being, and oftentimes, when we dream, we often find ourselves really at the very surface of the hell realms because, unfortunately, if we are honest with ourselves, that is where we gravitate to. It is our level of being. Dante was trying to teach something very powerful about the realities of those dimensions. It is good that, if we wake up in that plane of being, we pray to our God, "Show me what I need to understand that has me connected here, so that, by understanding my own defects that keep me trapped, or gravitating to this place, I can eliminate it.”

Portal of light on horizon with spiral clouds

Experience the Absolute

When you know it, and eliminate it, you can experience the heights. Obviously, this image of a beautiful star in the distance, with a spiral cloud, is not literal. But it does capture the symbolic significance of entering what is called the Absolute.

So just as there are negative planes of being, there are also heavenly worlds. The Absolute, according to writers like Gurdjieff, as Samael Aun Weor, it even is touched upon by Madam Blavatsky, teaches that this is the origin of all spiritual life and being, even material existence. The Absolute is the cosmic, absolute, abstract space. It is the eternal sum zero from which everything emerges. It is a form of emptiness, but it is the real Being. This is the Buddhist doctrine of Anatman, no self―no pride, no fear, no hatred, no lust, no laziness, no envy, no greed. There is only the absolute plenitude of the spirit, true peace, joy, movement.

But if you are at the threshold of entering that from the astral plane, like we see in this image, kind of like going into a portal, obviously, the ego feels fear, because you are feeling like you are going to be annihilated, and that attachment to an identity or an individual sense of self can pull us out.

But the way that you get through that is what Samael Aun Weor called “the great jump." You can find that your Divine Mother, in your meditation, takes you, in the astral plane, to the threshold of the Absolute, where you see, basically, a type of darkness, but, strangely enough, there is a luminosity there. It is like shadows and light at the same time. It is really impossible to describe with words, and yet, there is a freedom and liberation there that is so inspiring, and pushes one to want to change, that you approach that and want to enter, because it is the authentic identity of the divine. It is limitless. But obviously, that feeling of limitlessness, the infinite, is terrifying to the individual self that does not want to enter or be destroyed, and so the mind can pull you out.

Samael Aun Weor had that experience when he was 18. He was terrified. He came back to his body. Took him three times to learn to enter that state willingly. Eventually, he gave up his pride, jumped in, and entered willingly, and then, in that state, he felt that he was no longer himself, but he was the planets. He was the galaxy. He was the butterfly on a flower. He was a wandering elephant. He was the water entering in torrents along a jungle in Africa. He was everything, but precisely because he was nothing. So that is something to aspire to.

Explore Other Planets

You can also explore other planets. Pray to your God, "Take me to Mars. Take me to another inhabited world of the infinite where I can meet extraterrestrials,” because there are other humanities and beings who exist, not merely on our planet, but throughout the infinite.

These are beings that are not malicious or evil, like in our Hollywood propaganda, our entertainment industry, and our television shows. Truly, many of these beings are divine. They are heavenly. They don't have problems like we have on our Earth, and so they often will approach us in the astral plane to teach us how we can better our community.

Some people hope that they come physically, and they can, obviously, and there is more records and documentation of this. But, more practically, for us, they approach people who are serious, spiritually speaking. They will approach you in the internal worlds to teach you what you need to know and give you help if we are showing that we're making efforts. But also, your Being, if you can pray sincerely enough, can take you to places like this, where you see planets, and stars, and environments that are not like our physical world, but are like from a sci-fi show, except you are there. It isn't imaginary. It is real, and this is something that can really inspire us.

Woman near stairs of temple with serpent

Visit and Enter Temples

Perhaps more inspiring is entering the temples of the mysteries. Pray to your Being, "Take me to the Temple of Giza,” or “Take me to the Aztec temples.” “Take me to the Rosicrucian Lodge.” “Take me to the Gnostic Church,” and like the magnetic pull we talked about previously, your Being can pull you up in the air, send you there. Or you can teleport or merge.

When you approach any temple of mystery, you can basically pray the sacred salutation that we use in our Gnostic studies. Place your left hand on your solar plexus, your right hand out in the form of the pentagram. You have the middle finger, index finger, and thumb extended, pinky and ring finger inside. You say to the guardian, because every temple has a guardian, "Inverential Peace," meaning, “Peace unto your Innermost Being.”

Cross your arms on your chest, right over left. Bow to your right, to the pillar of the right, Jachin, then to the left, Boaz. Jachin, Boaz, the white and black columns of the Masonic mysteries, symbolize the two pillars of the Tree of Life, mercy and justice, man and woman. In their balance, it is the equilibrium of the spirit, the harmony of God.

Those guardians, if you greet them, and if you are very sincere in your mind and your intentions about wanting to enter, they will make their judgment. If you are clear, they say, "Pass."

But if there is a problem, meaning, if we don't come in with the best intentions, and it can happen that way, they say, "No." Or perhaps they will tell you, “You have a particular problem you need to deal with first before we allow you to enter here,” and they will be very transparent. They will tell you, because those guardians are awake. You see them symbolized within Buddhist monasteries, like in Tibetan Buddhism, by the lions, lions of the law, or majestic creatures who are sacred and represent, for us, the severity of the eternal divine hierarchies. So they know exactly how we conduct ourselves in life, what we are doing, and they judge based on our merits and our actions.

Communicate with the Initiates

In this way, we communicate with the initiates across different places and times.

There are many spiritual figures, like the pharaohs of Egypt, before those traditions degenerated, that can teach us and communicate with us about things that we need to know. You may find that, for example, you may wake up in the astral plane in your home, and suddenly, you find a group of Gnostics, the real Gnostics, the initiates of the higher worlds, those who were in the mystery schools of the Gnostic Church, and they are just in your home. Obviously, you are happy by this, say, "Welcome,” and they can teach you things. Or Egypt, Egyptian initiates, find that they just appear in your home. You welcome them in. They talk to you, because there are hierarchies and levels of being, from the more inferior beginners to the masters and adepts, and many of them, along the scale, approach you in accordance with your needs, but also out of their necessity to give to you―because we don’t receive anything we don’t give. If we want help in life, we have to learn to sacrifice for others to some degree: to help our communities, to help other people. If we show that we are helping the spiritual caliber of our fellow men and women―our neighbors, our friends―they say, “Let us help you.” They come to you, and they can teach you, such as through the tarot, which are the sacred arcana of the Egyptian mysteries.

Divination

Obviously we use Egyptian iconography to teach something much more ancient than just Egypt, because these symbols are principles, and numbers relate to truths. Each card represents a dynamic of our consciousness, levels of being, actions that we need to take in a particular circumstance of life but also the challenges and ordeals we face in any given situation.

We studied the 22 major arcana of the tarot, of which we give a course on our website [The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah]. In each card, if you ask for help from an initiate, such as from Egypt, they can pull up a card. They will show you first, a major arcanum, followed by two minor arcana. As explained in the Eternal Tarot, that we have available through Glorian Publishing, that is how those initiates will show you what you need to know.

They will teach you, like, you ask a question, "How do I solve this problem?" They will shuffle their cards, pull out one of the major arcanum, followed by two minor arcana.

You add the sum of those digits, and if you get more than 22, you synthesize again because Kabbalah and numbers are the science of intuitive principles. Each card represents an individual force, but also, together, they constitute an entire message. So, you have to consider all the correlations, too.

But, something to consider is that, when you are receiving a tarot reading, you may not see the images exactly like you see them here, because the reality is that these principles, first off, as we have in the deck, come from the higher worlds, and those higher dimensions show us an eternal art. That art cannot be limited to one system, because the voices of God are many, but it is unitary because the principles are the same.

So, for example, you may see Arcanum 19, over here. The image can be the same, but sometimes, the names can be different. There may be little differences, may not be openly obvious, but they are there. Another name for the card of Inspiration, 19, can be Transience, and that means nothing is permanent. Life is always changing. We are always looking at the connections between ourselves and the external world, with phenomena. But, we receive inspiration when we see that nothing necessarily is limited or permanent. Our psychology changes moment to moment. Our environment changes moment to moment. So, everything is moving. It is transient. But, that which is eternal, obviously, is the Sun of illumination above.

So, the cards, the images, may be a little different if you receive a card reading, and the names can be slightly unique or different depending on what they are trying to teach you, and you have to be very intuitive to understand the relationship. That is why we learn the cards themselves and then, we study the way they relate to our life.

Commune with the Elementals

In the astral plane, we can commune with the elementals. Every material organism and entity in life has a spiritual reality, whether it is from the mineral state, plants, animals, to humanoids. Our plant that we may have in our home has a soul. Likewise, minerals, even our pets.

The word “anima” means life, to animate, and all living things, even stones, have life, as shown by the Kirlian camera with images of stones with electromagnetic potential that is visually documented in photography. That life, or energy, finds its core within the souls of these individual elements. They are not like us. They are, in fact, much more pure.

Like we see the soul of a plant here. Many plants in our home have a soul like this, like a child, innocent, kind, altruistic, patient. It is good to learn how to wake up in the astral plane to communicate with all the members of our household, so to speak, in your home, like a plant, because plants have power. We work a lot of plant magic in our studies, which is where you learn to talk with the souls of plants so that they can help you.

The aloe plant is particularly powerful for protecting your home from negativity, and you can meditate, fall asleep, imagine, say, for example, another plant like the Agave americana (century plant), the maguey, which we find the practice given in the book, The Divine Science, where you sit, visualize the plant, fall asleep and then, suddenly, you will be talking with the soul of the plant. They are like a fairy, and they will serve you because, if we treat them with love and respect, they will attend to our call, and all the plants have their own capacities and potentials and abilities that are very useful to learn how to negotiate and work with.

Conquer Ordeals

Speaking of elements, we also talk about conquering our ordeals.

In the astral plane, the masters want to test us to see our caliber. They give us difficult situations in the internal worlds to see how we react. If you find yourself in a crowd being spat upon and cursed, mocked, laughed at, provoked, beaten, persecuted, we are facing our ordeal of fire. The fire is rising around us. The temperature of tension is building and the masters want to see, can we be serene in the midst of it, and not only serene, but loving, sweet, to transform a situation of pain into one of knowledge.

Likewise, with the element of water, you may find yourself dreaming that you are swimming in the ocean and that you are drowning. The masters want to see whether or not you can adapt, whether you can endure the challenges of life, because these visions and dreams represent for us things that can happen physically, symbolically, but, in a dream, you literally see it represented.

You see it, basically, through a symbol. Not knowing how to swim against the current of our existence, but, if we learn to swim against the tide, we are strong. If we endure, we pass.

The ordeal of earth: mountains come upon you. You feel yourself being crushed. You want to cry out. If we don't have fearlessness in moments of great trial and adversity, we fail. But, if we are strong and serene, if we are patient, if we wait, the mountains will lift and we will be free. Ordeals in life are like that, where there is no stability or we face opposition or a crushing, imposing situation that seems like it cannot be resolved. The solution is tenacity.

Likewise, with air, you find yourself flying above a chasm, falling into a precipice into an abyss. If you cry out of fear, we fail. If you are serene, as a representation of how, in life, we are patient, we are awake, we are vigilant, and we allow life to happen if it is beyond our control, if we accept powerlessness with humility and grace, the law says, "Welcome."

We will submit you to ordeals within the astral plane so that we can get to know your qualities and defects. ―Samael Aun Weor, Aztec Christic Magic

These ordeals are meant to see our potential, but also, how well we are conducting ourselves.

The Guardian of the Threshold

We also face another terrible ordeal within the astral plane. This is the Guardian of the Threshold mentioned by Steiner and other writers.

In the beginning of our path, we have to face ourselves, and the law will take it upon itself to teach us what we are. Like we are seeing in this image, we have a woman facing a demon, but that demon is not outside. It is us. I am sure all of us have recognized moments in our life in which we really, truly saw we are demonic, whether it is from anger, pride, or any negative emotion. Maybe after the fact, we realize, "I had no idea I could be like that." Imagine that one moment magnified across the life span of all your existences from the beginning of being a humanoid such as, in Buddhist philosophy, 108 existences, according to Samael Aun Weor.

The Guardian of the Threshold is a mirror in the astral plane, an embodiment of everything we are that is wrong, and that part of us is showing what we are psychologically speaking. If we want to really enter the White Lodge, the superior lodges of the higher dimensions, to become a master, we have to master ourselves. We do that by facing the Guardian of the Threshold, because we are in the threshold between living a life of suffering, of weakness, and of pain, into a fully possessed master of oneself, and so, you have to face this beast, which is not anyone else, but us. We face the monster and, if we are willing to fight tooth and nail to defeat ourselves and to be a conqueror of our weaknesses, we grapple that monster. We pray for divinity, "Help me to defeat this being that is me and to prove myself."

Celebrate with the Masters

You conquer yourself and then, the masters celebrate.

They often appear to you in the form of children, Edenic figures of bliss, serenity and hope. Raphael painted this, the Sistine Madonna, which is a perfect representation of what they look like.

From their eyes exude a peace and serenity that is truly indefinable, truly divine, and they accept you with joy, "Welcome." They may have you seated on a couch enjoying some luxuries, eating and drinking, feasting with them, and many of them often are very solemn, very peaceful. They know that this is just the beginning because, while we prove ourselves against the Guardian, they say, "Welcome. You are entering the stream to Nirvana," to use Buddhist philosophy. But, they are silent and often solemn because they know there is work to do.

Witness Your Being’s Initiations

We are also going to experience and witness the initiation of our Being.

The term “initiation” refers to beginnings and, in the path of initiation itself, the spiritual work upon ourselves, we, basically, are welcomed and inducted into the higher worlds amongst the gods, and obviously, there are levels of initiation. We see this woman representing with her sword, גבורה Geburah, the justice of God, who is our own conscience, the part of us that says, "This is right and this is wrong." She judges us, but also, honors us with the sword of the Kundalini that we raise in our spine to the perfect matrimony, and as the human soul, תפארת Tiphereth, the warrior, kneels in humility before that truth.

Our Being is what gets initiated. The personality, our ego, our mind, does not. Our soul is something else. The soul works, תפארת Tiphereth, the human warrior and then, the Being, גבורה Geburah, as well as the Spirit amongst the congregation of the masters of the divine, receive that glory. We have to work humbly, do our part, but all glory is to God or, as the Muslims and Sufis say, "Alhamdulillah," all praise is to God.

Invoke and Verify a Master

In the astral, we can invoke and verify a master, and I know, for a lot of people, this is, perhaps, one of the more interesting parts.

We live in a world in which we have a plurality of spiritual teachers and gurus and teachings and, oftentimes, it becomes confusing to verify and know what is real and what is not. The way to know is to astral project, invoke, and see for yourself.

You pray, “In the name of Christ, by the power of Christ, for the majesty of Christ, I invoke you," say their name, imagine them, intend them, "Come to me. Show me yourself!”

Or, if you are in front of a being in the astral, you can do this prayer, and that prayer is invoking the highest principle of the divine, which was personalized through Jesus in a material way, but he is not the only master who incarnated Christ, the energy of the Logos, the Spirit, and so, when you are asking, or praying this, you are asking that this entity that you see is going to vibrate with that level of the divine. If they are true, they will say, "I follow Christ." If they are not, they will reject you and you get your answer.

The Invocation of Christ

Now, the truth is that, when you invoke in the astral plane, you may have a very particular phenomenon.

When you are looking to the astral horizon and invoking, "In the name of Christ, by the power of Christ, for the majesty of Christ," each time, you may hear a bell resound in the atmosphere. Every time you say, "Christ,” (bell sound), like the cathedrals, and the cathedrals in the physical world were built because, originally, people knew this principle. It is like a metallic sound that resounds throughout the infinite, tremendous and all-inspiring. You may even see, when you are looking up through the astral atmosphere, the angels striking the bell, terribly divine beings, sacred, fully awake. They are responding because every time you call, they look; they know.

Twilight: The Hour of Venus

We rely on this invocation, especially, because it is important to know and to verify what we see. Just as we speak about heavenly beings, there are also demonic beings.

Invocations can become dangerous in the early hours of the morning. It is good that, when you wake up in the astral plane, that you do take the time to peruse your environment. 4:00 AM, 3:00 AM, especially, has a very type of fatal atmosphere because, just as there are superior forces at work in the night, in the early hours of dawn, there are negative forces that are also active. Let me read to you what Samael Aun Weor wrote in Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic:

During the hour of Venus, the hour of love, the astral atmosphere is filled with a pink light of ineffable beauty. A guru once told me the following, “My son, this is a very dangerous hour for astral projection because all the world is filled with a pink light.” That master was right. If it is true that, in the hour of Venus, the positive ray from the star is filling everything with light, music, and love, it is also true and very real that the negative ray from Lucifer-Venus, that is the ray of the black magician, Lucifer, and all the Luciferian tenebrous initiates of the copper cauldron is also active. Yet, if the disciple lives a pure and chaste life, then he will have nothing to fear of the magicians from the darkness. ―Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic

If you are in the astral plane and it looks twilight, whether it is a pink, fatal light or perhaps, like a grayish uncertainty, I would withdraw or withhold invoking at that hour, primarily because, where we are at, usually, in the beginning, we have a lot of defects, a lot of ego, and oftentimes, if you are trying to invoke, at that hour, a spiritual master, your own ego can invoke a demon.

Now, the thing to remember is that these entities do not physically harm or can harm you like you get harmed in your physical body, but the potential danger lies in entities that try to appear as initiates of the light to teach you how to go down.

Many of them will take on a beautiful appearance. Some, particularly like one archdemon whose name I will not say, but we know from the Conjuration of the Seven, has an appearance like a Balrog from The Lord of the Rings, giant demon, horns, but of light, and will try to convince you, perhaps, why his path, the path of the Black Lodge, is good, and the most dangerous demons are not those that try to forcefully attack you, meaning, conjure or to exert negative energy to try to make you lose your consciousness in the astral, but the worst are those that try to talk you into submitting.

Conjure Demons and Temptations

So, the thing to remember is that, while this is a very scary topic for many people, a very difficult one, the truth is that there are ways to defend oneself in the astral plane.

Perhaps the best book I know on the topic is The Divine Science by Samael Aun Weor. We can learn to work with prayers and invocations in order to expel and reject any negative influence.

There are many prayers and they all work [see a comprehensive lecture on the topic: Psychic Attacks and Their Remedies]. The way that they work is if we are serene, attentive, patient, and more importantly, compassionate to our persecutors, because there is no better way for manipulation to occur than for us to be in a weak state of mind where we are agitated, angry, resentful, fearful. Fear is a very big tool they use. But, if you don't have fear, you pray to divinity, "Protect me. Reject this entity," whether it is through the Conjuration of the Four, the Conjuration of the Seven, the Invocation of Solomon, Fons Alpha, many prayers within different languages like Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew. These languages embody codes and are ways to connect with the divine so that we don't forget ourselves, so that we are not afraid and that we are not easily influenced. It is a skill that we learn. It is like training in martial arts. In the beginning, you don't know how to do anything, but, with time, you learn, familiarity.

The thing to remember is that these entities have no more control over us than if we have control of ourselves. So, they can't do anything if you are in full possession of your psychology. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated:

The black magicians of the Black Lodge struggle to swerve initiates off the path. This is why it is necessary, urgent, that the devotees defend themselves from the attacks of the tenebrous ones. Thus, it's urgent to learn how to do so. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Divine Science: Logos, Mantra, Theurgy

Be patient. You will learn with time and don't be afraid. In fact, we should have a lot of love and compassion for beings of this type and people of this type because they are very confused. They don't understand what they do in the full sense.

Exercise Astral Powers

In this way, we become powerful.

I know this image looks a little silly, perhaps, an initiate using power, electricity from his hand somewhat like Darth, what is it? Darth Sidious from "Star Wars," to electrify this entity.

Comes to my mind one prayer and conjuration that is similar to this. It is the Conjuration of Jupiter. You say, "In the name of Jupiter, father of the Gods, I conjure you," point your fingers, your left hand on your solar plexus, your hand in the form of the pentagram like we explained. You say, "TE VIGOS COSLIM.” You will see like a lightning bolt or light shoot out from your hand, and this entity, or witch, sorceress, sorcerer, black magician, will be disabled.

That energy depends upon our capacity to, first, save energy, because the way that we defend ourselves is, if we have energy, a reservoir conserved from our spiritual discipline, whether we do mantras and prayers, meditations, pranayama, or, if we are married, alchemy. When you save energy and you don't waste it through negative habits, you become like a battery, and the more force that you have, the more awake you are, more disciplined, the more you can use that force.

Oftentimes, that energy becomes something like a shield. You don't get easily identified with these forces or negative elements. You can dispel them.

Some other astral powers can include, for example, not only these types of prayers, but making yourself infinitely small so that you can hide, or big. You expand your body in the astral plane. You do it by will. You do it simply by willing it. You imagine it and, if you feel, in the moment, what you need to do in order to pass the experience, you can do that.

Study the Chakras / Churches

In the astral plane, we can also study our chakras, which are the seven energetic centers of the spine. We often pay close attention to the quality of our energies and our spinal medulla in these studies. The chakras are wheels, or vortices of force, which also find symbolic astral representation or significance in temples.

Each chakra is a temple and you can meditate, fall asleep, say, for example, upon the Chakra Muladhara, the root chakra, the base of the spine, and suddenly, you will find yourself in the astral plane underground. You can see a pool of cool, tranquil, undisturbed, limpid water in a square stone in the midst of this cavern. Looking down, you will see the four-petal lotus like here. Could be of different light. Could be blue, luminous, clear. Samael Aun Weor even gives a description of this in The Aquarian Message. Literally word for word, it is accurate. In that temple, you see the chakras. These are churches, in the Book of Revelation, the real Gnostic church in a sense.

If you ask, "My Divine Mother, show me the Gnostic Church in Egypt," obviously, the answer, in this particular example was, "Egypt is your body," according to one instructor from Glorian Publishing. מצרים Mitzrahim in Hebrew, "The Place of the Waters."

The place of the waters is your physical body, because most of your body is water, and יסוד Yesod, or the vital force in Hebrew, is precisely that pool of water in which the Kundalini emerges. So, you can ask to see a church within yourself. "What is the quality of my level of being?" Your Divine Mother will show you what that is.

Sanctify Your Home

We also can see the results of sanctifying our home. This might seem a little unusual in the context of this lecture, but, if you are practicing many spiritual exercises, we often promote, we could say, spiritual hygiene, having a clean place to meditate and practice, but also, not just physically, but psychologically, because we know, just by visiting the bar or some other place, there are areas that are more dense and heavy psychologically.

A hospital has a very different feeling from a church, or a classroom from a bullfighting ring. People's minds and attitudes and feelings saturate the spaces they inhabit. That is why our home has to be very well taken care of and, when you are doing prayers and conjurations and using incense, utilizing the pentagram such as on an altar, it is a symbol of the divine, rejecting the negative, the true human being, those all come together to create a very harmonious and balanced space and we can see the results of this in the astral plane.

You wake up, you project out of your body and even look at perhaps, on your altar, for example, the pentagram. If you have been doing conjurations and prayers, especially using this symbol, you can see, basically, the accumulation of that force, because those prayers, specifically, will charge your atmosphere of your home, will cleanse your mind, defend and protect you, but also, you will see the pentagram like fire, igneous, inflamed, because the pentagram is a symbol that assimilates and cultivates, accumulates spiritual potential, and like us, the human being, we are a pentagram with five, four limbs and an apex, the head. That symbol represents us and so, you may see, in your home, perhaps, that beautiful image, meaning that God is watching. Feel great peace from that.

One thing to remember, too, is that we often cleanse our homes of astral larvae, elements and creatures such as we, physically, have rodents, pests, bugs, cockroaches. These are, obviously, not healthy for us physically, but internally, there are larvae and elements like little bugs which populate the homes of people who are afflicted with disease, with drugs, with lust. People's minds attract their environment, and then their environment attracts their mind. It is a dynamic cycle. So, if you are using incense and perfume and prayers, you may find that your home is very clean internally. You can even take sulfur powder if you are in a place, such as a hotel, places which have a lot of filth, elements of a psychic type, and sprinkle sulfur powder around. You may fall asleep and see that around you are dead bugs because the fumes from the sulfur powder killed it.

Those fumes are not physical, but they are astral. They clean and so, we should consider when we are either traveling or taking care of our home. Try to be pure. Take some precautions. Those things will help affect your mind in the long term.

Painting of medicinal angels and healers

Petition for Healing

We also petition for healing to the masters of medicine.

As there are many masters of humanity in the different lodges, churches, synagogues, mosques within the internal worlds, you also find that there are masters of healing. If we have a particular illness, whether physical, emotional, mental, whatever may be, we can ask for healing from these Masters.

Some notable ones: Paracelsus, Archangel Raphael, Galen, Hermes Trismegistus, Archangel Raphael, Master Huiracocha.

These masters, if you invoke them and write to them through the practice given in The Revolution of Beelzebub, as well as we gave in a previous lecture on How to Remember Dreams, I believe, you can suddenly find yourself awake in the astral after petitioning for some type of healing and suddenly, you find that they are in front of you. They say, "Welcome!” They take you to a table and the way that Samael Aun Weor describes it was accurate. They take you to a table and there is a type of lens, or apparatus, that has multicolored lenses, one red, one yellow, one blue.

Those three primary colors represent the three primary forces, and they use that to look into your astral body to investigate the cause of your sickness. Then, they can treat you with medicines in the astral plane. Might seem very unusual because, again, the astral body is, really, a material vehicle but, for us, we often think it is something vague and insubstantial.

So, they can heal you. Even there are doctors in the internal worlds, not only from our planet, but other planets. Suddenly, you may find you are talking to this doctor in the astral plane. You ask him, "What planet is this?" just because you intuitively know you are not on Earth. "This is Neptune."

It is good to ask questions because they will tell you what is going on and that will amaze you because you are getting help.

So, the petition for healing, basically, is you write a letter to the Temple of Alden, which is a mystery school, any master you want to get help with: Raphael, Paracelsus, whoever it is. You write the letter, "This is my condition. This is how I am sick. Please help me. Here is what I will do in exchange for being helped."

Take some frankincense, perfume it, burn the letter. The astral letter will go to that master through your prayer, and then, even when they are with you, they will show you the letter and the fact that they are talking to you when treating you means you got your response.

You can also do this petition for another person, too, and always in accordance with the law, the divine.

Receive Borrowed Light

Here is a beautiful concept given within Sufism. We call it receiving borrowed light. The Sufis call it ﺑَﺮَﻛَﺔ barakah, “blessings,” or in Hebrew, בָּרוּךְ Baruch, as in, בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָי Baruch Ata Adonai, “Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”

We see a blind hermit, a beggar, seated, somewhat oblivious, next to an angel with a candle of light.

Oftentimes, in our spiritual work, you may find suddenly that you were in the astral plane and that you have a type of awareness and vivid intensity. Your consciousness is magnified. Suddenly, you see more than you possibly have seen before and you don't know how. You gain light and suddenly, you are shown things.

Those masters come to you. They teach you. You receive symbolic experiences. We call that receiving borrowed light. Sometimes, the masters of the White Lodge, out of their compassion for us, come to us and will give you a boost. They give you a hope or inclination and an experience. They magnify your perception so much that, because usually, we are so asleep, they want to show us something of value and importance and oftentimes, that borrowed light, obviously, when we reach that state, we suddenly see everything with more luminosity than we do physically. So, it is shocking. Then, they teach you something important, but, obviously, in the end, they retract their light. They say, "Okay, we taught you what you need to know. Now, work." So, in the beginning of our studies, we often get this kind of help, but, with time, they take their light back because they showed you what is possible and what you can do and what is the potential for us, but now they want to see, "Okay, let's see you do it on your own."

In the beginning, you are like a beggar, but now, we want to be able to experience that for ourselves, earn it.

Interrogate an Ego

So, we have an image here of a mirror. This is an interesting thing to do in the astral as well.

Interrogate an ego. In our Gnostic studies, we study ourselves. We want to know the causes of our defects, our vices, our errors. We see this man looking into himself in a mirror and seeing, perhaps, like the Guardian of the Threshold, a reflection of his own demonic self. In the astral plane, if you want to get to the root cause of an ego, you can ask your divinity, "Show me this defect that I want to understand and to eliminate," and suddenly, you can see this entity like yourself or an ego, or actually, many egos. They are like people, usually with very distorted features.

If you have all seen images of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, I've shown in other lectures before, you see creatures that have half-human, half-animal, half-plant figures, true monstrosities that really escape definition. They are, literally, a heterogeneity of forms. So, we can ask ourselves, or Divine Mother, "Show me this ego. Show me this lust or this anger or this pride that I want to eliminate," and you can actually talk with your ego, and try to get data, but in most cases, your ego will attack you.

So, be careful because your mind and your ego knows that you are working to kill it if you are really serious about these studies. So, your own mind will try to take you, manipulate you, but, with practice and prayer, you can have a conversation and try to get knowledge that you need to fully eliminate this aggregate, this falsehood.

Consult the Astral Horizon

I know I mentioned, in other lectures, especially in the Sufi Principles of Meditation about the need to look at the astral atmosphere when trying to consult or get deep answers about our psychological state.

It might seem strange. What does it mean to consult the sky? Oftentimes, divinity, the masters, or your own Being, if you wake up in the internal worlds, you can leave whatever space you are at, go to some free space, look up at the sky, ask, "Show me,” or “Help me to see my level of being. What do I need to see in myself?"

The quality of the sky will tell you your answer. Cloudy skies means that we are too asleep, we are foggy, our self-observation is weak. We are obscured. To see the moon can represent pain, suffering, loneliness. The Sun, the life of the Being, the divine. The stars, the heavens. This is beautifully represented in one of the Surahs of the Qur’an, where Abraham, Ibrahim, saw the different constituents of the sky, seeking the recognition of the divine, and these are symbols of psychological states. We go into great detail about this in a lecture called Striving, mujahidah in Arabic, with our courses on the Sufi principles. But the sky will teach you what is your level of Being. So, you want to know, “Where am I at?” If you see galaxies, and planets, and stars, and beautiful celestial objects, it means that you are connected with that. You are seeing clearly.

Behold the Glorian

In a way, too, in our studies, we can behold the highest aspect of the divine, which is the Glorian. You can meet a master, such as Samael Aun Weor, and say “Show me your true self. I want to see.” Moses asked this question, and the Lord said, “I will not show you my true self, because if I do, you will be annihilated. You cannot withhold or stand to see me as I am” (Exodus 33:18-20). But Moses persisted, and when he saw that light, he swooned, and he kneeled, because he saw the light from perhaps his own inner God, showing him, and such as, if you see a master, like Samael Aun Weor, you can ask “Show me your true self. Show me your light,” and he will show you.

But be careful, because when you see the light of divinity, we have to kneel, and those initiates, if you are proud or, perhaps you see that intensity of light, but your own ego reacts because our ego detests the divine, those initiates will knock you to your knees, to teach you reverence, because sometimes that experience is so bewildering, to see the אין סוף Ain Soph, to use Hebrew terms, or in Arabic, الله Allah, or Χριστός Christos, Christ. It is truly overpowering. Your mind or ego will feel like it is being annihilated, and the light of, like, a being like Samael Aun Weor, is a red light because he's the head of the ray of Mars, the power of Samael, the angel of strength. Likewise, with Anubis, relating to the law of karma and dharma, and even Katancia. A being like Anubis, we will talk about in the next slide, is a hierarch of the law of karma or destiny who also has his light that is very brilliant.

Karma, Dharma, and Katancia

In dreams, you may have symbols relating to the law of destiny.

The wolf or the jackal relates to the impartiality of the law. So, when Anubis, relating to the Egyptian mythology, who judges the dead and the living, wishes to hold court to attest to or either evaluate the conduct of a disciple, they wear a mask like a jackal or a wolf because they are showing you that they are not here to show partiality. They want to show fairness, and so, they either don't basically show favor or disfavor. They look at the merits of your heart, which are evaluated based on the law of the scale. The wolf is a symbol of that.

To receive money in dreams is very significant, too, because this law of destiny rewards and punishes based on our conduct, what we have earned. If you receive money, the law is showing you that you are going to get spiritual benefit. It is a beautiful symbol. This is dharma. The word कर्म karma comes from Sanskrit, meaning cause and effect, action and consequence, and that when we do good deeds, we receive blessings from the law, because these laws are spiritual. You can escape the cops, perhaps, in Chicago, but not from Anubis, and so, they, basically, govern our internal life, but also, they manage the circumstances of our physical existence, too, and so, we receive spiritual benefits based on, perhaps, money received in dreams.

But the important thing to remember is that there is a superior law related to Katancia. There is karma for ordinary people, which is basically most of us. That karma is related to the symbol of the wolf. It is the law of humanity. But there is a law relating to the gods, meaning, there are beings who were once initiates, masters, awakened ones, angels, and so, they were submitted to a higher law, called Katancia, symbolized with the Lion of Judah, and to have a dream about a lion could mean or, basically, represents that, once, in some past, we were an initiate, but, obviously, we fell. The lion, if it is peaceful, is showing you favor, representing your own inner Christ. But if it roars, it is against us, and truly, to be before that is a terrifying reality.

Negotiate Your Karma

“The lion of the law is fought with the scale,” says Samael Aun Weor. “Do good deeds to pay your debts,” which is why, like Anubis, we learn to equilibrate our heart and mind. We can negotiate our karma.

Karma is not a blind law. In our Western attitudes and New Age spiritualities, we think of karma as some type of blind retribution of petty deeds. We get what we deserve, and that, somehow, if you do bad, you will have that inflicted upon you, as if there is no type of conscious management of that, whether for good or for ill.

So, if things are rough for us, if we are having a hard time in life, you can basically go to the bank, the divine bank, the Lords of Karma. We approach Anubis. We invoke him. We go to his temple, and we say “I wish to negotiate.” They will ask you, “What will you do in return? We can issue you credit. We can grant you a certain deed, a certain situation, but what are you going to do in exchange? How are you going to positively benefit your community, your relationships, your friends? How are you going to sacrifice for others? What are you going to do, practically, that will earn you the right to receive this boon?” You say, “ABC, this, this, and this.” If they accept, “So be it,” they will tell you. But, if you don't follow through with your agreement, you will pay, and usually with pain, because it is a responsibility to work with the higher law, to balance the feather of our mind with the heart of conscience. So…

In the internal worlds, we can talk with the 42 judges of karma. The chief of those 42 judges is Anubis. The Lords of Karma reward or punish us. We can also request credit from the judges of karma, but every credit has to be paid either with good deeds or with pain. Initiates must attend the palace of Anubis in order to arrange the negotiation. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

You can also do the Rune Not. The runic practices, such as in The Gnostic Magic of the Runes, you place your hands out, as a form of yoga, making the form of the Nordic alphabet from Futhark, Not. You place your hands to your sides. You pray to Anubis. You can start with your hands over your heart in the Egyptian style. You pray to negotiate. You ask for what you want. Extend your hands. You lift your left hand up, bring your right hand down, a bit of an angle here. You do the mantras: Na, Ne, Ni, No, Nu. You prolong them, “Naaaaaa,” for one movement for each vowel: Nneeeeeee… Nniiiiiii… Nnoooooo.… Nnuuuuuuu…” [See Mantras and Pronunciations].

One round. You can do it five times. You can do it seven times. You can do it more, and be honest. If you can do it, if you can fulfill your promise, do it. If not, don’t ask, because you may get things that you ask for and may not live up to the standard that they ask. Our intentions don’t matter so much as our actions. That is the nature of the law.

The Kaom or Karma Police

We also have an interesting figure in spiritual studies, such as the Kaom, relating to the law of karma or, to use Radiohead's language, the karma police. I think they got a few things right.

There is a part of our Being that we see represented by cops in dreams. They are symbolizing גבורה Geburah, in Hebrew, justice, our divine soul, but also, a part of our conscience that comes to us when we need to make reparations. If we have done something wrong that we need to fix, you will be confronted by your own conscience, your own Kaom, which is a rune in the Nordic language, representing the law, and those cops can do many things. They can talk to you. They can bring a complaint against you.

For example, they may tell you, “This woman here is upset because you robbed her in a past life. How are you going to pay her back?” And they will tell you directly. The best thing to say is, “I will pay it all at once.” They will be very pleased, and they are pleased by that, because you are talking to yourself. There are many parts and aspects of your own Being, just as we have many aspects and parts of our own body. There are hands, feet, hair, eyes. They all come together to constitute a sense of unity, but in truth, these are all different aspects of really oneself. The same thing with divinity, like a tree or the Tree of Life, in Hebrew. There are branches, and roots, and trunk and leaves. Likewise, we have the Kaom or part of our Being, the part of us that comes and arrives when we need to make a change.

Obviously, if they arrest us in a dream, it is because we deserve it. They are taking us to court. That part of our conscience takes us to the divine hierarchies or tribunals of justice if we have made a wrong and they wish to address something in our behavior or from our past lives, especially. Because, maybe in our current life, we are living like a saint, but in the past, we could have been many things, something you can verify internally.

So the Kaom will tell you to, kind of paraphrasing Radiohead again, “This is what you get.” We earned it. So it is good when they confront you. You should be happy about it. It is not always pleasant, especially when we have done something wrong, but you can't run away from your own heart, your conscience, and there is a way to strengthen that voice of conscience, the Kaom, by working with the Rune Rita, again, in The Magic of the Runes. I suggest you study that book if you want to know more.

The Akashic Records

Speaking of past lives, we can learn all the histories of ourselves and our humanity through what is called the Akashic Records. The astral plane is like a film. In a sense, there is a fluidic quality of the atmosphere because every action, every movement, every thought, every emotion has an imprint. Likewise, physically with our emotions, mind, actions, we create the type of print upon the film of nature. The astral world is a world of imagination, and every action of our life is recorded within that plane. That substance is called akash, the akasha, which is an element that is beyond the four constituents of earth, air, fire, water― Tejas, Apas, Prithvi and Vayu. Four elements. The fifth is akash, and the akasha really permeates everything that we are.

So, whatever we do has a recording. It is seen. It is witnessed. This is why the Qur’an teaches, “Truly, We see everything. And that even your own skin will attest against you on the Day of Judgment” (41:20), because the akasha records everything, everything we do, from beginning, middle, to end. Just as our own life is recorded, in truth, everything we are from our past existences is there. If we wish to know more about ourselves in our present life, and how we got here, we study the Akashic Records. Any event leaves its living photograph within the akash. It is obvious that all of our former lives are within those mysterious cosmic records.

You can ask to go to the Akashic Records or even ask “What is it?” Your Being can show you, perhaps, an office with a secretary with many shelves and files. They ask you what you want to look at. Some people have recorded seeing a library full of scrolls, and when they opened up a scroll, they entered into that memory like the pensieve in Harry Potter, literally going into a living photograph or video, like a life as depicted in that time. So, it is interesting that J.K. Rowling and some other authors have really picked up on this symbology, although, unconsciously, but it is there, because the collective mind of humanity, as of recently, has been really pushing to study more esoteric subjects. It has become more mainstream, but it is interesting. It is the same principle. You are watching yourself but also living the drama as it happened, whether it is from ancient history, whether it’s your own past life. You live it, and you see yourself there. You are a witness and a participant at the same time. Sometimes it can play out like a film. You are like watching a movie, but you are actually in it. A very dynamic thing.

Cosmogenesis

You can see the birth of the worlds, cosmogenesis. How did our physical planet come to be? What is the actual history of our cosmic evolution? You can see the birth of a planet, a sun, a star, how it all emerged. What I find particularly fascinating is the way that Samael Aun Weor explains some of these things, how he witnessed the beginning of a Mahamanvantara, a great cosmic day, the birth of an entire universe, and he says it with such ease. Some people think he is bragging. But, personally, when I have seen things like this, he is just stating a fact.

Statues, pyramids, sphinx, abraham and isaac, nativity of Christ

Anthropogenesis

But we can see the ancient history of humanity, the birth of any cosmic celestial unit, but also the ancient races of our planet, civilizations like Egypt, Abraham with his son at the sacrificial altar, the Nativity of Jesus, as well as Mesopotamian and Babylonian images, or the Mayan temples of Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, the Sphinx of Egypt. Our history books are often very limited. We are relying on physical data, and while it is useful to study these things, the truth is that if you really want to go to the heart of what actually happened in some moment in history, go to the Akashic Records, study and see for yourself who these figures were, because a lot of the histories are wrong. People argue about the life of Jesus or Muhammad, many figures. They are based on physical materials that can either be more or less accurate or insufficient.

They are lacking detail, and when we study anthropogenesis, the birth of different races and humanities on our planet, we see for ourselves what, say, Blavatsky taught, because some of these writers like Samael Aun Weor did document ancient races, like Lemuria, the Atlantean, and there are some pretty compelling studies and documentaries being made now about how ancient Egypt is much older than the Egyptologists think, because they are finding physical evidence of, literally, laser-hewn stone that is thousands upon thousands of years old, and yet, the technology needed for that is a laser. So, how do you explain that? Or you find, for example, that there is, literally, nuclear blast-infused glass for miles upon miles within, I believe, the Gobi Desert, caused by nuclear explosions, but this is 20, 80,000 years old. Our scientists can’t explain it, and so they fumble with their jargon to explain what really happened. A lot of information is missing.

The missing key is learning to go internally to make the connections, because if you internally experience it, but also confirm it with physical facts, you gain more faith. Therefore, you take the best of what science and anthropology offers while also recognizing people’s limitations, especially of a materialistic type.

Prophet of darkness seers and apocalypse in background

Prophesy

We have talked about this quite a bit in previous lectures about prophesy. I know the image looks a little comical, of a diviner or black magician laughing in a plain of holocaust of some type. The word prophesy refers to seeing the future, seeing what is possible for us. So, the Akashic Records, while talking about the past, can also show us the future. It is interesting, right? How it is that something of the past can also demonstrate the future. But the truth is that all potential things are recorded internally, and that what will happen on a grand scale, will happen, and that divinity knows, and can predict it.

We can also receive that knowledge in our dreams, where a dream will foretell what will happen in a day or, perhaps, in a future race. You may see, for example, what many prophecies have foretold in the astral world which are not very optimistic for a lot of people. Obviously, this topic can make people uncomfortable, such as the Book of Revelations, which is a book about precisely this type of prophecy, where astrally, Saint John was seeing what is going to happen to our race, our collective humanity, and documented, through symbols, the history of what will occur. Obviously, people grapple with that language because that language is symbolic, and kabbalah, archetypal. The thing to consider, too, is that we have a part to play in all this and that we can make the best decisions that we can in order to, based on our inner visions, how to act in the physical world.

So, there are two types of seers, according to Samael Aun Weor. There are beings who are in the dark and in the light, and both can see, to a more or less degree, what will happen. But here is what he said:

The diviners [black magicians] see the images of the abyss and experience dreams of the abyss with which they predict events that do not always crystallize in the physical world. The prophets are seers of the light. They are people of God illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Their predictions are exact because their pineal and pituitary glands are totally illuminated by the sacred fire. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

So, I know a lot of people do like to go to fortune-tellers or people who can predict the future because we, obviously, have a curiosity that we want to fulfill. But oftentimes, these people tend to be this―especially if they ask for money for your visions. A real prophet does not ask for fees, more specifically, demands, impositions. They offer their teachings. They offer their vision and what they see and respect the individual will of others. They don’t get paid for it. They are illuminated by the sacred fire, called kundalini, or, in Christian terms, the Holy Spirit. Their glands, like the pituitary and pineal gland, are awake. They are not atrophied like in most people, but they are inflamed and hyper-stimulated because they have the energy by which to see clairvoyantly, imaginatively, into the internal worlds, so they can see these things for themselves.

Rather than rely on any other people to show us the future, we can simply meditate. Go inside, ask your Being, “Show me what will happen to me. What will happen to Chicago? What will happen to the United States?” And we may see things that can be truly disturbing because, as we have been watching the news and seeing, collectively, the behavior of our humanity, we have actually been getting worse. So, not to instill fear, it is better to instill urgency and wanting to work and what we can change now. This is why dream yoga is really essential for this.

Jesus walking on water, Prophet Muhammad ascending to heaven, and Buddhist Monk

Enter Jinn States

We will talk about jinn states. I think a lot of people can accept astral projection to a degree, but a lot of people have a hard time with jinn science. But we include this in this lecture because, with jinn science, you are also navigating the internal worlds. But as opposed to astral projection when you are physically going to bed, your soul leaves the body, and it enters the fifth dimension, with jinn science, we learn to take our physical body with us.

This is symbolized in many mythologies, such as with Jesus walking on water, performing miracles. His physical body, through prayer, meditation, and drowsiness, and faith, was able to take his physical body and enter the fourth dimension, the vital world. It is called hyperspace, for lack of a better term, the etheric dimension, the fourth dimension of space and time mentioned by Einstein. Hyperspace is the fourth coordinate. Just as we have length, width, and height in our third dimension, we know, from experience, that there is a fourth dimension that we can’t, necessarily, quantify. I mean, we try to quantify it as time, but it is something deeper than just that. It is also about spatiality.

How do we see and perceive life as it changes? Music is really interesting because it is fourth-dimensional. There are patterns and notes in the third dimension, but also there is temporality. There is a sequence that occurs. Things are flowing and moving, and we can make meaning of that, based on our emotional states and our mind. Emotionally, we may hear the music, and we resonate with it or we don’t, and intellectually, we can quantify the notes on paper. What is interesting about that reality is that hyperspace, the fourth dimension, is something we verify from experience, but also, our emotional and mental states are what help us register that reality in a deeper sense, to appreciate it.

The physical body can vanish from the physical plane, enter the fourth coordinate which is, literally, a dimension of materiality and energy of its own. We do it through many exercises like in The Yellow Book. You can also astral project, and then, in the astral plane, you can call your physical body, bring it to you, and then your physical body will leave its bed, will vanish, enter the internal worlds. But obviously, this type of exercise, which has been symbolized, such as in the ascension of Prophet Muhammad, is a very difficult one for most Westerners, especially, because we are very materialistic and skeptical.

Prophet Muhammad, through his faith, his meditation, and by laying his head upon the stone of the Kaaba, the kabbalah, the stone of יסוד Yesod, by working with that vital energy, he rose upon الْبُرَاق Al-Buraq, “the lightning” we call kundalini, the straight path of the Arabic letter أ Alif, up to the seven heavens, the seven chakras. It is one metaphysical symbol related to our physiology, but literally with his faith and through prayer, he entered. He traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem, and then entered the heavenly regions with his physical body.

So, one of his detractors said, “How is it possible that you have entered that state?” He said, “Lift your left foot up.” He did. He says, “Lift your right foot up.” Says, “I can’t.” “How can’t you do that if you say you traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem and to the seven heavens?” He said, “I didn’t take myself there. I was taken.” The one who does that is your Divine Mother, the power of kundalini, with sleep, drowsiness, meditation, and faith.

So that, literally, like this image of the Buddhist murals, you begin to fly in that, literally, the fourth dimension with your physical body. That state is like, because your vital body is penetrated more deeply into your physicality, as Samael Aun Weor described, it is like feeling your feet and your ankles bloated, and you float and levitate. You feel the forces permeating you with a type of vibrancy or, kind of like an electrical sensation. In Buddhist cosmology, there are many saints who are depicted as having flown through walls and mountains. Francis of Assisi floated when he prayed. There are initiates who can do this, but, obviously, it is a tough topic. But something that you can verify from experience, as these mythologies and teachings demonstrate.

The fourth dimension is like, it is not only just time, temporality, but it is also marked and defined by very vivid spatiality, like, being aware of your surroundings with more color, light, vibrancy, similar to the astral dimension. The way that you register that is through the quality of your heart, your prayer, your faith.

Experiment and Verify

So, what does this all boil down to? I will sum it up from Samael Aun Weor's Revolution of the Dialectic:

We have wasted our time miserably if we are imprisoned only in theories, if we have not carried out anything practical, if we have not become conscious about what I have taught in my books, or if we leave the teachings in the memory. Memory is the formative principle of the intellectual center. When a person aspires for something more, looking through the limitations of his subconsciousness, seeing what he has deposited in his memory, analyzing and meditating upon the last occurrence or teachings of an esoteric book, only then will those values move to the emotional phase of the same intellectual center. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

So, we may have the knowledge in our mind, but we have to feel it. We feel inspired by it. We want to experience it. We feel the joy of practicing it.

When one wants to know the deep meaning of a certain teaching and surrenders in full to meditation, such teachings obviously move on to the emotional center and then they come to be felt in the depth of the soul. When one has purely experienced these teachings, the cognizable values of the essence, then, at last, they remain deposited in the consciousness and are never again lost. The essence becomes enriched with the same cognizable values. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

So, the principle to remember is this: if you experience it, you won’t forget it, even if you die. If you memorize, store a lot of information just in the mind, when we die, we don’t take it with us. This is evidenced by, if you have studied dream yoga or Hinduism, transmigration, that, obviously, in our Western life, we don’t remember our previous existences. But if you have experienced it internally in meditation or seen in the Akashic Records your past, you know it is a reality.

So the question becomes, why don't we know, or don't remember? Thing is, many times, many of us have perhaps entered into this type of knowledge or studies in other existences, but we reach a certain level, but then forget. That knowledge from those past lives aren’t deposited within our Being. Your Inner God can show you things that you experienced from the past and help you verify it.

Exercises

But the way that we do so is learning meditation, as the ultimate science. If you can boil all this down to an essential practice, it is, precisely, meditation.

So, throughout the day, practice self-observation, the key of SOL and meditative retrospection.
Relax your body, heart, and mind. Concentrate upon, visualize and pray to your inner divinity to teach you an aspect of astral travel. If you get distracted, return to your concentration, prayer and visualization. Fall asleep in a state of meditation.

Highly recommend, if you want to learn meditation, go on to Glorian Publishing’s website, learn Meditation Essentials. It is a great place to start.

You can now ask questions.

Questions and Answers

Question: You mentioned the tarot. If you receive, let's say, images from the French Tarot de Marseilles, or maybe the symbolic deck of Oswald Wirth based off of, or at least I believe, it is Samael’s teachings, does that hold as much significance as the Eternal Tarot of the Gnostics?

Instructor: Yeah. If you are being shown internally something from that deck, it is because your Being is using something familiar to you. Oftentimes, divinity will teach you in a language that we can understand. Obviously, God is not going to talk to us. Well, it might seem that way, talk to us in a language that we don't know. But, usually, the symbols and the iconography, the images that are presented to us in a dream are usually things that are familiar to us from our own life. Personally, I have had experiences before where I was being shown an aspect about magic in relation to a video game I played years ago when I was a kid. So, it is interesting. Like I was remembering what that interface in game was like and how magic was being performed, and I was being shown, taught something of importance. So, your Inner Being will use any experience in your life and frame it in a way that is something that you need to know more. So, it is like with good teaching. A teacher will go to a student, will meet them at their level of understanding, perhaps activate their previous knowledge on a topic, and then we will build more. We will add to it. That is how God talks to us, too. So, that deck, whatever knowledge you receive from it and then what the dream is showing you, it is good. So have faith in that.

Question: When you mentioned about going into the astral and meditating there, are you speaking of the dreams, conscious dreams, or you are speaking of maybe going into the astral or other realms during meditation?

Instructor: Good question. What I am talking about when you are meditating, you can do both in both cases. You may find that you are meditating physically, you abandon your physical body, you enter the astral plane, and then you can suddenly decide to meditate in that state, go further. Other times you may just fall asleep, you go to bed, you astral project, and then decide, “I am going to meditate while I am here.” So in either case, you can do the same. So long as you have conscious recognition that you are dreaming is the important thing. If we don’t have recognition that we are dreaming it means that we don’t know what is going on. Right?

Question: Sometimes there is a layer or when for example when I am dreaming, I am unconscious most of the time. But then it comes to the point that I feel like I am in vigil, then I start praying. Is it conscious dreaming?

Instructor: Sure. If you recognize that you are dreaming and you are seeing more vivid intensity, you are aware, yes, you are recognizing that you are dreaming. Yes, it is a lucid dream. There are qualities of lucid dreams.

Another Instructor: I was also going to add, there are degrees of consciousness, right? So it sounds like you recognize you have some cognizance of being in the dream, and you are more conscious than you might be if you were just totally asleep and identified. But maybe we are not as conscious as a master would be on that plane where they would feel no fear because they see through the illusion of it, right? Of course, yeah. But I think it is a good sign.

Question: When you do the greetings for the gatekeeper, what book is it?

Instructor: It has been mentioned in Practical Astrology, because when you want to enter any zodiacal temple or other planetary sanctuary, you do that prayer. So other temples you can visit, too. I know I mentioned some on our planet but you can also travel to the heart temple of the planet Mars where is the abode of Samael. Many other sacred precincts you can enter or visit, the way you do it is with that prayer I have mentioned.

Question: So you said in the realm of spiritual debt, it is paid either through good deeds or pain. Is there a way to measure that? Like the intensity or choosing, because you said it was a choice? You get to discern that?

Instructor: It all depends on the magnitude of your credits. If you ask for more, more is expected, and if we don’t fulfill that then obviously we get compensated. If it is a small petition which usually for most people is not going to be, I think, we all like to aim high, at least in principle. But the greater the magnitude of the credit, the more that is demanded of us, and the more that we fail to accomplish our own responsibilities, the greater we pay.

Question: I wanted to mention in kabbalah and Judaic practices, there is often when we want to gain something, we have to give it. Not necessarily pain, of course it can come as pain, too, but it has to be a sacrifice. So when we talk about sacrifice and Judaic practices, sometimes it is actually sacrificing animals, his blood, or red wine now. We always mention that this sacrifice is our conscious sacrifice like our emotions, our desires, and so on. So why then are we still practicing in Judaism, there are some remnants of the physical sacrifice?

Instructor: Sure, good question. Traditions are born, they have their life, and then they die. That symbol of sacrifice or the narrative itself was a symbol of sacrificing our own animality. Now, like the Maya and the Aztecs who once had a culture of sacrifice, they originally sacrificed their pride, their anger, their lust, symbolized by animals, because internally, in dreams, our egos take on those forms. But obviously, as we are seeing even in North America, societies build up and then they crumble. So people lose the meaning of their traditions.

A lot of the Jewish tradition itself, while still having many remnants that are beautiful and necessary to study, there are also many aspects like of any tradition that have been infiltrated. Like in the symbol of Abraham sacrificing Isaac when he was showing his faith. In the story there is that ordeal of sacrificing the thing he loves the most, which is his son. That is a symbol. We often struggle to sacrifice the things that we love the most, not recognizing that it is harmful, and so in exchange, the angel says “Take this animal, this goat.” The goat, obviously, is a symbol of, I mean astrologically, Capricorn, the ego, negative elements. So traditions, they have their peak. They give their teachings. They die. But hopefully people can learn to re-energize or revitalize their traditions, and as you might know from Samael Aun Weor, he does that with pretty much every religion. So, it is good to look at the symbology there.

Question: So I tried to observe myself falling asleep but I can’t maintain the drowsy state no matter how much I try. It gets to a point where I just lose consciousness and I do everything I can. Even I appointed people who were near me to keep me awake, but I appear to be awake but I am actually asleep. I am unconscious. Do you have feedback or any suggestions?

Instructor: So you are saying that you have a hard time falling asleep when you need to, like consciously falling asleep, consciously. It is a balance. Meditation is what is going to teach that. Meditation properly practiced is balancing a state of watchfulness with drowsiness, and it might seem like a very strange dichotomy. How can you be watchful when you are drowsy?

The truth is that we have to be attentive to what is paying attention. The consciousness, the Essence, the soul needs to be hyper-vigilant. The physical body needs to go to sleep. Oftentimes, psychologically speaking, we tend to be very identified with our body. So these energies, its fluctuations and flow―maybe we have more energy in the morning than the afternoon, or however our particular idiosyncrasy is. Now, the particular thing to remember is that when you are conscious, as a soul, your body can be in any state. Could be physically very hyperactive, maybe if you have had a lot of coffee or or very attentive, maybe your body, you have a lot of energy, but it doesn’t mean that we are conscious, psychologically speaking. You can have a lot of energy emotionally, mentally, chemically, vitally, physically, and yet not be paying attention at all. Such as when you are playing a sport, you are not very attentive to what you are doing. To some degree, there is a level of consciousness there and you have a lot of energy and vitality, but you could be driving your car after four cups of coffee, and yet suddenly you are lost in thought. You are not seeing the environment that you are in. You are not awake―or daydreaming.

The quality that we need to develop that has to be hyper-attentive is the soul, and the physical body needs to learn how to cooperate. Obviously, if you struggle with maintaining energy at certain times of the day, like for some people, they may find it easier to meditate at the end of the day when they are drowsy. Or, you don’t have time in the evenings, try drinking something like passionflower tea. You know, if your body is very agitated, you have a tough time sitting, or if you are having a tough time relaxing enough to enter meditation, drink an herbal tea. Chamomile, passionflower is exceptionally good. Helps reduce the nerves, the stress, or perhaps maybe an underlying tension that is there that we are not aware of, and with time, you will learn to negotiate that threshold between conscious awakening and physical sleep.

When you willingly enter meditation in that state of hyperactive conscious activity, you are basically training your body to come along with the ride. Because in the beginning our body rules us. You know, if you physically have too much energy, we don’t know how to manage it. Or if we are too drowsy, we don’t know how to wake up. The consciousness has got to be the one driving the car. We have to learn to take the reins, so to speak, and when you practice meditation, you learn what is called pliancy in Buddhist philosophy. Pliancy is when your mind, your heart, and your body, like in the image of the elephant we showed on the slide, becomes a serviceable and useful tool in our spiritual life. Doesn’t become an enemy. It is not something we are fighting. Instead, it learns to obey. You do that by learning concentration. So I really recommend if you want to learn that balance between wakefulness and dreaming, and how to consciously manage it, study Meditation Essentials on Glorian. Very effective.

Comment: One of the things that has happened for me in that situation is I noticed that in our world we use a lot of energy trying to transform impressions, especially in a city like Chicago. So at the end of the day when you are trying to do your practice, which I still keep trying to do, I find that I’m so exhausted, and I fall straight to sleep. So I have to do the practice, especially on a day when I am not working, when I have nothing going on, I have gotten a full night of sleep, maybe had a healthy breakfast, and then trying around in the afternoon or early afternoon when I still have a lot of energy, then I find that I am able to keep consciousness awake, even while my body is getting kind of sleepy, you know, like a nap time. And that seems to work best for me to stay, keep the consciousness awake even while the body is getting sleepy.

Instructor: Any final comments or questions? So, thank you. Appreciate the turnout. We’ll have uh, some lectures online soon. And We appreciate the attendance and feedback. Thank you all for coming!

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Analyzing Dreams through Meditation

11/22/2022

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Despite many practices we have given in this teaching, as well as this course, many people struggle to interpret their dreams. We have spent some time discussing principles and teachings that help to understand what we experience when we dream. Despite these tools, and the efficacy of their depth, of their application, a lot of people still struggle with doubt. They struggle to really have certainty or confidence in what they dream, to verify that a particular vision is authentic, is real, is divine.

It is the purpose of this lecture to talk about meditation, to know how to meditate on dreams. If any of you have followed this course or this series and have studied with our school, as well as Glorian Publishing, you often hear that we should be practicing meditation very deeply. It is the core practice of Gnostics. Meditation is essential for understanding our dreams. We will talk about how to meditate on our experiences, some questions that we can ask ourselves when we inquire within, in order to gain certainty in our perceptions.

Every dream teaches us something deep. Something about our psychology is reflected within our inner experiences. If we wish to live our waking life with greater knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence, we have to understand and reflect upon our dreams. As Sri Swami Sivananda wrote in his book The Philosophy of Dreams:

A dream presents a demand to our waking consciousness. If rightly interpreted, it shows the way to be at peace with ourselves. ―Swami Sivananda, Philosophy of Dreams

Many people have a dream or experience and feel pain, uncertainty, doubt. They wonder what it is they have actually seen in themselves. They may try to find an answer in a dream dictionary, go into a book, approach a scripture, speak to an instructor, or to friends, always seeking in the external to understand that which is internal. We are very explicit when we say that this is the wrong approach.

A dream is highly personal to us. It is something intimate of the soul. Inner visions come from divinity and manifest within our dreams in a particular style that is specific to us. Those messages come within our interior in order to teach us something, not other people. Therefore, if we wish to really understand the language of dreams, we have to suspend and renounce everything that is external to us. We have to go within. We have to introspect so that we can rightly interpret what is going on.

When we sit and relax, close our eyes, suspend our senses, withdraw our mind, concentrate internally, relax and imagine a dream we witnessed, and we put aside our attachments, our preferences, our cravings, our fears, it is only when we let go of that which is superficial and immediate in order to find that which is permanent and lasting―comprehension. To comprehend, to understand, to intuit, to go deep within a dream and to unpack its meaning gives us peace, gives us certainty, gives us clarity.

However, I am pretty sure many of us can identify with having gone to other people looking for advice, and while necessary and good, it is not primary. Often times it is a distraction to look for answers outside of us, because that language from divinity comes from within. It is something that we have to learn. Just as you go to school to learn English, or any language, or any subject, you have to train. You have to strive. You get help obviously. In this metaphor, the instructor is the divine, the spirit who is showing us a higher way of being, a deeper knowledge that we have to grapple with, that we have to look at, but that requires that we abandon our tendencies, habits, filters. We have to look at what is “there” and to understand who in us or what in us seeks answers.

Certainty provides peace when we understand a dream. When we contemplate it deeply within ourselves, we no longer have to worry. We do not divide our mind between options, that “Maybe this dream means this or that,” or “This book said that this symbol means this.” We have to put that all aside. It is secondary. Divinity speaks to us in a way that is unique to our own soul, and in order to engage in that mystery and to enjoy the magic of dreams, we have to learn to be independent, to develop serenity, to not be anxious or worried.

This is why when we are examining our dreams in order to really reflect on what they mean, we have to study ourselves.

Serenity: The Door to Interpreting Dreams

We have here an image of the human machine. We see here five centers that we have discussed many times.

Serenity is the prerequisite to comprehension. It is the beginning of meditation. It is not meditation itself. Meditation is the capacity of the soul to understand and interpret new information, the novel, the unique. However, we cannot comprehend anything when our mind is in chaos, when our heart is distraught, when our body is agitated and sick, when our impulses and instincts drive us relentlessly. If you want to see clearly within yourself, you need serenity. It is impossible to interpret rightly any circumstance of life, or even in a dream, if we are in affliction.

If you take a jar filled with sediment, rocks, dirt, stones and water, and shake it violently, the contents will be mixed, clouded, obscured. You cannot see its contents. The same thing with our mind. For if our mind is clouded, obscured, agitated, afflicted, in pain, we have no means to see and comprehend what is going on. However, if you let the jar in our metaphor sit and rest, the water settles, the sand stratifies, the stones go to the bottom, layers appear, the water clears. That is when you can begin to see yourself.

That is when we can learn to see objectively. Dream interpretation, analysis of dreams within meditation, begins with equanimity. What we do not want is to fight for our preferences. Perhaps we dream something. We may have fear, or pride or anxiety that wants the dream to mean something that it is not. However, to really assess accurately, we need to be calm. We cannot follow the whims of our preferences. We need to look at it with equanimity, tranquility, and to be content, to accept what it is, to not assume anything of it, but to look with clear eyes, like a scientist at a phenomenon―no theory, no preconception, no a priori assumptions―just observation.

Self-observation is the beginning of serenity. It is how we focus our attention within ourselves so that we can see our psychology, so that our mind, our emotions and our impulses to act no longer cloud our experience. They do not filter like a lens and change an experience into something it is not, in the same way that light can become a specific color depending on our glasses or shades.

When you look and calmly introspect, when you do not expect anything, but merely watch, you begin to see a lot in yourself many elements which will gain serenity and calm the less you feed it, but just look, not trying to change anything, but accepting it. This is the beginning of real peace, when the consciousness, “the soul,” is activated. It is looking inside. It is the consciousness that can interpret dreams―not anger, not pride, not despair or morbidity or fear. It is the Essence, the consciousness that, when it is awake, gains clarity, the more that it sees and the less that it invests its energy into these disparate, subjective elements that we call the ego: our desires, our attachments, our prejudices.

Concentration and Imagination: The Foundation of Meditation

This is how we learn to concentrate. As you are focusing your attention within yourself throughout the day, but also focusing on a candle or any other observation practice, we begin to develop a more profound attention. We have given practices in the past in order to develop serenity of mind, but also our concentration, our ability to focus without being distracted.

One example was a candle. You observe the flame and merely watch, observe it. In the moment you will observe how thoughts will come within the screen of our attention: distractions, memories, daydreams, worries, preoccupations, plans, projects. The point is to merely look at that, to observe it and let it go. Return to the candle. Observe it. Be aware that you are observing. If you get distracted, gently bring your attention back to the candle. See it for what it is. Observe the flame, its hues, its light. Examine its fluctuations. You can even observe its smell. Merely look and attend to the candle without thinking of other things.

This is the first skill we learn when we are seeking to meditate. Now concentration is not enough. Having serenity of mind is merely the beginning. When you are calm of mind, you can focus and sustain your attention on one thing, longer and with uninterrupted periods, with discipline and practice.

There is something more that we need to develop if we wish to access the state of meditation, comprehension, understanding in which we receive new wisdom about a given thing, in this case, about a dream.

In order to meditate on a dream, you need to imagine it. Visualize it. Bring it within your mind’s eye. Evoke the dream, the situation, its colors, its hues, the experience within your imagination. Imagination is merely the capacity to perceive nonphysical imagery, and it is this faculty which is activated when we dream. As we discussed in our previous lecture [Why Do We Dream?], imagination is the faculty of the consciousness to perceive. It is that which allows you to see within dreams. The more robust your imagination, the more you can see within the astral dimension.

Not only concentrating upon a candle, but you can practice, close your eyes, visualize the flame, imagine the candle and its wax, every detail with as much depth, profundity, and clarity as you can. That skill will allow you to not only perceive your dreams with greater range within a spectrum of consciousness, but it will open the doorway to real meditation, which is the capacity to comprehend, to understand.

Concentration and imagination lead to meditation, whereby you focus on the memory of a dream. You imagine it. You can focus on a specific detail of what happened. Sustain your attention and imagination of that one thing, that event, maybe a detail, a particular situation, a character, a symbol―and then you wait.

Rest your mind but have your consciousness active. Hold on to that image and be patient. Suddenly new information will arrive within your consciousness. You may see a new experience. You may witness new things. You may suddenly (snaps fingers) gain a spark. You know the depth of that particular experience. It comes to you. You do not have to think about it.

However, calm abiding, the state of serenity, is the foundation by which real insight can emerge, and when that insight hits you, you feel joy, ecstasy. This term in Latin comes from ecstatuo, which means “to stand outside yourself.” In this way you are standing outside the normal range of your perceptions to see something new. It is that spark of alert novelty and freshness which inspires―that is mediation. That is comprehension. That is awakening.

These are the principles by which to really understand a dream. But it is also important to understand, particularly from the meditative traditions from the past, the importance of these two principles: serenity and insight, or concentration / imagination, calm abiding and special insight. These two qualities are particular skills that the consciousness can develop. When the consciousness develops both serenity and insight together, we open up the full gamut of our potential. We can really gain profound wisdom about anything and go into the depths of a dream to see its roots, its real implications.

silhouette man with lamp near starry horizon

Balancing Serenity and Insight

Tsong Khapa, a great master of Tibetan Buddhism, explained these principles very beautifully in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. He explained that neither of these qualities alone is enough to experience the state of mediation.

I will read it for you at length:

Why is it insufficient to cultivate either serenity or insight alone? If you light an oil-lamp for the purpose of viewing a picture in the middle of the night, you will see the depictions very clearly if the lamp is both very bright and undisturbed by wind. If the lamp is not bright, or is bright but flickering in the wind, then you will not see the images clearly. Likewise, when looking for the profound meaning, you will clearly see reality if you have both the wisdom that unerringly discerns the meaning of reality and an unmoving attention that stays as you wish on the object of meditation. However, if you do not have wisdom that knows how things are―even if you have a non-discursive concentration in which your mind is stable and does not scatter to other objects―then you lack the eyes which see reality. Hence, it will be impossible to know how things are no matter how much you develop your concentration. And even with a perspective that understands reality―selflessness―if you lack a firm concentration that stays one-pointedly on its object, then it will be impossible to clearly see the meaning of the way things are because you will be disturbed by the winds of uncontrollably fluctuating discursive thought. ―Tsong Khapa, Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment

A lamp is a perfect metaphor for meditation. If we are thinking too much, it is like wind passing through our mind, and the candle flame or the lamp light will flicker. Therefore, we need stability of mind, to focus unwaveringly on one thing without being distracted. Likewise, even if there is no wind, if the light is dim, we will not see the same with our imagination. This is why we practice visualization exercises: imagine a candle flame. You can visualize a light in your mind, a sun, any image that you want.

The Dynamics of Meditation

When our serenity and our visualization capacities are very strong, the combination opens the door to real wisdom, to understanding reality or the higher realities of the inner dimensions, which are mapped out in this diagram.

We use this glyph, the kabbalah, the Tree of Life, not only to represent the universe but also to represent ourselves. Kabbalah is the Jewish mystical tradition, and this Tree of Life is a map of our psychology and our universe. It maps out the dimensions of our inner being. It also maps out the signs of meditation.

We have included only the lower seven spheres of the Tree of Life, which will be the focus of this segment. These spheres, representing qualities in us, aspects of our consciousness, but also dimensionality, these are also places we visit when we dream. More importantly, these spheres represent us, who we are at a given moment, what we are, how we function, how we subsist in life, how we meditate.

To begin meditation, we first relax the body. We learn to suspend or withdraw our attention, our senses, from our physicality. This is the bottom sphere known as מלכות Malkuth in Hebrew, which means “Kingdom.” This kingdom is nature. It is our physical world. It is also our human machine, our physical body. It is the vehicle we operate with, in the vigil state. To meditate, we first relax the body. We adopt a posture and Asana, whether it is full lotus or half lotus or Western style, whatever is most comfortable for us, and we withdraw our attention from the body. We get comfortable. We relax the body. We make whatever necessary adjustments we need in the beginning―then we forget about it. Let it go.

As you withdraw your attention, you begin to notice energy, which is our vital force, our etheric or energetic vehicle, the “Chi” of our life, of life force in our body. This is known as יסוד Yesod in Hebrew, which is the “Foundation.” It is the foundation because it is the energies that we use to enter meditation. We may sense, depending on the moment of our day, in which we have more or less energy, depending on our health and our behaviors. Some activities waste energy, some conserve it―depends upon our attention, our work, our mindfulness. When we relax our body, we can work with vital energy. We can become aware of any sensations in our energies, our body.

We can do a breathing exercise: pranayama. Pranayama means “to yoke the energies or winds,” the vital forces of our constitution. By breathing deeply, inhaling through our nostrils, exhaling through our mouth, we can raise the energies of our body, to our mind, and then to our heart. We can also do this through interchangeable nostril breathing, pranayama proper, in which you circulate vital force so that the body relaxes, the heart relaxes, the mind settles.

You can also work with mantra, sacred sounds, vocalizations, so that you charge your body and your energies. You activate your vital force. You circulate it willingly and activate your consciousness. Then you have to let it go. Let the body settle. Let the energies calm. Let them become clear, radiant, pristine, luminous, peaceful. This energy helps us to develop a serene mind.

It helps to settle our heart. This is related to the emotional sphere of our being, of the astral dimension, the world of dreams itself, הוד Hod in Hebrew, “Splendor.” When our heart settles, when it calms, we deepen ourselves in prayer. This emotional center becomes very inflamed, inspired with superior qualities, like compassion, love, diligence, patience, and joy. We can pray deeply. We can ask for guidance from our inner divinity to help us understand a particular dream that we want to go deep within.

As we are praying, we also look at our mind, thought, נצח Netzach in Hebrew, which means “Victory.” We are victorious when we calm the mind. When we look at it, we observe its chain of thoughts, their emergence, sustenance, anticipation, how they fluctuate within the screen of our awareness like a cloud, which eventually disappear as we observe and let them go. Simply watch. Observe your thoughts. Withdraw your attention from them. Do not invest yourself in memory, preoccupation, plans, projects, fears. Observe and let them go.

This is where we get to a fundamental skill known as concentration. This relates to the sphere of תפארת Tiphereth in Hebrew, which means willpower or “Beauty.” It is willpower in the sense that it is our ability to focus attention on one thing without being distracted. It is our human soul in us. Right now, it is a seed that can become fully developed and matured. But for that it has to develop. It has to be activated and worked with.

Willpower is very subtle, that is not as obvious as thought, or emotion, or energy, or physicality, and yet we are driven by will all the time. We can even examine our intentions and impulses, our will to attend this lecture, to approach a study of this kind. Willpower is the inclination to do, what is very subtle and refined. But it is something that we can consciously manage and activate, sustain.

As we are learning to concentrate, we also visualize, imagine what we want to understand. This relates to גבורה Geburah, in Hebrew meaning “Justice,” the divine soul. It is our capacity of our consciousness to perceive the divine. It is the translucence or the immediate apprehension of a given thing. We can not only pay attention to something, but we also see it and understand it. That relates to our consciousness.

Likewise, when we attend to something, and look at it and wait, we will receive knowledge from our inner spirit, which is חסד Chesed, “Mercy” in Hebrew, the inner Being. That is comprehension. That is wisdom.

Our spirit, आत्मन् Atman, our genuine authentic self, is the origin and the goal of our studies. We want to understand our inner Being, the dreams that come as symbols from Him. As we deeply understand an experience, we are connected with our spirit, because that connection is what gives us understanding.

For that we have to suspend all the lower qualities of our psyche in the same analogy as the jar full of sediment and stone. Let the inferior elements settle to the bottom and the more refined, clear, and pure qualities will rise to the top. The same thing applies to this diagram and to our meditations.

Silhouette of woman meditating with northern lights

Analytical Meditation

It is important to reflect upon ourselves, to understand who we are and who in us is perceiving in a given moment, or what in us taints or obstructs or clarifies what we see. The essence of analytical meditation is to first comprehend the perceiver. We have to understand and to question ourselves, to look, to see, to investigate if we possess any elements within our psychology that contaminate our experience, then filter what we see that do not allow us to see reality.

Buddhism beautifully teaches this dynamic, and that to understand anything of value, we have to put aside the self. By this I mean the egotistical self we are carnally affiliated with―pride, anger, resentment, hatred, lust, laziness, gluttony, etc. We have to put aside the ego because our desires, our defects, our vices, our prejudices do not see reality.

When we are angry, we think through anger. We process life through that particular cage. We justify ourselves. We reason. We excuse our wrongdoings, even though later we may find through suffering that we were wrong. In those moments we were perfectly animated and justified by what we saw. We were thinking through a bottle, or seeing light through a bottle itself, not seeing the reality.

To analyze a dream, we have to put ourselves aside and learn to access that which is genuine and authentic, the comprehension of the Being―our real identity. This is why the Dalai Lama in the book Stages of Meditation stated:

In order to meditate on the special insight that realizes ultimate reality, we need to develop the wisdom that understands selflessness. Before we can do that, we must search for and identify the self that does not exist. ―The Dalai Lama, Stages of Meditation

When he says we have to search for and identify the self that does not exist, he is talking about our terrestrial self, our ego, our defects, those elements like pride and anger and hatred which do not have a real truth to them. They are not substantial. They are provoked by circumstances, and they emerge in relation to specific events. They are not eternally, intrinsically existing in and of themselves, but they depend on other factors because they are dependent on other people’s praise, or job promotion, adulation, or respect from others. These qualities do not have independent existence. They are not real. They are an illusion, and yet, because we grasp to the feeling and identity of self in the moment, we suffer.

We do not see the truth. These elements are not permanent. They are not eternal. They are not חסד Chesed, the spirit. The spirit is what is real, the divine, “God” for a lack of other words.

If we do not put aside our own egotistical self, we cannot see our real identity. Therefore, we cannot interpret our dreams. This is why Samael Aun Weor in his book Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology, enforced or supported the Dalai Lama by saying:

Symbols must be analyzed coldly, without superstition, maliciousness, mistrust, pride, vanity, fanaticism, prejudgment, preconceptions, hatred, envy, greed, jealousy, etc. ―Samael Aun Weor, Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology

He is saying the same thing. If you want to understand ultimate reality, those symbols which come from the ultimate truth within your dreams, you have to be like a surgeon operating on a person―to be indifferent, to be cold, to not assume one thing or the other, but to look and be conscious, attentive, unfiltered.

The Definition of Analysis

Before we go into some real detail about analyzing specific qualities of a dream or characteristics of a dream, I want to actually provide a bit of a definition, because this will help preface the rest of our format for this lecture. We are going to go into a lot of depth asking specific questions about particular parts of a dream, things that we can ask ourselves when we meditate.

Analysis means:

A detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features.
A thorough study doing a careful analysis of the problem.
A statement of such an examination.
A separation of a whole into its component parts.

By asking good questions we can go into real learning about ourselves. We will get into the essence of what a dream communicates. What we are going to look at are particular qualities about dreams we can focus on, specifically when we meditate. But also, we will present particular problems that we can analyze deeply, the problems that dreams present, as well as the solutions for how to overcome them. We will look at a couple of statements that reflect what that examination looks like, and we are going to break down the totality of a dream into its parts. So that by looking at aspects individually, we can look at how they are cumulative and supportive of one another, how everything ties together.

A Dream Analysis Example

In order to demonstrate this, I am going to provide an example.

I had this dream when I was six. I was walking through a park at night. There was a lot of moonlight present. This was a park where I grew up with a lot of trees and a pond. I remember walking through this park in the moonlight feeling a sense of haunting and dread, because everything was bathed in a profound twilight. I was passing through a playground, and I remember feeling that the playground itself, being abandoned and alone, in a sense reflected something about myself. I was very conscious and alert, seeing a lot of color in the hues, a lot of intensity in my perceptions. It was very vivid.

I walked towards the lake, and I came to my mother, a sibling, and my family. At this point, I saw myself third person with them. We were like silhouettes in the night sky, holding hands, and we all looked up. I felt my vision was compelled to look up at the horizon where I saw a powerful, intense, luminous, and deadly moon―full, bright. Then while looking at this moon, I felt a sense of pain, a lot of longing in my heart, but also the feeling of dread, that something awful was happening. Suddenly, a silhouette of a wolf soared across the moon, howling silently in the dark. I awoke.

This dream, while simple, contains a lot of elements. I am going to model for you an example of dream analysis through meditative questioning and meditative comprehension, in order to unpack this experience, but also provide a concrete structure by which you can learn to analyze your own dreams.

Now in this dream I did not see any numbers. Obviously, dreams relate to the tarot, numerology, and the different cards of this deck relate to principles manifesting within dreams. As you see right here, we see Arcanum 18: Twilight, a white jackal and a black jackal, or you can even say, a white wolf and a black wolf howling at the moon. Obviously, I saw that symbol, which is very deep and very menacing. I will relate what these all mean and how they connect, but I will preface this analysis by showing that this arcanum was present in the dream.

Levels of Cognizance

Some questions we can ask ourselves can relate to how cognizant we are.

What was our level of cognizance in the dream?

Were you aware that you were dreaming?

This is very important. If you are more conscious in that state, it can indicate that it is more objective. Your divinity is trying to show you that there is something more that you need to understand, and therefore your consciousness was expanded in a deep way, in a powerful way, so that you can receive the teaching, the wisdom that you need in that given moment. In the dream that I provided, I was very awake. I would say that I was more awake than my physical existence. It was that hyperreal and intense.

How aware were you in the dream? That is the question.

What is the lucidity of your experience? Was it profound? Were you aware that you were in the astral world?

If you are awake and knowing that you are out of your body, you can have greater confidence in your experiences, more often than if you were just drifting through it, asleep on autopilot. If you are aware that you are dreaming, you have some type of agency and assurance that you are approaching your inner experiences with greater wisdom and alertness. Oftentimes those very vivid, lucid dreams are showing us teachings from our inner God that we need to be aware of.

How long were you aware that you were dreaming? Was it for a moment?

Did you suddenly realize you were in the astral world, but then fell into sleep again? You became unconscious? Or was that sustained throughout the night?

The more extended your awareness, the more probable it is that you are actually being taught something, because God is pushing you to wake up and is showing you that you need to pay attention, that you are receiving something valuable, or better said invaluable, something priceless.

How frequently did you dream throughout that time, at night? Was it in pockets? Was it sporadically? Was it sustained? Was it often?

You may find that you have periods in your dream yoga discipline where you are suddenly more awake than you usually are, and oftentimes that is an indicator that divinity is trying to teach you something because you have to be awake. Therefore, our inner Being exerts super efforts to teach us, to get us to rise to a higher level of being.

William Blake ladder to heaven and angels, tree of life

As you see in this image, William Blake depicted Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending upon a ladder to heaven (Genesis 28:11-19). It is a symbol of how we wake up within the dream state, to go towards the light, to gain light, to understand more, to perceive more

How amplified and penetrative was your dream consciousness?

Was there a lot of lucidity? Were you able to see with a lot of detail? Was there more depth to your perceptions? Was there more color?

In the example I provided, the playground in the park was bathed in a twilight. Still the hues and the colors in that spectrum of light was very intense and detailed. I saw shadows but I did see a lot of color in that silver like luminosity. That gave me a feeling of dread. It was very impactful.

Also, we should consider, how did the quality of your dream fluctuate or change? Did it stay the same? Did it progressively increase? Did you start off unconscious in the beginning and suddenly become vivid and awake that you were dreaming later on?

That tendency is very common when divinity teaches us something valuable. We start off being in a somnambulist state, not really aware that we were dreaming. Suddenly we begin to realize that we are not in our body. We are receiving a vision. In this dream when I was six, I felt in the beginning a bit unaware, thinking that it was the physical world. As I began to progress in the dream, I realized that this was something different than the physical plane and impossible, but yet it was more real.

Lastly, did the quality of your dream stay the same? Did it become intense? Did it change or did it remain constant?

Usually when dreams are very constant in their depth and quality, their luminosity, their amplification, their quality of being, when that state is sustained, as I said, it can often indicate that this is objective, and that all the details should be apprehended with a lot of detail. We should try to remember everything we dreamed because these are important facts that we need to understand. Any little detail can be significant, for example, like the playground (a psychological gymnasium), which I am going to elaborate upon.

Situational Factors

So, we have to examine the situational factors.

What happened in the dream? Who were the characters or people involved?

In my dream, I was walking through a park, in the moonlight, and I was with my family, my mother and a sibling, and that was very significant. We have to look at the examples of the people or characters or the situation because that is the content that we have to analyze and reflect upon, how they relate to ourselves, but also what are they representing.

We should also consider how were you involved in the dream, in the drama in the dream?

Were you more active in the dream, were you a witness?

Did you kind of sit back and let things happen, or were you the agent and the hero of the drama?

In my dream, it began with me walking alone in solitude and loneliness, walking through this dark night under the moonlight. Eventually I became more involved with my family members.

Another question to consider is, how were you a witness and/or participant of the dream?

Sometimes in our dreams, you may find that you are walking as in first person, like a narrative, seeing and experiencing all these things. Then suddenly you may see yourself outside of yourself. Like in the dream, I was walking in the park at first, but then I saw myself holding hands with my mother and a sibling. I both was a witness and a participant. Sometimes divinity will shift our point of view in a dream to show us something very significant. I remember looking at myself holding hands like a silhouette in the night with my family members and feeling that somehow there is deep meaning in my relationship there.

Also, how did you interact with the dream’s constituents, meaning, how did you basically respond and react to all the different elements of the dream: the people, the place, the environment, the situation?

This contributes to the next question, which is, what was the overarching narrative or sub-narrative of the dream?

This is very significant, because every dream is a story. What was the overarching story, and were there sub-stories to this dream?

In my dream, it was me walking in the park at night, but then it became enmeshed with another story, which is my family. Somehow the symbol of the Moon, the wolf, the twilight, and the night, all compounded and connected to my relationships with my family members. Therefore, the mood of the dream was deeply connected with the people there.

Sometimes the story is enmeshed in a larger story, kind of like an Alexander Dumas novel, who is considered the king of plot, and that he would have many stories within larger stories―very complex―and dreams can be like that. So, it is good to reflect upon what is the overarching theme. What is the narrative, the story? How do we contribute to it, and were there other little narratives or stories within the dream itself?

In this case, in my example, I was deeply afraid and seeking comfort from my family, from the wolf and the Moon. In a sense that was the story that I felt, and I was thinking to myself in the moment.

Lastly, what were the relationships between different dream events?

We have to examine every event in the dream. How do they connect? What happened first? What happened second? Was there a chronology present?

In my example, I walked through the park first. I was alone, and that set the tone for the dream immediately because it was about loneliness, the Moon, sorrow, pain, twilight, uncertainty. I walked through a park, amongst a playground that was abandoned, thinking about how lonely I was at that time. Eventually I ended up being with my family members, trying to find comfort with them. Therefore, the first event, walking alone in a park, was connected to me eventually seeking comfort and solace from my mother and sibling. That connected with the Moon and the wolf, because as symbols, they were showing me something about the need to understand my relationships, how all of it was connected to these symbols, which we are going to unpack.

Ambience

Another thing to consider is the ambiance of a dream.

What were the sounds and colors of the dream?

Sound and color are significant. Darkness, shades, black, and pale colors can indicate dread, sorrow, pain, fear, dark emotions.

Likewise, sound. Are they pleasant sounds or are they fearful sounds?

In the dream I had, I was listening to the wind. It was very silent. I could hear my footsteps on the soil. So those contributed to an ambiance or emotion of great uncertainty.

Also, where did your dream take place and what was its tone and atmosphere?

The places we dream are really important. Oftentimes, we dream about our home, familiar neighborhoods, and surroundings. They are representing qualities of mind, qualities of consciousness, aspects of ourselves, because often our identities are very much enmeshed terrestrially in place. We have certain attitudes, habits, and behaviors that we adopt in our physical life in accordance with our environment, the places we go, the school we were educated in, the friends and people that we associated with in those spaces. Those often contribute to a sense of tone, and likewise, dreams, when they show us a place, are showing us something psychological, in relation to our mood as well.

So, they all contribute to an ambience or initial feeling that is like a signifier of the overall impact or emotion of the dream, what its quality is going to determine for us.

We should also consider the weather. What was the weather like in your dream? Was it stormy? Was it dark? Was it chaotic? Was there rain? Was it calm? Was it peaceful?

We know even in movies and in literature that storms, and weather, often preface or present forebodings, omens, challenges, pain. So, the weather and its qualities, whether its pleasant or its dark, can signify something important for us in relation to our quality of mind and heart.

What was the overall tone, mood, or quality of the experience?

Basically, when you woke up from your dream, how did you feel? How did you feel towards the dream and its elements?

That’s really important. That tells us whether or not the dream is authentic. If it hits you hard, you know it means something. Therefore, we puzzle and puzzle over what it can mean. So even in this dream that I had when I was young, I felt that it was very important, even though I had no concept of what dream yoga might entail. But I knew in the experience this was something very prophetic, impactful, moving.

Lastly how did the characters, entities, or objects in the dream respond in relation to you?

Often times our environment can change in a dream. The characters or entities themselves can change in response to our interactions, and also the mood of the dream can change depending on our behaviors, our responses.

Spiritual and Egotistical States

Some things to consider too is spiritual and egotistical states.

We go back to the human machine. With time and meditation and practice, we begin to recognize the quality of our dreams. Some dreams feel more real, more authentic, more objective, and they reflect qualities of mind that are not egotistical.

We referred to the superior intellectual and superior emotional centers, which are aspects of our human machine that reflect the superior aspects of dreams. Some dreams can be more intellectual, like to memory, thought, concepts, preoccupations. Some dreams can be more emotional. Some involve a lot of action related to the motor brain, the motor center, as well as our instincts and sexual drives. When we are meditating on our dreams, we have to reflect on that quality, like we are tasting a drink. People who reflect deeply can really begin to discriminate a unique taste to a superior quality or a superior vision, which do not have anything to do with the incoherent, chaotic, conflicting, afflictive, and disturbed states of the ego.

We should ask ourselves when we dream, when we meditate, which center of the human machine predominates in a dream?

How are we dreaming?

Which center was manifested?

What was the quality of the dream and your psychological states?

What egotistical thoughts, emotions, or impulses were expressed?

Did we think negative evil thoughts, disturbing emotions, and perform or commit any harmful actions in our dreams?

We have to reflect on that. That is signifying what kind of dream it is, depending on what type of elements were present within our psychology, what was driving us. Likewise, as we reflect more upon the difference between our soul and the ego, we can begin to understand what real visions are.

What conscious understandings and sentiments manifested?

Did we understand something deeply in the dream that perhaps escapes our logic?

Was there something very deep and intuitive there that we feel but we do not necessarily intellectually comprehend?

That is also a very unique quality of a superior vision. It indicates something that is objective. You know there is something more there that we may lack the intellectual knowledge to define. Like in my dream when I was young, I knew that dream meant something deep, but I had no idea how to identify it. I just knew that something bad was going to happen based on the mood and the symbols in the dream and the overall impression that it made.

Also, what was the overall quality of the dream’s logic?

Did the dreams narrative make sense?

Was there something unifying all the events in the dream in a coherent narrative?

Did it make sense or was it gibberish? Was it nonsensical? Were there many elements that were just garbled and jarbled together? We have to analyze that.

Lastly, what types of actions did the dream inspire within you?

Do we feel longing to explore ourselves, become more profound, to reflect upon the meaning of our life?

Because those dreams can inspire us to deeper insights, to push us, to inspire us, even if we do not know what they mean at first.

Or do our dreams perhaps reflect merely chaos?

We have to analyze that.

Intentions and Outcomes

Every dream has an intention and an outcome. Every dream reflects a desire to do, as well as a particular ending. Any story has a beginning, middle and an end. So, we have to reflect upon:

What is our intentions in the beginning of the dream, but also what is it that we seek or how does it actually turn out?

What was the desired outcome of the dream?

In my dream, I wanted comfort from my family. I wanted them to protect me from harm. I wanted to be safe. I did not want to feel threatened and alone. I sought comfort in the twilight, to be consoled and comforted by my mother and my sibling, but I found that I actually in the dream could not.

Reflect, what was the actual outcome?

What was the result of the dream?

What was the outcome of your actions of the situation of the dream?

I know that when I sought comfort by holding hands with my family members, I looked up at the Moon and the wolf and realized that I could not be protected from that. So, I felt haunted and afflicted.

How did you feel in relation to the situation or characters?

I thought and I felt that I could be comforted and protected, but the reality is that I could not.

Lastly, what was your mood in the end of the dream and its result?

Oftentimes the end of the dream is the most compelling because it stamps or finalizes/concedes to whatever the overall message is, the overall warning, as well perhaps potential consequences that might play out in our life.

Identifying Symbols

This brings us to the very interesting topic of symbols.

We talked a lot about the different laws of dream interpretation. We spoke specifically about philosophical analogies, contrary meanings, correspondences, and numerology.

We have to look at the symbols of the dream. What was the philosophy or what philosophies are the symbols associated with?

The Moon, as a symbol within religions, is a symbol of suffering, moral pain, affliction.

It is also associated with the wolf. The wolf in Egyptian mythology, or a jackal in Egyptian mythology, can relate to Anubis, the law of karma, cause and effect, and that for every action we have a consequence.

So, after many years of meditating on this dream, I began to see some connections. The Moon was “suffering” and the wolf was “karma,” and that in my youth and my adolescence I would have to suffer, and that while seeking comfort within family members, it would not be attained.

But also, as a philosophy, those traditions like Egypt or any religious tradition can teach us deeper background knowledge about what we need to know about ourselves and how the dream is unfolding.

It also helped me realize in my dream that I was facing the inevitable, with something that I could not change. It was eternal, permanent, related to karma. It was something that was going to happen that could not be avoided.

Also consider, what is the contrary meaning or opposite of a symbol?

The opposite of the Moon is the Sun, which is light, life, luminosity, the divine, happiness.

What does the symbol correspond with?

What is the symbol related to?

Obviously, symbols in diverse religious traditions have a lot of depth. This why we study many traditions throughout the world in our studies.

Like we see in this graphic. Starting from 12 o’clock going clockwise, we see symbols of the Baháʼí Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native Spirituality, Sikhism, Taoism, Unitarian Universalism, and Zoroastrianism. These are symbols surrounding the Sun, which is a symbol of the divine.

Likewise, as we are analyzing and identifying symbols, we should consider what these diverse traditions teach, because these symbols compact a lot of meaning. For example, the symbol of Islam is the Moon and the star of Venus. It is by working with love that we transform our suffering. That is the essence of Islam, the Muslim tradition in its esoteric sense.

Likewise, these symbols teach us about truths that we should understand and dive into so that we can really unpack our dreams.

Lastly, what numbers were represented? Numbers are very deep. They encode the sacred arcana of The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah. We study them so that we can go deep within numerology and numbers in our dreams.

The Intersection of Dream Symbols

Something to consider too is the intersection of dream symbols. We should consider how multiple symbols interact, how they all connect, because the way they relate to each other can unveil many deep symbols or deep connections that are very intricate and very significant.

What different kinds of symbols were present in the dream, and did multiple symbols interact? If so, how?

I saw the Moon and the wolf, sorrow and karma. They are very intimately related. They actually represent two aspects of the same thing, that by our own actions, we reap the consequences.

Also, consider, which symbol or symbols predominated and why?

Maybe one symbol has greater attention in the dream, or maybe they both share the same space, but perhaps one of them is more prominent. We should ask why because if a symbol is on the forefront or has the most impact in our dream, it probably means that that is going to set the overall tone and has the most significance for us. Like, by seeing the Moon, obviously I realized that I was going through a lot of pain and suffering. Then the wolf kind of contributed to that, showing that it was karma.

How did the dream situation relate to the number, symbol or dramatization?

This dream can relate to Arcanum 18: Twilight, the Moon, affliction. So, symbols can relate to numbers, and situations can play out in relation to those numbers, or the symbols of those cards, as we are going to elaborate upon. The dramas all relate to the numbers themselves and the particular symbols.

Also, how are the numbers both individual and cumulative in the dream?

Did you dream of a number, maybe many numbers?

What do they mean individually as arcana or tarot cards, but also how do they add up together?

How do they all contribute to and add significance to each other? Because when you examine that, you begin to look at a very deep language.

Predictive Solutions

So, the arcana of the tarot are symbols and images that teach truths, philosophies, principles, forces of nature, qualities that we need to develop in our soul, but also qualities that we need to overcome.

Every card has a bit of a dual significance. There are positive and negative attributes to these cards, pretty much in all cases, but there are a few cards that have perhaps more of a negative than a positive meaning.

Now, when you receive a number in a dream, you have to analyze in relation to the tarot card itself that is present.

What does it symbolize?

What is represented in the card?

What are the problems and challenges associated with the arcanum, that law, that moment in our particular spiritual experience, but also what are the solutions that it represents?

What potential or actual solutions were presented to the problems in the dream?

When you get numbers or receive symbols in dreams that relate to these cards, they are showing us what is the reality of our spiritual situation, but also what we need to do to overcome them.

So, the potential solution in my dream with Arcanum 18: Twilight, the Moon, was to seek comfort in my family. I thought that they would protect me from the wolf and the sky, and as a symbol, it was showing me that even though I looked for comfort in perhaps family members in my childhood, I still was a victim of my own secret enemy, because Arcanum 18 relates to the secret enemy: our defects, our egos, our vices. It is our own ego which pulls us from the path, which makes us suffer, which produces karma.

What should have happened in the dream in relation to the symbol or sacred arcanum?

In the dream you may receive a number. Maybe it relates to a particular quality in yourself. Perhaps in Arcanum 18, I was experiencing solitude and loneliness, the uncertainty of facing my own self while growing up, my own defects. In the dream, what should have happened was that I wanted to run away. I did not want to be there and that the symbol of the arcanum itself is teaching that one has to face their own selves―light vs. darkness, or white wolf or jackal and a black wolf or jackal, good vs. evil.

What should happen is that we should face ourselves or in the dream, I should have faced myself, faced the ordeals that were coming.

What principles or guidance are implicit within the dreams manifested numbers? So each card not only presents a problem, but a solution.

The solution of Arcanum 18, if you add the numbers together, is 1 + 8 = 9, because in kabbalah, numerology, you add numbers together to arrive at a deeper synthesis. You can even take the numbers individually. 1 is The Magician, the first card, the one who initiates the spiritual way of being. Arcanum 8 is Justice, patience through ordeals, sufferings through hardship. The synthesis of those two, by initiating a spiritual path and waiting patiently for its results, we enter Arcanum 9: The Hermit, which is the initiate.

Notice that in Arcanum 9, the hermit walks upon a moon, but is guided by the Sun. Implicit within Arcanum 18 is that one should use their willpower and face the hardships of life, the ordeals and sufferings of existence, in order to become an initiate. That is how we really overcome the uncertainty of twilight, when it is neither day nor night, when we are clouded by our own mind and perhaps do not know the right path.

Something to also consider is, how did your dream actions embody the virtues or weaknesses of the sacred arcana?

So were there particular actions in our dream, things that we did that show us the virtue of that arcanum, or perhaps its weakness?

Were we a hero or were we a villain? Perhaps we were both in some moments.

Does the dream inspire ethical or unethical behaviors?

Are we impelled or driven to be more spiritual as a result of these dreams, or do we feel more inclined towards our own negative behaviors?

The cards show us many truths, philosophies to think about, which relate to particular circumstances in our existence. They can predict many things for us, but also show us the way out of problems…

Initiation is Your Own Life

…which is why we study our own life. Initiation is our own life, lived intensely, with rectitude and with love. Dreams often show us what is going on in our physical existence.

We should consider, what specific ordeals are you facing now in the physical world?

Because a vivid dream can show us what we are facing, show us the reality of the situation, show us a deeper dimension and internal experience, how we think and feel about them, of the truth of those challenges that we may not be willing to face yet.

We should also consider, who is currently involved in our life, struggles and challenges?

Who are the people involved in our life at this moment?

Are there people we have a conflict with, that we disagree with, that we have arguments with, fights?

Who is involved in our life that is the most immediate importance in impact?

Because our dreams can show us our relationships, but also what we need to do with them. We should analyze the characters in our own life story, who is involved in our saga, so that we can understand what to do.

Also, how are other people agents, or actors, within your karmic situation?

What are people doing in our life that are repeating or producing a problem that we are trying to solve, that we are trying to fix?

What are your reactions to individual or collective events?

Are there are specific scenarios that are in our life that repeat, that are compounded, that accumulate, that have been going on and on? Or was there just an individual moment that we want to better understand? ― because our dreams can connect with that.

We can analyze what is going on in our life now so that we can understand the connections to our dreams, because our dreams can be reflecting those dynamics in a deeper way with images, and characters, and narratives with the story.

We should also reflect upon: how are we choosing to behave in defined circumstances and why? Oftentimes we may ignore our worst enemy, which is us.

How we are choosing to behave in life in certain circumstances?

What really motivates us, why are we doing what we are doing?

Unless we are self-observing, we are not going to see that. We are not going to see the connections within our dreams and our own defects, because our ego is what produces problems. Our defects are what cause pain. So we have to observe that.

What different egos have you observed in your daily life?

What are you working on now in your spiritual work that is of most importance to you, as well as the wellbeing of your loved ones, your acquaintances, and strangers?

What defects have you looked in yourself and have seen that are producing all the tragedies, comedies, and dramas of life?

Which defects are causing the most problems for you and why?

We have to look at that. If you want to understand dreams more, understand your own life―look at the connections.

Our dreams can be showing us things that are going on internally. I know that in that dream example that I provided, when I was very young, I sought comfort in my mother as well as a sibling, very much identified with them, trying to get their attention and support, and yet those influences were not enough to sustain or go against, perhaps, the sense of loneliness or pain relating to karmic situations that came up at that time. So, we have to examine all that.

Woman looking in mirror at invisible man

The Internal is the External

What are our defects?

What do we need to change?

This is how we draw connections between the internal with the external.

How did the symbols or dream situations reflect your daily life?

How did the symbols represent what is going on physically?

In one sense in my dream, my mother was perhaps my Divine Mother, and holding on to the hand of a sibling was perhaps the spiritual community that I sought. Yet despite looking for those things and seeking comfort, I did not receive it because of karma, of pain, the Moon.

So how did the symbols or dream situations reflect that?

How do our dream actions reflect our physical actions?

What are we doing in the dream that is being repeated in physical life, maybe not literally, but symbolically?

What mood or sentiments permeate both your dream and waking life?

Because the quality of a dream can often reflect the quality of a particular state in our physical existence. The two are connected and if we are very diligent and vigilant and awake, we can see it.

How do your dream states reflect your daily psychological states?

Does the dream reflect an emotional quality that you find represented in your life?

Meditate on that. Examine the connections.

How is a particular moment in your life related to the Moon, to repeated sorrows, to pain?

How might your dream and its symbols warn you about your behaviors, situations, or other people?

Obviously when you see symbols of people or representations of family members, they often can represent something divine in us, maybe our divine parents, maybe a spiritual community. Maybe they are warning us about what we should expect in our physical existence. They also could warn us about how we are behaving and what we are doing in relation to other people that should be reconsidered, that should be meditated upon, that should be rectified.

How might the dream present the right course of action in a vigil state?

Sometimes a dream will show us perhaps what we should do, what we can do, and how we should proceed, that relates to our intentions but also the actual outcome.

Lastly, does the dream contradict or align with scriptural, prophetic, ethical, or spiritual conduct?

Is there anything that the dream is pushing us to do that may align with or go against the scriptures, what the prophets have lived, their ethics, the conduct that they expect from their disciples?

That can often tell us whether the dream is objective or not. If we are meditating on it and we see that the dream inspires us to better behavior, we can be more assured that it is probably objective, and it is inspiring us to be spiritual.

Recurring Dreams

Some dreams repeat, as we showed extensively in a previous lecture on How to Consciously Enter Dreams. It is important to reflect on which dreams are repeating in ourselves, because if they repeat often, it can mean that there is a problem that we are not fully addressing and that we should take deep consideration of.

We should ask ourselves, what elements repeat themselves in our dreams?

What repeats? How frequently does the dream repeat?

More importantly, are there variations among each dream occurrence?

If you dream of the Moon perhaps, are there different types of moons that you see? Are they eclipsed? Are they full? Are they crescent? Are they waxing. Are they waning?

That type of dream can indicate variations in our psychology. A full moon can mean pain, but a crescent moon, a waxing moon, or better said a waning moon, when the moon is diminishing in its luminosity, can perhaps show us a bit more of reduction in perhaps egotistical states.

It is important to reflect upon whether or not this recurring dream, perhaps of seeing the Moon, is changing every time we see it, because that’s reflecting back to us how we are changing.

Also, how do your behaviors change or stay the same in these dreams?

Are we just repeating the same thing and suffering more? Or are we gaining traction and ground, progress?

Perhaps the Moon is diminishing or vanishing from the night sky in the astral horizon. Perhaps the Sun is replacing it. These are very positive symbols, real progress, real change in representations of how our quality and level of being is elevating.

Do you experience the same or different reactions to each dream?

Even if you see the Moon again in a dream, do you react the same as you used to?

Or perhaps, do you feel serenity even in the face of hardship, or perhaps whatever omen that this prophecy is presenting, that even though something bad might happen in one’s daily life, we face it with courage, with indifference?

Do you ever experience recurring situations in life that are reflected in your dreams?

We should reflect. Again, if a dream is recurring, it probably means that we have a life situation that repeats, especially in relation to Arcanum 10: The Wheel of Retribution, karma, the wheel of suffering, existence.

But also, the last question we should think about is, why do you have this recurring dream? What is driving it all?

Again, if you examine whatever situations in your life repeat, if you meditate on the connections between that and a particular dream, you can gain better understanding about what is driving it all. Where does it come from? What defects are propelling the situation?

When you understand and work upon that defect, it no longer has power over you, does not determine your life, and therefore those dreams change.

How to Proceed

So how to proceed?

Some people get really paranoid or afraid of dreams, that they have a bad dream, that somehow their day is going to turn out bad, or something awful is going to happen.

We should be indifferent to whatever comes. Do not worry about or identify with the outcome of the dream. Whatever will happen will happen. What is important is that we are indifferent to both victory and defeat.

We should also be careful of self-fulling prophecies, fatalism, nihilism. You dream of a moon, do not think that everything is going to turn out bad, “Therefore, let me just give up.” Some people get like that.

The important thing is divinity is showing us a symbol, is warning us, not to fill us with despair, but to help us have courage and to change and rectify the situation. Therefore, we should extract the lessons from our dreams in waking experiences, because the two are different sides of the same coin, that these are life lessons. They all connect. We should always be learning, learning from our dreams, analyzing our dreams, so that we can better inform our actions. Be careful and be sure to identify the connections between the dream and waking life without fear, anxiety, or desire―wanting there to be a connection that is not there, or feeling fear or anxiety about what the dream is prophesying for us.

We should also understand that both good and bad dreams can be obstacles―if we become attached. So having dreams is good, but being identified, dark and morbid and despairing over a dream, or being too overly confident, are not good reactions. We should just take them for what they are. They are messages. We should apply them as best we can and then move on. Be patient.

Resources

Here are some resources to study if you want to go deeper into the practice of meditation as well as analytical meditation.

We have Meditation Essentials and Meditation without Exertion from Glorian Publishing. These courses go into a lot of detail about how to develop concentration, serenity, as well as imagination, so that we have a very robust consciousness.

We also have two courses on our website, one Gnostic Meditation and the other, The Sufi Principles of Meditation, which also gives some practices as well that build on each other in sequence to prepare for real deep comprehension.

We also included a link to our course on The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah. I know I touched on a lot of different aspects of the tarot, and it can be confusing for some who are very new to this topic, but I recommend that if you want to go into a lot of detail about what the tarot cards mean and how to use them, you can study this course.

Exercises

Every day, deepen your practice of self-observation and the Key of Sol.
Every day, practice meditative retrospection, then pick a fact to investigate further and meditate on that fact. Do not speculate, theorize, or intellectualize.
Lastly, record your dream experiences and the facts of your day in your spiritual diary.

At this point in time, we are going to open up the floor to questions.

Questions and Answers

Question: Hi, I understand that what often needs to be analyzed in a dream sometimes can be pointed out by the dream itself. Waking up, sitting with it, something in the dream happens that gives a direction in terms of what we need to look into. Sometimes in my experience it has been not so clear what needs to be looked into and what method of analysis from the dream itself. And sometimes we are in circumstances in our daily life that make it so getting calm to do that, to figure that out, or to let the come to me very difficult. You listed a lot of really helpful things, and it seems imperative that we have all of them. Would you feel confident or comfortable in telling me kind of the top two that you would suggest in terms of… I want to analyze this, but I’m not doing it. It’s not easy to figure out how to do it. What is a couple of go-to’s that you would list as important? I know that it really depends on who it is and what the dream is and stuff. I just wanted a few if you might say.

Instructor: Great questions! I would say follow your heart in terms of what is your emotional impact from your dream. I think that perhaps the easiest thing to analyze is your mood in relation to the experience. How did you feel in relation to the dream? What was your reaction to it? How hard did it hit you? What was your emotional state? Because our emotional state will often preface more important things, like perhaps the gravity of the situation, what actually happened in the dream, its parts.

Now, I know that a lot of what I presented covers a lot of ground and that definitely, if you are meditating, you do not necessarily just want to make it a check list and say, “I am going to follow this step, followed by this,” etc. Meditation does not work that way. I broke it down in a very explicit and hopefully comprehensive manner, because these are things that we can consider.

But as you said, some dreams may have more prominent features. Some dreams might not have any numbers in them. Maybe there is just a symbol, or maybe there is just an interaction with a character or a person. Regardless of whatever elements are in the dream, I think the two most important things to consider are: what is your emotional impact, like how did you feel in your dream and its result, but also, what actually happened?

I started this analysis by talking about the situational factors. I think that to really go deep into a dream, we have to look at the narrative, like, who was involved, what was there, who are the characters, how are we a part, but also how do we feel in relation to the dream? Obviously, the more impactful dreams are going to have some symbols to them, very deep symbols. They can be related to religion or numerology. But some symbols may not be that obvious. I think the best way to start, is at least for me, I reflect upon what happened here, and how did I feel? Because those together are kind of the baseline. They are the thread that weaves together the whole story. So, if you are looking for a beginning, you can start there, for something concrete. Then if there are other elements that present themselves in the dream, obviously you can approach them in that way.

But again, meditation is very intuitive. What I was presenting today is hopefully a list of guidelines or principles that can be applied depending on our circumstances. But knowing how to discriminate on what to focus on is a difficult thing, like you said. We have to rely on intuition. Follow your heart. If something is bugging you about the dream, meditate on that. Meditate on your hunch, your uneasiness, your uncertainty, maybe your fear, maybe your longing. Again, that has to relate to ambiance: the emotional impact of the dream, your heart. Remember that the astral dimension is the world of the heart. It is the world of superior but also inferior emotion. So obviously that is going to register the most impact for us, is how we feel. I hope that answers your question.

Question: With this process of analyzing the dream and learning from it, is the end goal to reach a stage where we are not dreaming at all, or having only positive dreams?

Instructor: It is important to clarify very specifically what we mean by dreams. A dream, in very strict esoteric language, often relates to a subjective quality of our perception―relating to our ego, our defects. A dream is often merely a reflection of our negative, subjective, psychological states. I kind of was being a little bit dualistic with my use of the term, but I want to be specific here that a dream, often in Gnostic terms, is a projection of the mind, our defects, an illusion. It is kind of like a projector showing a film on a screen, and yet we see the images and contents of the film, which is our mind, and the astral dimension is reflecting that experience. So, it is not something that is really authentic and real, or objective.

Now a vision is something else, in which we see reality for what it is, when the consciousness is not projecting anything, but merely receiving new information. We are seeing what is actually there, and these visions have to do with objective experiences and prophecies, omens, or teachings from the divine.

Now the end goal of these studies is to no longer dream, but to be awake, to no longer be seeing what our mind wants, but to see what is actually there. For that we have to learn to analyze our dreams. We can analyze our own illusions and how we are egotistical and asleep, not only within dreams, but in waking life. But also, we want to learn to be conscious citizens of the cosmos, so that when we are physically asleep, we are in the internal dimensions awake, seeing that dimension for what it is, without any filter. In that sense, we are no longer dreaming, but we are illuminated.

Now the point of these studies is not necessarily just to avoid bad dreams, but to comprehend their roots, understand why we suffer. These dreams teach us something about, or perhaps better said, visions, teach us something about how to live our life. They teach us how to change, how to be initiates, so that we can stop suffering and help other people to be upright human beings. We cannot do that by only having positive dreams, but facing the darkness, facing our own cages that we have built. The way that we analyze our dreams is going to open up the understanding of how to change physically, how to live a more ethical lifestyle. So, we study and analyze our dreams so that we can have a better impact, and receive knowledge and wisdom of how to live. So, it is not just to avoid bad dreams, but I guess in the sense, a positive dream would be, or better said, a vision would be, having illumination and vividness and awakeness in the dream state. We no longer sleep there, but we are conscious, to be fully awakened.

Question: I have heard certain dream yoga teachers recommend telling yourself that you are in a dream even during waking life. What do you think about this?

Instructor: It is true! We give a whole lecture on this “How to Lucid Dream,” because in our physical life, we are constantly distracted, inattentive, asleep, within ourselves, within our body. We think we are vigilant and awake, but we are not, evidenced by the fact that when we go to bed at night, our consciousness enters the astral dimension, but without awareness, because the soul is not trained during the daytime. We are asleep as a soul when we daydream, fantasize, reminisce, get lost in a chain of thought, fantasy. We are not really paying attention to the moment. If you train yourself in the daytime to be awake and vigilant and learn how to test yourself in the physical world, perhaps by jumping in the air to see if you float, or pulling your finger to see it stretch―obviously, you don’t do this physically; it is impossible to fly in the physical world―but if you get in the habit of testing yourself, eventually when you go to sleep at night, you do the same test or technique―pull you finger―and suddenly you may find it stretch. You realize that you are in the dream world. Or jump in the air and you find that you float, because physically you trained yourself to do that whenever you come upon something anomalous or strange in your waking life, and then you transfer that same questioning skill to your dreams. We give a whole lecture on that. I recommend you study “How to Lucid Dream,” where I talked about that.

Any other questions?

There are no other questions. We will conclude. I thank you all for attending! The next lecture will be in person in Chicago. It will be the last one in this course “Navigating the Internal Worlds.” We will talk about all the different things that we can do in the astral plane, since we have gone over many techniques to experience and interpret dreams. I will talk about how to actually navigate the internal worlds. Thank you all for coming!

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How to Interpret Dreams

10/1/2022

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Silhouette of man with a clock and astrology symbols

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The purpose of this lecture is to discuss the utility of dreams: the purpose, the role, the dangers, some of the obstacles, as well as the principles by which we can understand a very deep part of our life. I will be going through some practices that we can use so that we can better understand our dreams, our relationship to the unconscious, as well as the most spiritual principles that we carry within.

What Are Dreams For?

It is good to reflect on what dreams are for, to understand why we dream.

We have mentioned many times that dreams are the gateway to the divine. Oftentimes, our dreams will be a form of instruction, spiritual guidance, and even encouragement from our spirit, wisdom from our internal truth, knowledge about how to work practically in ourselves, so that we have a deeper relationship with the divine.

On this path of self-exploration, we get encouragement. We get visions. We get insights, primarily about how to live our life with wisdom. Oftentimes, in dreams, we can have celebrations, victories over hardship, in which our innermost spirit, what we call the Being, the divine, encourages, enlightens us, and inspires us to keep us moving forward in our path.

We also find that we can be warned about critical issues, dangers. This is the meaning of prophecy, of omens throughout diverse cultures, whereby we are instructed about how to walk effectively in life, to be warned about the future.

We also get insight into psychological problems, states of mind that are particularly difficult, enlightenment about how we ourselves may be impeding our progress, our spiritual growth.

We also find practical solutions. Dreams can show us how to solve problems in our daily life, because our dreams are a reflection of what we need to do physically. They are not separate. They are integrated.

We also talk in this teaching about past lives, remembering past existences, whether from Hinduism or Buddhism, as well as many other spiritual traditions. In this way, by our understanding where we came from, why we are here, we learn how to change fundamentally. By knowing our past states of being, we understand our present situation. This is why the Talmud in the Jewish tradition stated:

A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read. ―Talmud

It is a message. It is a guidance.

How Does Divinity Communicate?

So how does divinity communicate?

Just like any teacher in a school, divinity teaches us in accordance with our experiences, our background knowledge, our life experiences, situations we have been through, the people we know, the associates we work with, our family members, places and environments where we grew up. This explains why some people dream about their home, what is familiar, or family members. These are not necessarily literal representations of those places. Instead, they can be symbols. They teach us something about us psychologically, our state of mind.

So, if you dream of a brother or a sister, a family member, it can reference someone who is a brother or sister to you in your spiritual world. Parents can represent the eternal divine, the divine masculine, the divine feminine, parts of us that want to elevate our way of being. Even though we may dream of other people and places and things, in truth these represent something about us.

It is good not to take dreams literally. Instead, they are archetypes. An archetype is a blueprint, a sketch, a symbol, a representation of something deeper.

What is interesting about the way we experience dreams is that they are not only something that we witness, but we also participate with. We are both the actor and the director of a film. In this dynamic, in this clear perception, we come to understand that these visions are very different quality of mind. They are not an egotistical type of perception: fear, resentment, anger, nightmares. Instead, the quality is something subtle, refined, and spiritual, something pure.

These visions lack any type of subjectivity. There is no flaw in it. It is not trapped in a type of condition of mind, a negative emotion. These qualities elevate our heart. They inspire us, and they come from the Being, the divine, our inner divinity.

five centers with two superior ones: intellect and emotion

They manifest in what we call the superior mind and the superior emotional center, that we discussed in a previous lecture about our human constitution, the human machine [How Do We Dream?]. These centers of our psychology only know how to transmit that which is spiritual, and so, the quality of that state is very unique. It is something that we have to taste again and again, to recognize and to become familiar with.

How Do I Understand My Dreams?

The question becomes, how do I understand my dreams?

To really understand the language of the divine, we have to expand our vocabulary. This means to study scripture. Study the texts of the great masters of humanity, whether of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Jainism. All these texts were written from beings who were visionaries. They transmitted a knowledge that is so transcendent, that it escapes culture, because it is universal. However, they use their particular language, their talents, their skills, and in accordance with the idiosyncrasy of the people they taught, they gave scripture.

All these scriptures are written in the language of dreams. This is why, for example, the Bible, or the Qur’an, or many texts which are very impactful, seem to be very, perhaps, contradictory. Some people look at the Bible and say, “This does not make sense with this.” But they are not reading it properly. These texts are a form of dream language. They are not literal. They are representations, and if we want to understand our dreams more, it is good to understand what these great beings taught, to know the consensus and the diversity of symbols that we may experience in our own dreams.

Kabbalah: The Language of Dreams

We also talk about the language of dreams as the kabbalah. This is traditionally associated with Judaism. But the reality is that this diagram, this Tree of Life, with its ten spheres, represents levels of being, the multidimensionality of who we are, our full potential, whether from the most abstract at the top, the most divine, or to the densest and material below, our physical existence.

This image is universal. It is in every religion, but not represented in this way. Just as Newton did not invent gravity, but merely formulated a theory, likewise, Jewish culture documented this truth in accordance with the Hebrew language and idiosyncrasy.

But it is useful to study this type of graphic in relation to ourselves and is very profound. It is codified. It is a way that we can map our experiences, who we are, where we are, where we are going.

קבלה Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew קבל kabel, which means “to receive.” It is knowledge that we receive directly from God. It is mystical experience. It is a profound vision. It is insight. It is a psychological, mystical, and archetypal grammar. The language of dreams, the symbols of dreams, are representations of deeper truths, something about us that we need to understand.

They relate to our mental, emotional, and spiritual environment. They teach us about our mind. I am sure we have all had a dream that brought us here, something that provoked our great unease, perhaps our longing, or perhaps gave us insight into life, or provoked questions about why we are here and what we are doing.

This mystical language is something that we understand in our soul. We call it the Essence, the consciousness, the spark of the divine that can fully develop into a master, an enlightened one. This language or this knowledge is not intellectual. It is not of the mind. It is a very different apparatus. The intellect is useful in its place, but it can trap us. We have to understand and awaken perception that is beyond our mind, even our cultural habits, our personality, our taste, our preferences.

Consciousness is something deeper. It is beyond our personality. This language is not literal. It can represent our life experiences and can teach us something about what we need to do in our spiritual life.

These dreams, or this language, is multidimensional. There is not just one meaning to a dream. In fact, many dreams have a deep code that have layers and layers, which over the years, we can begin to verify more and more and understand.

The logic of dreams is not linear. It does not go from A to B to C. The trajectory and the connections are very diverse, which is why we need a lot of intuition to understand them.

This Tree of Life is very deep, and we study it so that we know and understand our experiences, which is why Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, stated:

The objective of studying the kabbalah is to be skilled for work in the internal worlds... One who does not comprehend remains confused in the internal worlds. Kabbalah is the basis in order to understand the language of these worlds. ―Samael Aun Weor

Who Can Interpret Dreams?

Another question people ask is, “Who can interpret my dreams?” This is something we get quite a lot on our website, as well as during lectures or on internet forums. But there is a problem when someone, or we try to rely on someone, to interpret our dreams for us.

The problem is that our dreams are unique to us. They are particular to our own mind, our Being. As instructors or teachers, we do not necessarily know the full depth of a person, of each individual soul. Many of us are not enlightened enough for that.

Dreams and dream interpretation is also limited to the person, the instructor, or the student. If someone were to give a very accurate interpretation of someone’s dream, you would need to know the person’s life, their mind, their habits, their defects, their level of being, their consciousness, even their inner divinity. Those things are unique to all of us. The only one who should be a master of that is you.

We have to master our own understanding of who we are. Relying on someone to interpret our dreams presents more obstacles than it solves. Obviously, in some context there are symbols that can be helpful to understand, that in a general sense, can provide some baseline, but the real depth and magic of dream interpretation occurs when we access that knowledge for ourselves. We have to understand that all instructors are at different levels of being. Some are more well developed spiritually, some are not. That is just the reality. We should not learn to rely on other people for our understanding of things, because the point of this path is to be a master (self-mastery), and if we rely on others to teach us who we are, they become the master of us.

So, it is good to change that dynamic and not be too dependent. A real master will be silent. I knew one instructor, actually my teacher, who knew Samael Aun Weor, the founder of this tradition. If you have studied his books, you see that he has a lot of experiences about these types of things. Well, my instructor asked him to interpret a dream for him. Samael Aun Weor just remained silent, meaning, “Go home and meditate. I know the answer, but you need to figure it out.” If we rely on our own inner intuition, we gain confidence, faith, and strength in our own capabilities. It is good to remember that.

Woman dreaming in book surrounded by clouds

The Limitations of Dream Symbol Dictionaries

But obviously, it is easy to rely on a dictionary. We often go to books to explain our experiences, to identify and get some sense of what is going on. But another problem with this type of guidance or this type of book is that often times symbols are multifaceted. They are not singular in meaning.

Symbols have many dimensions of insights into them. For example, a cross, you know not only within Christianity, within many religions, and there are many layers and insights into what a cross symbolizes. A book can say a cross means “this,” but that is just one level of interpretation. It does not apply to the whole spectrum of what you perceived and what you experienced.

It is also important to remember that each symbol is contextual. They are interdependent. They are not isolated phenomena. One symbol, like a cross, can relate to another symbol in a dream. Therefore, you have a relationship there. Things are augmented. The symbols are enhanced because it is not just isolated by itself, but there is something else added to it. There is a relationship there.

Likewise, the question becomes, how do we interact with the symbol? I think this is one of the more important points, because you dream of a cross. Are you carrying it? Is it weighing you down? Is it on your head? Is it on a temple? Is it within a temple, within a dream? These symbols and our interactions with them are really significant. That determines what they mean.

This also relates to the psychological mood of our experiences, because our emotional reaction is the key. It is actually the doorway to understanding what the symbols mean, because the world of dreams is the world of emotions. If we analyze our intuition, how we feel about the dream, we can better understand what is going on.

Also, only individuals can be intuitive. A book is limited. Books cannot be flexible. They have one, perhaps, explanation for things, or maybe two or three if we are lucky. But an individual has a whole range of potential to interpret.

Also, the dream dictionaries are often, in our contemporary age, limited to the level of being of their authors, so not all people who write dream dictionary books are enlightened. This is why we rely on scripture, because those beings who taught those traditions were from the heights. So, it is good to rely on high quality material to be able to understand what is going on.

How Do We Know a Dream is True?

This brings us to the next question, “How do we know that a dream is true?”

They have to relate to our physical life, our conscious states, our emotions, our mind, situations in life. There has to be a connection. Otherwise, it is fantasy. It is desire. It is an illusion, a mirage. Well, when you see the symbols relate to something going on, perhaps at your work, your job, situations and people that you many know, then the “Aha!” moment, the spark, you see the connection. There is something going on that you have to look out for in your day.

Personally, for me, I tend to have a lot of dreams about my job because I have a difficult one. But we get clues about how to navigate situations. Then if you are very conscious and alert, you can see “This is it!” You know without having to think about it.

We have already explained how dreams operate on multiple levels. So, you may have a dream that means something one day, but also gathers more significance throughout the years. You see that there is deeper profundities and layers that only manifest themselves when we have more life experience. Then we see, “This is what my divinity was telling me.” So, as Samael Aun Weor states in his book Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology, the methods or the attitudes we need to interpret dreams:

Symbols must be analyzed coldly, without superstition, maliciousness, mistrust, pride, vanity, fanaticism, prejudgment, preconceptions, hatred, envy, greed, jealousy, etc. ―Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology

Who is Interpreting?

This is because if we want to understand our dreams properly, we have to understand who in us is trying to interpret.

It can be an odd question. We have talked extensively about this graphic, the human machine with its five centers: the intellect where we process thought, emotions where we experience sentiment and feeling, our motor center related to movement, our instinctual center related to digestion, unconscious appetites, instinct, reflexes, and also our sexual drives too.

Through these centers is how we manifest life. We experience life. As we have talked many times before, we have a wide range of conscious experience, whether from negative emotions and thoughts to the most elevated and spiritual. We divide or we categorize those types of perception as the soul (the Essence, the consciousness) and the ego (defects, the sense of “I” or myself that is perhaps selfish).

If we want to interpret dreams properly, we have to question, “Is it my fear that wants this dream to mean one thing, or is it my pride that wants to think somehow I am special?” If we dream of some being like a God―and I am sure we have all known situations or movements where there is a Guru that is teaching that they are somehow a prophet, who might have had certain experiences―and yet their actions contradict their declarations. So, we have to be very careful with our analysis, that we are not fearful or interpreting a dream because of our resentment towards someone. We will explain why a little bit more.

But the thing to think about is when we interpret, we are trying to render clear or explicit, from the Old French interpreter "explain; translate,” from the Latin interpretari “to explain, expound, understand,” from interpres "agent, translator.” We know in a situation in life that if we have an argument, our anger may be interpreting everything through our anger, and later we come to realize we did not see the situation for what it is. We have an agent or multiple agents in us that perhaps do not see life clearly, and so, because we have tendencies to make mistakes or not see reality or situations for what they are, we have to take our perceptions with a grain of salt, to be critical, but also to be patient and understanding with our own psychology.

Mythomania: The Danger of Spiritual Visions

This brings us to the topic of mythomania in relation to dreams. This term comes from the Sanskrit, to make a myth of manas. मनस् Manas in Sanskrit means “mind.”

There are dangers to spiritual visions, not because they are inherently harmful, but because we may interpret things mistakenly. So, on this image we see the foot of God standing above the horizon and an individual person standing on the earth. It is true that we may have an experience that is very spiritual, authentic, and brilliant. We may have an experience about our own inner divinity. Maybe we see ourselves as some kind of great being or prophet, a master, and the dream in a sense could be reflecting something about your own inner divinity―not our personality, not our name, our culture, our body, but our spirit. The spirit is sacred. The spirit is a master. But the question is, “Are we fully connected with that?” That is the question.

You can have a very authentic experience where you see your inner God, and yet if we are not careful, we come back to our body from an astral projection and think, “I am done. I have done the work.” Many people have fooled themselves and also have fooled many people, because they believe in a lie. It is the desire to be something one is not. It is the misinterpretation of an authentic spiritual experience. But also, it is possible that that experience could be a belief, or an illusion, or a mirage. Maybe it is just a projection of our own mind, our desire that wants to be something that it is not.

Mythomania means to make a myth of ourselves, to tell a narrative that somehow, “I am great, or in my past life I was John the Baptist or Mary Magdalene,” and they build a big story. This happens to a lot of people. It is to believe that our ego is divine.

The thing to remember is that our Being, our spirit, is what is real―not us. We are temporary. We are passing through this life. But the eternal is what It is.

But in this work, we can learn to eliminate pride, develop humility, and learn to express that truth perfectly, but that takes a lot of discipline.

Ethics, Spiritual Culture, and Restraint

This is why in our studies of dream interpretation we study ethics. We study spiritual culture, and we practice restraint.

I have an image here of Don Quixote riding across Spain on a full moon. Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote, was an initiate. He knew this knowledge and he taught the danger about speaking too openly about one’s visions, because in the story you have this old knight going on a quest, seeing many things, having many visions, and yet everyone around him saw him as a lunatic. In fact, I think Miguel de Cervantes even got himself into trouble for writing Don Quixote (might have been with the Inquisition).

Now, dreams in themselves are very intimate to the person. You may have a dream about, say, another person, and yet the thing to remember is that by speaking openly about such experiences, we can harm them. Maybe they are not ready to hear it, or more importantly, maybe they are not meant to know. It should be kept private, even if the experience was objective.

Many people have damaged spiritual groups because of gossip of this type: having a dream and then openly accusing “so-and-so” as a sorcerer or a witch, or was a bad person, was evil, and create a lot of conflict and divide communities. This is a very terrible crime of a severe magnitude, which is why we have to really be careful with our dreams.

The actions in dreams can even be past life memories. Maybe we see our spouse or someone we love committing a crime in a dream (adultery), but that could be a past life memory. In this life this person may not even be capable of hurting a fly. So having that dream, some people have been accused, even by their partners, “You are unfaithful.” know many cases of this, relationships ending in spiritual groups.

We also have to remember that these experiences could also just be projections of our own mind, could be our own jealousy, could be our own lust, fear, our desires, our habits.

It can be like this image. The Moon is a symbol of our ego in mystical language, within the dream language. We say, in a spiritual sense, the Moon is a cadaver. It is dead, has no life of its own. It is only animated by the Sun, and as a metaphor, our inner divinity is like the Sun. But our hatred, our pride, and anger, these are like the Moon. They borrow and trap the light of the spirit and do not allow it to fully manifest.

This Moon represents danger for us, because often times we know even from science how the Moon is a mechanical entity. It regulates many qualities and forces in nature, and often times our habits and desires just happen.

So, we have to be very careful with our speech. We should learn to develop what is called an intellectual-spiritual culture. Study the religious documents about right behavior, about compassion, about selflessness, about patience, because without these qualities, we can end up like Don Quixote, or even slandering other people. It is important to show decency and respect.

But also, more importantly, speaking about our experiences can build pride like, “I am a great instructor or missionary, or student, or spiritual person.” We have to be humble. That light does not originate from us (like the Moon). It comes from the Sun. We are but the vehicle for that.

The Three Stages of Dream Interpretation

So, there are three stages for dream interpretation. We show this image of the Tree of Life again because this maps out our multidimensional being, all the different dimensions from the densest to the most spiritual. Now when we have dreams within any type of these spheres, it is important to think about these three principles. Samael Aun Weor stated the following:

Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition are the three obligatory ways of initiation. ―Samael Aun Weor

So, initiation is our spiritual work: to begin a new type of life, to learn to take dreams seriously, to learn to understand their connection to us, to guide our spiritual work. We will talk about what these three are.

Imagination

We have explained that imagination has been known by a technical term in French, clairvoyance, “clear vision.” We call it imagination. That term clairvoyance was invented to confuse people, because there was a group of French mystics who wanted to keep their teachings secret, so they used the term clairvoyance to make it sound technical, like it is something complicated that only a few have.

The truth is, if you can imagine an apple right now, you have imagination. You can see spiritually. But the problem is that is not fully developed. But when we do develop our full potential, we gain access to this Tree of Life. We see our dreams with greater lucidity, with greater color and depth. We start off by developing consciousness. This is positive.

A lucid dream, an awaked state in which you are aware of being out of your body, is conscious clairvoyance, conscious imagination. But there are levels to this that lead up to, say, supraconsciousness, which is the consciousness of a god, a master, who can perceive all these dimensions all at once, but their body falls asleep and they can go out and immediately access anything, in the moment, at will. That is the level of a prophet, but we begin where we are at.

We often have to deal with our negative types of perceptions: subconsciousness, unconsciousness, infraconsciousness. We know these states, say, perhaps in our fears, intense anger, and even our most frightening nightmares, which is the bottom. But the important thing is, whenever we start to have dreams, it is a good sign that we are starting to see whether they are positive or negative. The important thing is that we at least begin to recognize that there is a reality beyond our terrestrial existence, that there is something more. If you do not see at first, you cannot understand. So first we develop our imagination, which we will give practices for you how to do this.

Inspiration

But after having the perception of a dream, the next point becomes inspiration. Inspiration is recognizing a symbol. It is when you know in your heart with a lot of joy, “This is a message from my inner Being, this comes from God. Now let me seek to understand it!” This explains the definition of inspiration in its original sense, “the immediate influence of God or a god,” or our inner divinity or perhaps a spiritual master, who may be teaching us in the world of dreams. It comes from the Latin inspirare, “to breathe upon.” We all know the saying, “to have a breath of fresh air,” something insightful. We are rejuvenated. We are inspired. This is an important step because when you know that you have received a symbol, the next task is to understand it.

Intuition

This is intuition, the comprehension. You know what the symbol means. It is insight. You directly perceive it, and you immediately understand its significance.

Now these three stages are not necessarily plateaus. They can happen all at once. They can happen over the course of many years. Maybe you had a dream or were inspired by a symbol in your childhood that only now are you beginning to understand. It happens like that. But with meditation and different practices, we learn in the moment how to understand it immediately.

Intuition and the Mantra ONRO

So, one practice that you can use to intuit or understand your dreams is a mantra.

Now mantras are sacred sounds. They help us to vibrate energy within our physiology, our mind, our heart, our spirit. By prolonging these vowels and pronouncing them with a lot of faith or intention, immersing yourself into the sound, you learn to activate qualities of your psyche that are dormant. It also helps us to train our mind because our mind (the intellect) is the primary obstacle (as we have explained previously). This is why Samael Aun Weor states the following in Dream Yoga:

The mind is like a wild horse, and we have to learn to control it with the whip of willpower. No one can enter higher initiations with the mind; only the heart can lead us to higher levels because the heart has a wonderful power if we develop it wisely. Intuition can open the entrance so that we can enter consciously into the world of Morpheus [the world of dreams]. ―Samael Aun Weor, Dream Yoga

So, you take the sounds, the vowels, and you prolong it like this, ONRO:

I know that trilling could be difficult for people, especially if you are not familiar with or do not speak Spanish, but I am sure there are YouTube videos you can find if you want to learn how to roll and trill the R’s. But if you cannot do it, it is OK. The important thing is that your consciousness is immersed in the sound and that you just sink into it. You are swimming within the energy, and if you can do that for about an hour, that is good. That will help you to not only be lucid in dreams, but also how to intuit and understand.

The Power to Interpret Dreams

Because the heart chakra, as we see in this image, is the center of our being. So, there are seven chakras, seven flowers or senses of our astral vehicle. These chakras have been known by the names of Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha, Ajna, and Sahasrara. But the Christians call this the seven churches, from the Book or Revelation: Ephesus, from the bottom going up, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and then Laodicea.

This is why in that enigmatic scripture, the Book of Revelations, we find many injunctions that are symbolic. It is perhaps the most difficult book in the Christian canon to interpret because that language is dreamlike. It is symbolic. It is pure vision, and it is clothed in terrestrial language to hide a principle or truth.

Now another exercise we can use to develop your ability to interpret dreams is to work with this throat Chakra Vishudda, or the Church of Sardis. Now, we know that speech is powerful. Our words manifest our intention, our psychology, and it is through that center in which the Word, what we call in Greek the λόγος Logos, the divine, expresses. So, this is why mantra again, is very powerful in a spiritual sense, and why in the Book of Revelation it states:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. ―Revelations 2:7

…because divinity speaks to our consciousness when those flowers are activated, when the churches and the chakras are spinning, when we work with this energy, so that we can learn to perceive more and also understand more.

So, the throat chakra is very powerful for that too. There is a mantra called Aum Shiva Tum Eh, which vibrates in the throat. It is pronounced like this:

Different vowels vibrate with different centers, but that mantra helps to strengthen the throat chakra. It may be with time you begin to understand and intuit more about what your dreams mean.

The Four Laws of Dream Interpretation

So, let us actually get into the laws of interpretation. There are four. These laws are eternal, just as the language of the spirit is eternal.

Scriptures and dreams could be interpreted through philosophical analogies, through contrary analogies, to correspondences, and through numerology.

The Law of Philosophical Analogies

The first is philosophical analogies. We included an image of Raphael’s The School of Athens. Philosophy has traditionally been studied as a belief or intellectual knowledge about human experience. In its original sense, philosophy refers to φίλος Philos Σοφíα Sophia, which in Greek means “love of wisdom.” Real love of wisdom applies to the spirit, love of the divine. Sophia, if you are familiar with Gnostic texts, the Gnostic Gospels, is a representation of the soul that ascends from this physical world up to the spiritual heights. But Sophia can also be a representation of our inner Being, because the divine is wisdom.

Now we study philosophical analogies because in dreams, different representations of symbols can mean different things. They have associations: A is B, or C is D. An example could be a book. Literally a book, in its objective sense, is a collection of paper with ink on it. But to us, to our terrestrial way of being, a book is a gateway. It is a form of knowledge. It encodes profound wisdom. We know that by going to university and by studying different books or works of literature, for example, that we are gaining insight perhaps into our human nature, culture, life experiences, language. So, this is a whole dimension that opens up even within a text. But objectively, a book is just paper. Instead, to our understanding of things, a book is analogous to something else.

If you dream of books or a book, it can reference the need to study and understand more, to practice more spiritually, because divinity can be showing us that there is more for you to understand from the book of your own life. A book, perhaps, is a philosophical analogy of high wisdom, as represented by Raphael in this painting. We have Plato walking with Aristotle. Plato is pointing towards the heavens. Aristotle is debating him or trying to learn from him―symbols. Different symbols have philosophies attached to them, which is why in different religious scriptures, the emblems of different faiths encode a lot of knowledge. They embody entire traditions, so it is good to study what those traditions are referencing and what they mean.

Adam and Eve forbidden fruit expelled from paradise

The Law of Contrary Analogies

We also have the Law of Contrary Analogies, and we included this image of Adam and Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden, consuming the forbidden fruit, and then being subsequently expelled by the Cherubim with the sword of fire.

Now, dreams do not necessarily always correlate “A with B.” In fact, some dreams can be opposites, “A is not B.” Now, an example would be as in this story. Adam and Eve thought that by consuming the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, that they would have wisdom, but the result, according to the Biblical narrative, was the opposite, is disastrous.

So, some dreams can be like this. A dream of being humiliated, being spat upon, persecuted, condemned, hated, betrayed, can in fact mean the opposite: our spiritual life is going to go very well. This happens because in the spiritual work, when we begin to change ourselves, divinity places necessary impediments or ordeals for us to conquer. Otherwise, we cannot grow. We cannot develop if we are not challenged.

A good teacher, or a good instructor, or a prophet, would basically push the individual to their maximum, so that by facing hardships and ordeals voluntarily, they grow. So, some dreams are like that. They are the opposite.

Sometimes having a dream laughing with a friend could mean the end of the relationship, primarily because that interaction could be superficial. There is nothing deep there. It is vain.

Dreaming about receiving excrement (to be a little bit graphic) could mean that we are going to earn a lot of money in the physical world, because in the objective spiritual sense, money is transitory. It is passing, goes through human systems, literally. So, it is interesting, opposites, very profound.

The Law of Correspondences

We also have the Law of Correspondences, which is why we study again religious iconography.

We see here Joseph and Mary above the Christ child, and the Nativity of Jesus. To see a child in a dream could correspond to many deep things, can reference us. Our soul in the beginning of this work is a child, is learning to develop, is learning and growing. Likewise, we see the divine couple, divine parents, our Divine Father, our inner spirit, and our Divine Mother, referenced in some traditions as the Kundalini, within Hinduism―many names for different truths.

Different symbols could correspond to different things. Maybe you dream about a bull knocking and destroying, breaking our home. It could relate to someone in the physical world who is angry with us. It is a correspondence. Or again, like dreaming about your brother or sister, could be someone in your spiritual work, that you are working with, whom you know. These represent different things.

The Law of Numerology: The Eternal Tarot

Perhaps most interesting for me, but also for a lot of people too, is the Law of Numerology, the Eternal Tarot.

Numbers are the study of kabbalah in the traditional Jewish sense. But these numbers are not literal. They are again representations, but they represent truths, principles. We study the twenty-two major arcana of the sacred tarot because each arcanum (which is the singular form of the plural arcana) represent laws of nature, laws of being. They explain the steps that the soul takes from the very beginning to the end, and if you receive a number in a dream, it is because whatever situation in life you are going through relates to one of these cards. If you study the wisdom of each arcanum, you can gain insight about what you need to do to resolve it. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated in The Major Mysteries:

Astral projections and kabbalah are an integral whole. […] It is necessary to study the twenty-two major arcana and to learn them by memory in order to understand the esoteric language of the initiates in the astral plane. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

We provided a course on our website called The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah, which you can study if you really want to go in depth, not only in the tarot cards themselves, but also the Hebrew letters, the zodiac, and different scriptures.

Each card, while it is vested in Egyptian iconography, is really representing for us deeper principles. It is not literally limited to Egyptian culture. But we use these cards as a form of concrete instruction for these insights.

Joseph in Genesis and the Book of Daniel

If you really want to go deeper into dream analysis, you can study the Book of Genesis and the Book of Daniel, primarily chapters 37, 38, and 39-41 of Genesis, where you learn about the story of Joseph (where he gets himself into trouble because he is interpreting dreams but speaking openly about them). But also, you see a method representing those four laws where he relies on numerology, correspondences, contrary and philosophical analogies. It is very beautiful and deep.

Also, the Book of Daniel teaches many truths about how to interpret dreams, how to become like a prophet, maybe not to tell other people what dreams mean (again), but to understand our own experiences.

This is why Samael Aun Weor mentions in Igneous Rose to refer to those texts, because they are very profound. They teach us how to overcome adversity. Joseph became a slave in Egypt, and through his power of interpreting dreams, became second in command of Pharaoh. Likewise, Daniel, who was put through trials and tribulations, managed to become a figure authority, a master, facing the lion’s den, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “by taking arms against a sea of troubles,” opposing and ending them.

astrology calculations with human silhouette

Prophetic or Predictive Visions

Some dreams are also prophetic and predictive, which is Samael Aun Weor states in Dream Yoga:

During conscious astral travel, we can be taken to the future to see things, actions, projects or processes that will take place at some undetermined time. These kinds of dreams can also be given based on opposite analogies, numerology, associations, etc. Any prophesy or announcement can especially occur on Wednesdays between 9:00 pm and 3:00 am. ―Samael Aun Weor, Dream Yoga

So, often those dreams that happen right before we wake up, those are going to be the most immediate, have the most immediate impact. Something is going to happen that day related to the dream. Maybe if it is a little earlier in the day or early in the night, could be something related to something that might happen in a couple of years even. But right when you wake up, when it is most fresh, those tend to have the most immediate relevance.

Considerations for Dream Interpretation

Some things to think about when you are interpreting dreams include the psychological impression.

What is our mood from the dream? What is the impact?

How do we feel when we dream the dream?

Were we anxious? Were we angry? Were we terrified? Were we happy?

That is going to tell us more about what is going to happen in that experience than anything (almost), but it will give you a clue as to whether it is authentic or not.

Also, pay attention to the time, numbers and dates in dreams, because those numbers, the kabbalah, add up. So, if you dream about multiple numbers, you have to take those numbers into consideration individually. See what they represent in terms of the tarot. But also, add the numbers together and arrive to a final sum, because those numbers are conjunctive, cumulative, but also independent. Those numbers will tell you what your dream means.

You also should pay attention to the actual hour of the dream, which is what we just mentioned.

It is also good to consider the date and time the dream event will occur. So, if you are told about something will happen in the future and they give you numbers, pay attention to what those numbers represent. These are not literal, but it will teach you a bit about how it might play out.

Colors and sounds are also very significant. Lighter, happier colors tend to be much more pleasant, more positive, whereas dark, clouded colors, blacks, dense colors, agitated colors, often represent more negative emotions.

Also, we have to consider whatever situations and circumstances we are experiencing in our physical life, because if the dream does not match up with the experience, we have to discard it as a projection.

Death, Birth, Sacrifice

There are three principles to consider when we are studying ourselves. We often say in this teaching we practice three factors in order to be genuinely spiritual: death, birth, sacrifice.

That which is negative has to die in ourselves, if we want to be born to the spirit. That which is impure, corrupt, insufficient and weak, debilitating, and difficult, has to be transcended. There has to be a form of death to perhaps pride, in order for humility to be born, or death to anger in order for sweetness, compassion to emerge.

Birth represents the awakening soul, the virtues of the soul: astral projections, awakenings, conscious travels, understanding internal experiences.

Likewise, as we see Jesus of Nazareth helping the poor, we should learn to sacrifice for humanity, in whatever form we are capable, whatever our skills are. We should be a benefit to our communities, because these three factors, transforming conditions of mind, giving birth to the soul, and also being better people, divinity will approach us and give you experiences, to teach you to do more, to be more useful and helpful, and a strong link in the chain of humanity.

These factors help us to be more understanding of our own dreams, because if you give light to others, divinity gives you light. It is a law of nature―birth / death. But also, to overcome the inertia of perhaps not wanting to face the difficulties, instead, the sacrifice gets us through, the effort.

Analyzing Dreams through Meditation

Our next lecture will be focused on Analyzing Dreams through Meditation. Now I want to mention this briefly because with all this intellectual knowledge about interpreting dreams, we also have to consider that, in reality, the real wisdom of dream interpretation occurs when we meditate.

Relying on books can be helpful in the beginning, but we have to leave it behind for something more effective. By meditating, by silencing our mind peacefully, by understanding ourselves and learning how to concentrate and imagine our experiences, we learn to extract what is the most essential. This type of understanding comes to us when we let our body rest, harness our energies, calm our emotions, relax our mind, and direct our willpower (our concentration), and activate our imagination to visualize the dream itself that we experience, and concentrate on it, and ask our inner divinity to teach us what we need to know. That is meditation in a nutshell.

When we meditate, we also learn to access these states, of this Tree of Life. By suspending our senses in this physical world, we go higher, and we access knowledge that is really deep. You can actually relive the dream itself by meditating on it, go back to the experience, see what is hidden there, and understand more, because meditation is a state of being. It is not necessarily a practice in itself, but it, in a conventional sense, we say it is. But meditation is when we put behind our personality, our mind, ourselves, and the soul witnesses the truth.

Conclusion

This is why, to conclude, I like to relate what Paul of Tarsus says, in the Book of Corinthians, in relation to dreams, which some people obviously may not make the connection, but I would like to. He is emphasizing how the purpose of dreams and understanding prophecy is for a larger work, in that having dreams is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but it is useless if you do not apply the message.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ―1 Corinthians 8-12

Dreams can give you partial knowledge. A dream has a beginning and an end, so we should not be attached to experiences. Prophecies come and go. What matters is the context for this type of work, so that by developing love and working in ourselves, we spiritually mature, again, like the image of a child, the child becomes a man, a human being, a perfect individual. Therefore, in the beginning, we see darkly. We may not see dreams so clearly, but with time and practice it improves.

Resources for Dream Interpretation

Some resources that we have include Tarot and Kabbalah by Samael Aun Weor, as well as his book Dream Yoga. I recommend that you study them. Learn the sacred arcana of the tarot and learn different practices for how to astral project. They go hand in hand. This is why Swami Sivananda wrote in The Philosophy of Dreams:

Every dream presentation has a meaning. A dream is like a letter written in an unknown language. To a man who does not know Chinese, a letter written in that language is a meaningless scroll. But to one who knows that language it is full of most valuable information. ―Samael Aun Weor, Philosophy of Dreams

These texts will teach you how to interpret dreams very deeply, Tarot and Kabbalah and Dream Yoga.

Exercises

We always end this lecture series with practices.

Every day, practice self-observation and the Key of SOL from moment to moment. Question the validity of what you perceive.
Vocalize the mantra ONRO or Aum Shiva Tum Eh for one hour daily.
With ONRO, visualize a brilliant sun in your heart that emanates love for all beings. With Aum Shiva Tum Eh, visualize a light vibrating and illuminating your throat chakra.
Upon waking, concentrate upon, visualize, and review your dreams with the mantras Raom Gaom (which we explained in a previous lecture: How to Remember Dreams). Recall what you perceived externally and internally. Question the validity of what you perceived.
Then, pick a fact to investigate, meditate on that fact. Do not speculate, theorize, or intellectualize.
And lastly record your experiences in your spiritual diary.

So, some of you may not have been here for the former lectures, but if you listen to the series from the beginning, you will get access to some of the other mantras, like Raom Gaom, to help with remembering dreams, and the practice of the Key of SOL, which we talked about in our lecture called How to Lucid Dream.

At this point I would like to open up the floor to questions.

Questions and Answers

Question: So, do visions only appear or come to those on the path of initiation, or is it just anyone, like, do they just come to anybody, or do you have to be on the path for visions to come to you?

Instructor: If God only taught the initiates, we would be in trouble, because we are trying to become initiates. So out of compassion, divinity teaches us to turn us around, which again, if you read Paul of Tarsus’ story, he was a persecutor of the Gnostics, the first Christians. It is said that he killed out of his zealotry for his Hebrew tradition. But by riding to Damascus, he was struck by lightning. Obviously, that is a symbol, by receiving (suddenly) insight in that he knew he was wrong. So, that vision came to him even though he was a criminal. So, all of us have our own mistakes to deal with, but out of compassion divinity always reaches out.

Question: Why is it in some dreams you can experience the same dream several times and why others just one time. Why?

Instructor: Good question. I spent some time in my last lecture talking about that. It is called How to Consciously Return to (Enter) Dreams. Recurring dreams are oftentimes divinity’s way of knocking on our head, or knocking on the door, trying to get us to understand something really deeply. Now recurring dreams and symbols are often the way divinity gets us to pay more attention. There is a lesson to be learned there. Whether it is a repeated situation, repeatedly meeting with a certain person, seeing a symbol, being in a certain place, we call that the initiator element or the unifier element of dreams, because out of the chaos of dreams, we begin to see a type of structure, an order. Now that unifying element is a recurring dream symbol, and when that dream repeats, it is because we are getting a profound lesson. So, something needs to be learned there that we are perhaps not picking up on.

But also, divinity gives those recurring dreams because if you recognize the symbol in the dream, you can suddenly say, “I am awake. Now let me go learn something valuable in the astral plane!” So, it is a way to wake up. It is a way to be more cognizant, to remind us of that we are not in our physical bodies anymore. We are dreaming. It is a way to wake up.

Question: Could you give a brief explanation of the Key of SOL, its purpose, and how it helps us with dreams?

Instructor: Sure. We practice an acronym called Key of SOL: Subject, Object, Location. It is an awareness exercise.

If you are walking down a street in Chicago, you pay attention to yourself. You observe, be mindful of your own mind, your states, your mood, your actions.

If you are walking down the street, pay attention to yourself, but also be aware of the objects around you: cars, the sidewalk, people. Or if we are in our own home: bookshelves, TV, whatever we own.

Location is the recognition of where we are at. We are in Chicago, or we are in our house, or with a friend.

Most times in life, we do not really pay attention to what is there. We are often dreaming. We could be walking down the street and maybe we have our iPhones or devices, thinking of one thing, feeling another thing, and doing something completely different. Our attention and awareness are dispersed. It is not concentrated. It is not developed. If you are not practicing mindfulness in the daytime, when you physically go to sleep and your body rests, you carry those same habits into the dream world. So, we will have dreams, perhaps, where we are doing miscellaneous things, like in our daily life, and then we return to our body. We wake up and we say, “I was dreaming.” If you train yourself in the daytime to pay attention, to be mindful, to be awake, be aware of yourself, your objects around you, and where you are at, suddenly you may find you are walking in some strange city. You are talking to people. When they are talking to you in another language, then you question, “What is going on here? Why am I in Spain? I am from Chicago!” Therefore, you can suddenly realize, “I am in the astral world. How did I get here? I remember a few hours ago I was dreaming. I went to bed.” You begin to realize that you are no longer in the physical world.

Now there is a next step to that. You have to learn to physically (when you are questioning your environment), as you are walking down, say, physically down the streets of Chicago, you are being mindful and aware, you are observing yourself in your environment, you can start to question, “Am I dreaming or am I in my body?” Take your finger, try to pull it (slightly). Another thing you can do too is, well, actually, if you pull your finger in the dream world, your astral finger will stretch, because astral matter (the astral body) is ductile. It is elastic. It bends. It moves. It is not subjected to the physical laws of our world, and there you see your finger stretch. You will realize, “I am dreaming.”

Now that may not work all the time, because sometimes, if we do not practice it with full intention so that it is going to stretch, then it may not happen, so therefore you might wake up and realize, “I missed an opportunity.” But with time and practice, as you get familiar with how to question and how to actually pull your finger without hurting yourself, it will happen, and suddenly you realize, “We are not in Kansas anymore,” says Dorothy.

Now one other thing that I will mention too is physically, you also can jump in the air. You can try to see if you are going to float. Obviously, you do not want to do it in public too. So personally, I pull my finger because it is more discreet. If I am at work and I am really questioning (if I see something unusual going on), I question, “That is pretty strange. That is not the norm of my daily life.” I am going to question if I am dreaming, and then pull your finger, and then it may happen that you do that and suddenly you see that your finger stretches. You are in the dream world.

You have to do the practice whenever you see something unusual, so do that so you have some kind of material to question yourself on. You can also try to jump in the air to see if you float. Obviously do that in private somewhere. You can jump up and then if you are floating in the air in the astral plane, you know where you are at. So that is the Key of SOL.

Question: What do you think about when we dream about people or family members who have already passed away and they give us messages that really came true? Is that really a connection or is it a spirit that took their place and is representing them?

Instructor: I say follow your intuition. Follow your heart. It can really be your family members or those who are deceased. In some cases, it can be your divine parents, or your parents, or family members, or siblings.

Now one thing that does come to mind, is that, for me, is that a lot of people are not awake in the astral plane. Many people, they go through life, they live without developing their full potential. So, when they die, they do not know that they are dead. So, there is that situation too, and sometimes that might explain why some relatives would speak to us. But at the same time, you have to really follow your intuition, because only your heart is going to tell you, and meditating on what they said in relating to your experiences, that you are going to know the connections. So, I do not think there is really a blanket answer for that. It is really unique to the individual.

Question: I remember very few of my dreams, is that because I am not paying attention?

Instructor: It can be part of it. Now, in our last lecture, we talked about (actually two lectures ago) how to remember dreams. One of the things we explained was how by not developing our consciousness and paying attention, we also have a deficient memory. But also, there are techniques to help with the memory of the brain, as well as the memory of the internal bodies, because our inner constitution (such as our astral vehicle, our mind, our heart) have a type of material existence, and by learning to develop or practice good nutrition (especially) can help with physical memory, but also can help to establish the connection between the internal worlds and our physical world. We have different practices that you should study in that lecture. It is on our website, How to Remember Dreams.

Question: What is going on spiritually when people are lucid dreaming? Is that what you mean by astral projection? Is that the same thing as astral travel?

Instructor: Yes. Now lucid dreaming is when you, as a consciousness, are free of any type of condition, any type of filter. What we call oftentimes lucid dreams in themselves, are an augmentation of perception, where you gain a clarity of insight but also awakening within the dream state. Now the thing to remember is that being lucid in a dream will not necessarily mean that in some cases that we are fully objective. But in the dream, you can have a clarity and expansiveness of awareness where you are seeing more.

Now astral travel occurs when you are in that state, and you are consciously and intelligently navigating the internal worlds. So, in that way, you understand what you are perceiving. You are willingly going “at will” where you want.

Astral projection is a little different because that is the process in which you physically go to bed and your soul goes out into the internal worlds. But the way to make lucid dreams more consistent is, again, practice mindfulness, practice meditation, so that you can also not only perceive the internal worlds but also remember them.

Question: I remember one time when I was in the astral world, I looked at myself and there was like a mirror in front of me. I could see that my face was the face I have physically, so I kept thinking like, “That’s it. I died, and I’m reborn into a new body!” Does the astral body, will I get a new face or am I going to remain in the face that I had? Like how does that work right?

Instructor: So, you are saying that you saw your face in a different way internally?

Question: No, no, I’m saying it was the same, the one I have right now, like we are seeing right now, but I was saying like in the coming future, when I’m reborn somewhere else, would that cause a change in the face of people?

Instructor: Yes. So, every time you get a new body, you are changing clothes. The soul is the same, carries its conditions and its history, its past, but at the same time we take on new forms. So just as you change your shirt, you have a new face, new outfit.

Question: So, is this, I mean I don’t know from anyone’s experiences, is this more like once you can do this, it is consistent, or is it more like ebbs and flows kind of stuff?

Instructor: It depends on our effort. If you are disciplined, you can make it constant. But in a sense, there are times in our spiritual work in which even though we are being consistent with our practices, we may not see things. We call that the spiritual night.

Beethoven beautifully depicted that in his Moonlight Sonata. So again, going back to the image of the PowerPoint with Don Quixote and the Moon, we see that the Moon is a symbol of suffering, of disillusionment and pain. Now there are periods in which we have to go, for our own good and benefit, through periods in which we do not necessarily see what we want. But if we are persistent and we continue, and develop and maintain our momentum. We get through.

Question: What about if like there are numbers and symbols and things and like some dreams I have had, I feel like there are messages in some and I am looking at the time and the numbers and location and stuff like that. I just wonder if that would be astral or is that lucid or a combination?

Instructor: Sure. So, the astral dimension is where we dream. So, in our fourth lecture earlier in this course, if you want to listen back, we talked about the dimensions themselves, where we actually experience dreams [Where Do We Dream?].

We typically dream in the fifth dimension, the astral plane. But there are other dimensions mapped out by that Tree of Life, including sixth dimension, seventh dimension, beyond. There are levels. So, knowing where we are dreaming depends on understanding our current state, where we are at. It is useful to study the kabbalah, especially. It will teach you how to understand where you are at, and the tarot themselves will complement that understanding, as they go hand in hand.

Any other thoughts?

The next lecture is going to be online [Analyzing Dreams through Meditation]. So, you all are familiar with Zoom during our COVID era, where we are working electronically, but then we should have the next in-person lecture in December about Navigating the Internal Worlds.

In this course, we have talked quite bit a lot about where we dream, why we dream, where we are, and where we are going. But the last lecture, after analyzing dreams, we will also talk about all the different things that we can do in the astral world, kind of turning back to the very original point of introduction, introducing this course. So, I will teach you all the ways to navigate when you are practically there, and how to take advantage of the dream state.

Any final comments?

Thank you all for coming!

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How to Consciously Enter Dreams

8/13/2022

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Doorway in a dream to another dimension.

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It is always good, at the beginning of lectures, to be present, to be aware of our mind, our mental state, our thoughts, but also our emotional qualities or mood, to take a moment, to get centered. If we are at home, if we’re driving, wherever we’re listening, we should become present, here and now, to listen with profound attention, to set aside analysis, interpretation, the mind, to learn to receive, with a pristine and clear cognition, to listen with our heart.

It is in this way that we can learn to perceive the new, and if you’ve been following the sequence of this lecture series, you’ve been given many practices that teach you how to perceive the novel, the unusual, the original, that which is sparkling and new, something we’ve never seen before, and which escapes the mind, that which cannot be confined to a label, a category, a box.

The intellect is useful for storing information. But it can only compare. It cannot discern the profound reality of the thing, the experience. If you’ve ever looked at a sunset, our concepts cannot equate with the beauty and the reality of that pristine moment. It is something unusual and rare. It escapes definition. This is the quality of conscious astral projections: a state of reality that is beyond the body, that is so clear, colorful and vibrant, that it is more real than our physical existence, our physical states.

It is this innate beauty that attracts us to the study of dreams. It is what draws us to remember dreams, which was the focus of our last lecture. Now we are going to take a close examination of how to consciously enter the dream state, to make something mechanical, unconscious and unintentional into something conscious. So rather than looking at a sunset and getting lost in our own approximations or estimations of that beauty, we merely see the dream for what it is, our illusions, our attachments, and instead, we can access something more, beyond the limits of the mind.

I will say that there are some advantages to being mechanical. We’ve talked a lot about this, how we often react to life without understanding. We don’t really understand the roots of our behaviors. We’re not really conscious of ourselves. Mechanicity is something that can be utilized for our spiritual development in the sense that our own behaviors, mind, and states are predictable. We can learn to anticipate and recognize the novelty of the moment by first becoming aware of our own psychology, to recognize the patterns of our daily life. When we do that in our waking state, we will do it within dreams, and in this way, we will start to see more.

We can even experience recurring dreams. We remember them because they emerge within our interior, boldly, and with great impact. These recurring dreams are useful. We can take dreams, we can focus upon them, and we can become conscious of them, so that by entering the dreaming state willingly, we learn to enter the astral world, and then to depart from the dream itself, to be awake, to see the reality, to see the internal dimensions.

We will talk a lot about this―recurring dream symbols―how we can use them to our advantage, how we can become aware of how we dream all the time, and how we can learn to see them for what they are, to enter them, to understand them, and then to transcend them. We will give you some techniques for this particular practice.

Preliminaries for Tantric Dream Discipline

There are a couple of preliminaries that I would like to review for you, briefly, so that we can have some context for why we are studying this discipline.

As we emphasized before, it is important to remember and document all dreams. We do so so that we have some material by which to study ourselves. We don’t want to forget our inner experiences within the astral world. We want to have enough data to look for the new.

We want to profoundly watch for unusual or anomalous dream experiences, because when you are documenting your dreams, you will start to see recurring themes, much in the same way that you will find a narrative in your own life: the things we tell ourselves at our work, in our relationships, in our homes, in our travels. We want to study that which repeats, so that we can transcend it, and when we document our dreams, we may find that something new emerges within our experience.

This constant awareness, this study of ourselves, is known as tantra within the Tibetan Buddhist sense. Tantra means “continuum.” It is the infinite. It is the continuity and comprehension of consciousness that we develop within ourselves through practice. It is a state of awakening that is constant. It does not rest. It is the state of awareness that does not sleep, but is present even in dreams, that can begin to understand the new, to see what is unusual.

Also by documenting our dreams, we can learn to distinguish a gradual progression of dream experiences. We see that there is a type of thread uniting all of it. In the beginning we may dream vague, incoherent, crazy states, though with time we begin to see there is more cohesion. Our dream states become more integral. They are less dispersed and fragmented amongst confused and delusional states.

We should also discriminate the distinct qualities, moods, and impact of our dreams, especially the dreams that have the most significance for us, even if we don’t know what they mean. The mood, the quality and the impact of the dream is really important to analyze within ourselves, because if a dream has a great influence on us―perhaps in a positive or a negative sense―it means that it is going to have some type of deeper significance and impact, a greater consequence for our spiritual life.

Now, to really begin to use our dreams to our advantage, to learn to take a dream and to learn how to enter it willingly, we have to really identify recurring dreams. We have to document them. When you find that pattern, it is like a key that can open up the door to the internal worlds. It is a doorway into our inner reality.

Usually, recurring dreams which have a spiritual flavor come in the form of symbols. They arrive from the spiritual world and condense within the astral dimension to teach us something profound. When we see those symbols, we can learn to consciously concentrate upon them, to imagine them, and then to enter them by falling asleep in meditation.

In the process of this we have to revere and aspire through such divine archetypes, these allegories of the spirit. To revere and to aspire mean to feel a sense of beauty and awe before the new. In the conglomeration and messiness of our dreams, we find patterns that make sense. So, we can utilize them as a source of religion, of yoga, of reunion, because we know they come from God, and they help us to yearn for the truth. They are a rope that can pull us out of the abyss, into the heights of understanding.

The Divine Mother

The source of all that wisdom is the Divine Mother Kundalini. She is a symbol of a profound core reality of our Being, our inner divinity.

Many people talk about the divine feminine, and all religions pay homage to her. She is an expression, an enfoldment, a quality of God.

We have an image here of the Virgin Mary, a representation of the divine feminine that gives birth to something spiritual within us. Some people get caught up in the names of different religions, different traditions, rather than looking at what the sign points towards. You have many flags, many nations, with their symbols. Like diverse countries and states, all religions are like flags, with their symbols that represent the unity of the divine.

The Divine Mother is our inner goddess. She is part of us. She is profound compassion, serenity and love, and she, the truth, is the one who inspires us within dreams. The Tibetan Buddhists call her Tara. She is the one who creates order within us, equanimity, dispassion, peace. She is the light that illuminates our astral experiences when they are objective and real, and she can teach us within dreams, how to awaken.

Amongst the Aztecs, and I believe the Maya, she is known as Tonantzin. Tonantzin is an honorific title like “Our Lady” or “Our Great Mother.” This title has been used to designate the Goddess of Sustenance, the Snake Goddess, the Bringer of Maize, Mother of Corn, and the Honored Grandmother.

These are not literal representations. They are symbols, just as dreams are symbolic. Likewise, there are symbols within religion that are oneiric. They are condensed and compacted within the language and parables of dreams.

She is the one that gives us sustenance, who gives us hope, who gives us food for our soul. She feeds the consciousness with wisdom through astral experiences. She heals the broken heart, and she teaches through the inspirational symbols of dreams. So she may arrive in many forms, whatever is conducive for our development, like the snake, the serpent, which in its positive sense, is the divine energy of her, the bronze serpent that healed the Israelites in the wilderness of pain. She is a balm for all suffering, and that her energy, her wisdom, kills that which is impure within us.

She is known as Teteoinan, “Mother of the Gods” coming from Teteoh, plural of Teotl, “God,” and innan, “their mother.” This is another name for Quetzalcoatl, from coatl, “snake,” and icue, signifying “she who has the skirt of snakes.” Beautiful symbols with profound meaning, which make sense to us the more we awaken within the astral world where those symbols unfold magically before us.

She is the serpentine energy of Kundalini, mentioned in Hindu yoga, and we work with her through Tantric Buddhist practice, through the continual awakening of the soul, in order to see reality. We call upon her because she is the one who helps to organize our inner experiences. She is the one who creates integrity within the soul, and when in our dreams, when they are chaotic, futile, incoherent, strange, illogical, instinctive, animal, she comes to us like a breath of fresh air, with a quality that is so distinct that the soul knows that this is from our own divinity.

Recurring Dreams: The Initiator or Unifying Element

So as we are exploring our dreams, as we are documenting them, we begin to find patterns, as I said. We start to see recurring dreams. There are dreams that begin to repeat which no longer have the flavor of something subjective, illusory, or egotistical. They speak to our heart, even if we don’t understand what they mean. However, there is a way to learn to understand what they mean.

When you have a recurring dream, when something appears amongst the chaotic and formless expression of your own unconsciousness, you will start to see a state or a symbol, a situation, color, a sound, a person―anything that hits us and inspires us and makes us question what is really going on here. What is being taught to me? What am I seeing? What is happening here? This is known as the initiator or unifying element of dreams.

People call it recurring dreams. We call it the initiator element. It is the initiator element because it is the symbol, the key, the entrance to the internal worlds. It is a symbol or a message that is giving us some type of clue regarding our own psychological states, our situation in life, our sufferings, and also the solution. It is also a symbol that can be utilized to initiate a very particular type of spiritual work.

We call it the unifying element because out of the plethora and plurality of conflicting and disparate desires and dreams, we find a symbol that makes sense, even if intellectually we don’t have a definition or an explanation. But there is something there that is very deep. It is a unifying element.

All of our chaotic dreams begin to unify in a sense, within our attention, by this recurring dream. The symbol both initiates us, and we can use it to initiate conscious awakening. As I said, when you recognize a pattern in your life, you can begin to find a solution to things, whether it is in your daily states or within your dreams.

So when you learn to become conscious of a recurring dream, you can begin to utilize that for your understanding. When that recurring dream happens again and you recognize it, you immediately know that you are in the astral world. You are shocked. You are sparked to attention. You are alert and aware that you are not in your body. You are present.

This unifying element is really like a thread, Ariadne’s thread within Greek mythology, that leads us out of the labyrinth of our mind. It is a rope given to us by divinity, for by concentrating upon it, by imagining it, by focusing on it when we fall asleep, we can start to initiate the conscious awakening of our soul within the astral dimension.

We can say that the initiator element symbolizes what we need to comprehend most in ourselves. More particularly, it relates to how we must change, how we must stop dreaming physically, daydreaming, letting the mind wander, not being concentrated, not being awake, alert in our daily life. This initiator element or recurring dream can teach us something about our essential problem in our life, what keeps us hypnotized. What is the repeating behavior that we continue to enact that makes us and others suffer? Because without rectifying that, we will not awaken. We will be dreaming all the time.

This initiator element helps us to make sense of physical events. Dreams are merely the internal reflection of our physical reality. If our dreams do not coincide with physical facts, then we have to discard them as illusory. But the initiator element, the recurring dream, helps us to recognize our problem, what we need to do, what we must work upon.

Now it is possible to possess more than one initiator element. What qualifies them is that they are impactful and that they recur. They have a very distinct quality, mood and even prophetic element. They can predict for us things that are going to happen in the daytime. Whatever situations of life hit us, they can teach us about what is going on.

Girl walking towards sun and moon with floating castle in sky

An example of a recurring dream can be the sky. This is something that many people have experienced. We have in this image a citadel floating upon an island in the clouds. On the left we see the rising sun, and on the right, the moon. A young girl walks towards the horizon, contemplating both paths. Oftentimes, the sky in our dreams is showing us, by divinity, the state of our mind, the qualities of our mind.

If the sky is full of clouds, if they are obscured, it means that we are very asleep: physically and internally, in a spiritual sense. We do not understand where we are at, where we came from, or where we are going. If the sky is clear, if the sun is rising, that is something very positive, because something is being born in you, something spiritual: virtues, humility, patience, compassion.

The full moon will often reflect moral pain because it is related to the lunar forces. We know that the moon, physically, is mechanical, and it has great influence on our planet in terms of menstruation in women, the flowing of the tides, and a lot of animal life on our planet is regulated by the moon. Even crimes rates are deeply affected by the lunar influence. We even have the term “lunatic,” relating to those people whose minds are very diseased.

The moon is a symbol of suffering, and depending on how full it is, this determines for us the magnitude of whatever suffering we are going to experience. These are warnings from divinity, not meant to punish or put fear in the soul, but to help us be conscious, to be prepared for life.

If a person is sick with cancer, it is important that he or she knows the diagnosis from the doctor. Our doctor is our Divine Mother, and she shows us within dreams what is most necessary for us, what we need to be cautious about, to be prepared for, to be watchful.

Some people, their recurring dream might be their childhood home. Maybe you wake up in your old house where you grew up. You see your parents there, your family. These can also be a recurring, initiator, unifying symbol. Your divine parents often come in the form of your physical parents, and seeing them is important. We need to see divinity, who often takes the form of our physical parents, to teach us something symbolic.

Another recurring dream could be something like a car, an object. Some people dream of cars. A car is a symbol of knowledge. It is a vehicle of the mind. How you drive is how you drive your mind. So if you’re being shown a car in your dreams, it could be teaching you about how you’re using your mind in your daily life.

Are you driving off the cliff? Are the wheels falling off? Or are you on the road, arriving to your spiritual destination, with your loved ones, your friends, with your spiritual family?

Beautiful symbols. They repeat depending on the person. Not all people will have the same recurring dream, but these are some common ones, some interesting ones.

The car can also symbolize the internal bodies: our emotional body, the astral body, the mental body, the causal body. Beautiful symbols.

So when you recognize what that recurring dream is, you can take it, concentrate upon it, imagine it, and enter it willingly. This is often very useful for after you’ve just woken up from bed. Maybe you wake up in the middle of the night after having a recurring dream, something vivid, something profound, and you want to go back to sleep. You want to re-enter that dream. You want to enter it consciously. You want to see it for what it is, to confront it, live it, experience it more, and even transcend it for something more divine.

So the first clue is to not move your body when you wake up. We talked about this in How to Remember Dreams. Don’t open your eyes. You wake up. You are in bed again. You just returned to your body, perhaps early in the morning, 3 or 4 am. This is very common for people. Close your eyes, concentrate, and relax. Remember the dream you just left. Before, you had the dream. You experienced it. You brought the memory back into your physical brain. Now when you wake up in bed, you want to try to maintain the lucidity of that state, the clarity, the magic, and then, you are going to focus on it. You are going to imagine it, and you are going to fall asleep. In principle you are going to meditate on it.

Meditation in the Sacred Arcana

This process is beautifully symbolized by The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah. You see the first 3 arcana, the first 3 laws of the sacred tarot represented here. These 3 cards represent this entire practice, the essence of meditation, the essence of becoming conscious in dreams.

These are beautiful symbols from the Egyptian pantheon, but they’re not exclusive or limited to Egyptian mythology. They are eternal principles related to the consciousness. The tarot are often depicted with Egyptian symbols because it is most convenient for our understanding, particularly within Western esotericism. It is not to say that the tarot themselves, what they represent, is literal to the cards themselves. We use art to reflect consciousness, and these beautiful art forms show us something very luminous and spiritual. They are archetypes. They are principles and forces. They represent the qualities and states of divinity, and how we must practice if we want to enter consciously into dreams.

Numbers are in themselves something intuitive. Rather than just being mere quantities, they are qualities of the spirit. They represent forces, eternal truths.

The first card of the tarot is The Magician. He is a masculine principle. He is the Divine Father that initiates spiritual life. The staff in his hand is a symbol of willpower, and he stands above a cubic stone, mastering the stone of our energies, the foundation of our spiritual life, our vital force. Our vital energy, the vital body, is really the foundation of our spiritual practice. If you want to know more about how to work with the vital energy, you can study The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor.

In synthesis, this magician stands upon a stone, because his foundation is in the work of conserving and transforming energy. By saving psychological, emotional, physical, vital and spiritual energy, we empower our consciousness. We learn to stand spiritually. We are no longer weak people, vulnerable, victims of circumstances. We can concentrate on anything and not get distracted.

We learn to see life for what it is, symbolized by the eyes of Ra or Horus, seen above the Magician, in the top third of the card. These eyes of the spirit are the sign of the infinite, the continuum of conscious awareness, remembering ourselves physically and when we sleep.

Those stars behind the Magician represent illuminated spiritual qualities when the mind is very serene and clear, calm, dispassionate. If you have dreams of seeing beautiful stars in the sky, that is very positive, because it represents that the Divine Father is present with you.

There are objects on the card: a vase and a sword. These are deep symbols, representing the duality of sexuality, which is also talked about in The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. They represent masculine and feminine energies that we can learn to work with, to develop concentration.

So with concentration, you are bringing to attention the dream that you just experienced. You focus on it. You remember it. But looking at it, unwaveringly without distraction, is not enough. You have to see it with deep, vibrant clarity. That is the quality of imagination, the next card: The High Priestess.

She is the Divine Mother Kundalini who holds an Ankh cross above her breast, a symbol of spiritual life. She feeds her children with wisdom, from an open book, and her dress is a mantle of stars, signifying her absolute perfection.

She represents for us, sitting there, the passive quality of the consciousness. Or better said, the passivity of our mind. She is active, reading a book. She is looking from behind her mysterious veil, because she sees through illusion.

She is the quality of imagination: the ability to take an image, such as from a dream, and to see it, to look at it with a lot of depth, range, color, hues. She has a profound, penetrative insight, the ability to see internal images, to see them for what they are. With imagination we are looking and seeing―with our mind’s eye, with a calm mind and an active consciousness―the dream itself.

The Magician is active because in the beginning it takes a lot of willpower to concentrate. But with imagination, with the Divine Mother, we learn to receive wisdom. That is why she sits on a throne. She is passive, not in that she allows bad things to happen, or doesn’t act, but she is perfect stillness of the lake of our mind. When the lake of our mind is calm, it can reflect images. If the surface of our waters, if our mental states are agitated, we will only see chaos. So the more equanimitous and calm we are in mind, the more we will see.

This is why it is very beautiful, wonderful, and opportune to wake up from a dream, and to have it fresh within our mind. We can go back to sleep, we can concentrate upon the dream, we can imagine it, so that we can awaken.

This is the third card of the tarot: The Empress. The Empress is the perfected soul. She has 12 stars above her head, relating to the Zodiac, the laws of eternity, and many beautiful spiritual archetypes.

A beautiful bird representing the Holy Spirit flocks to her. She sits on a cubic stone of perfection, a symbol of the purity, the clarity, and the magnitude of awakening. She is the ruler of our spiritual kingdom, and she represents for us the fact and quality of going back to sleep, and reliving the recurring dream.

When you concentrate upon it and imagine it with clarity, hold it with your attention and fall asleep, you will awaken again in the dream. You will relive it in full activity. This is the opportunity, when you awaken, to go from that dream to explore the astral dimension.

Woman meditating and five centers of human machine

Separating from Dreams

Now, the initiator element is useful for this practice. But it is not the only dream we can use. This principle can be used with any dream experience. It just takes practice, takes some skill. But with patience, it can be done.

So, initiate the dream. Begin it again and relive it. The next step, when you’re within the dream, is to know how to separate from it. Some people can do the first step, but not the second, and for that, we need meditation.

Meditation teaches us how to separate from illusory dreams, to discriminate what is true and what is false. We can train the consciousness within the daily state of our existence to not react to the different impressions and external stimuli of life.

We often go through life asleep, mechanically, with the five centers of the human machine, reacting to different situations, but not really comprehending them, understanding them, seeing them for what they are.

So in meditation, we pray to our Divine Mother. We ask for strength to awaken within a dream, and have the strength necessary to depart from it. Oftentimes people will relive the dream, but then become unaware again. Then a few hours pass, they return to bed, and they lost their chance. If you train yourself within your waking life to not get caught up in dreams, when you learn to meditate on your dreams—your thoughts, your emotions, your movements, your habits, your desires—you can see them for what they are, and no longer feed them the precious energy of your consciousness. We don’t waste energy. We examine dreams and how our ego keeps us asleep and steals that precious part of us that we need to cultivate.

Part of this practice in meditation involves becoming drowsy. Become drowsy. Let your body rest. Introspect. Concentrate and remember the events of your day. Examine and imagine the moments of your day in which you were interacting with other people, when you were at different places, when you were involved with life, and look at the ways that you dream.

At what moments did you get distracted?

When does your mind become confused?

When do your emotions make you bewildered, vulnerable and weak?

Where do you desires take control of you?

If you can’t see those instincts and impulses and thoughts for what they are, and separate from them, it will be very difficult to do this practice, to do the return practice. The return practice is taking the initiator element, concentrating and imagining it, falling asleep, and entering the dream willingly, to return to your dreams, to consciously enter dreams.

If you want to be able to enter the dream but then to leave it, at will, you have to train yourself.

Achieve the very delicate balance of wakefulness and sleep, when your body is drifting off but you’re very clear. You maintain continuity of remembrance, and look at the ways, in your daily life, that your ego keeps you pulled and dispersed and distracted, pulled in multiple directions.

You will gain more strength if you practice this: reviewing your day, retrospecting your day, remembering your day. Look at yourself, find your weaknesses, and comprehend them. In this way you take your initiator element willingly. You have a robust attention, a very well-developed imagination, and you can enter with great ease into your dreams, and then leave them if you wish to explore the astral world.

Four Blessings: Steps for Entering Dreams

As you are practicing this exercise, you will experience what is known in Tibetan Buddhism as the Four Blessings. These are the different steps for entering dreams.

The first is Revealing Light.

The second is Increasing Light.

The third is Immediate Realization, and the last is Inner Profound Illumination.

Every dream manifests through these four blessings. We have to learn to recognize what they are, because they are an eternal process. Every time you go to bed, every time you go to sleep, you go through these stages—consciously or unconsciously. The latter tends to be the case for most people. But if you learn to understand what these are, you can very intentionally comprehend and initiate your dream Tantric Buddhist practice.

But it takes a lot of efforts. We have to be very patient with ourselves, and to have some tenacity to try this every time we go to sleep, to try to recognize these states whenever we sleep.

These are known as the Four Lights within Tibetan Buddhism. More specifically, we call them the Four Blessings.

Revealing Light

Revealing Light is perceived during the first hours of sleep. Many people report, when they go to bed, hearing a cacophony of voices or sounds. These are the voices of our different egos. They are residual impressions from our day that are manifesting within our consciousness.

So if you are paying attention as you are resting in bed or sleeping, you will start to hear these sounds. They are like fragmentary, broken expressions of half-truths. Some of them are male voices. Some of them are female. Some of them are animals. These are representations of our own ego, the multiplicity of our defects, which are slowly starting to detach themselves from the physical body. So as you are transitioning into dreaming, and you are trying to become conscious of your dreams, to learn to enter dreams willingly, you will start to see and perceive these things. They are memories, impressions, images, conversations, sounds, lights, and many different thoughts that flow and flux, that churn, through association, and seemingly without order. They emerge from the abyss of our consciousness, and if you’re watching them, you see them emerge, sustain, and then pass.

You want to maintain this state when you are entering dreams, to have enough distance from those elements that you don’t get caught up, identified or hypnotized by them. You want to see them for what they are, and just watch, like you are a director making a film and different actors are coming onto the stage and screen of your awareness.

These impressions are often very undesirable. Some people get very uncomfortable when they recognize that our psychology is riddled with faults. There may be snippets of conversations from earlier in our day that are tinged with negative emotion: anger, resentment, pride, fear. This Revealing Light is named so because you’re starting to tear the veil to the internal worlds. Such perceptions, coming from our interior, are often qualities that are undigested. They just emerge, and when we look at them and comprehend them, they lose their power and they pass.

These egos emerge because as we are entering the astral world, our defects and our desires are beginning to detach themselves from the five cylinders of our human machine. So this is very good if you’re seeing this! It is important. It is necessary.

Increasing Light

Do not lose your concentration, and your observation. Be present. In this way, you enter Increasing Light.

As your sleep becomes much deeper, the residual impressions and the train of discriminatory thoughts fortunately dissolve. They dissipate. They cease, and in the stillness and vastness of your consciousness, you start to receive a very profound and invigorating astral energy. These are the astral forces that are separating your consciousness from your physical body.

Many people report, at this stage, the electrical sensations of departing within the astral body. Your light is increasing, because you are beginning to transition to the astral world. You are about to achieve a conscious astral projection. Some people get very frightened by this stage, because the sensations are often very unusual. If you have not felt or experienced them before, you can be very frightened, mostly because they are unknown. But they are not dangerous! We do this all the time, but we’re just not aware of it. We are not conscious of it. We do not remember it.

With familiarity and practice, you will start to look forward to these sensations, these psychic vibrations, and welcome them, because they are indicating to you that you are on the right path. You are about to enter the astral world consciously. You are entering the threshold. Some people get very excited, or fearful, and they may lose the experience. But with meditation, with familiarity, with practice, you can learn to train yourself to experience this state again and again, so that you do not get afraid of it. You do not fear it. You allow it to happen.

Just like you breathe, just like you drink water, just like your heart beats, these are a part of you, in order to sustain your physical life. In a sense it is your spiritual life that is sustained. You are allowed to enter the internal worlds so that your body can rest. It is a function of nature. Nothing is dangerous about it, and you will come back to your body when it is time. So, nothing to fear there. So, do not be afraid, and do not get identified. Do not get caught up in it.

Astral woman in white overlooking flying castle

Immediate Realization

In this way, if you maintain your vigilance, and allow yourself to enter the astral plane, to consciously astral project and enter the dream of your choice, you enter Immediate Realization.

With our practice we are going beyond the first two lights to experience two superior lights. This here is the awakened consciousness. It is direct knowledge of the astral world. It is Immediate Realization because it happens in the moment. We are awake. We know that we have entered, and now we can begin to enter the dream, or revisit the dream of our choice, to understand it, and even to go beyond it.

So this happens oftentimes, in these recurring dreams, this Immediate Realization, often in an unconscious way. Sometimes we may have a dream or go through a recurring dream, where we are acting in it and seeing it, but not realizing it. Here in this practice, we want to be intentional. We want to be specific. We want to take the unconscious process and become aware of it. We know we are in the astral body. We are seeing things for what they are.

Girl over earth holding mystical galactic energy ball

Inner Profound Illumination

But there is another stage, something much deeper than merely being awake in the astral plane. We have what is called Inner Profound Illumination.

These are the most elevated mystical states that are possible for us. This is when we are guided by our inner God, when we are speaking face to face with divinity, through symbols, through messages, through teachings.

Inner Profound Illumination is when the ego is not there. There is only the soul and the Being. So, the recurring dream is useful for this because it helps you enter the astral plane. You relive the dream, then you have the possibility of stepping away from it. You have the Immediate Realization that you are awake in your astral body, and now you have the choice to go explore that dimension and to invoke your inner God. So with Inner Profound Illumination we invoke divinity, and our Divine Mother and our Divine Father can concur to our call to teach us what we need to know. Usually these states that are the most illuminated do not have any type of egotistical element if we’re very dedicated. In the beginning, it will take some practice to get there.

Preparation for Death

This process of entering the Four Lights, the Four Blessings, returning to dreams consciously, is really preparing us for death.

Sleep and death are the same process. We have explained this before. If we lack cognizance of our internal life, if we do not see anything, it means that we will be unconscious when we die. So we have to learn to train and awaken ourselves now, to prepare for these states after death. This is the principal tenet of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thödol, and by awakening in the astral, we can investigate superior states and we can talk to people who have died.

The Four Blessings in themselves help us enter the heavenly realms represented by this diagram of the Tree of Life. These four blessings are a form of conscious death. You learn to willingly enter the dream, enter the dreaming world, the world of the dead, so that we can resurrect within it, to go beyond our dreams, to leave our dreams behind. This is a miniature form of death and resurrection. As stated in the Qur’an, Surah 39, verse 42:

It is Allah that takes the souls of men at death, and those that die not, he takes during their sleep. Those on whom he has passed the decree of death, he keeps back from returning to life. For the rest he sends to their bodies for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs for those who reflect. ―Qur’an 39:42

So awakening to the Four Blessings will allow us to explore the heavenly realms. This is why we practice the return practice.

The Guardian Angel

To consciously enter dreams, to go beyond them and to see the higher realities, and in the process of this, we can work with what is known as the Guardian Angel.

We can work with a part of our Being that can help us to awaken within dreams. The Guardian Angel is very popular within our culture, especially Christianity. But often those symbols are now caricatures of a distant reality.

The Guardian Angel has many powers within the soul. It is a part of our inner divinity who helps guard us in our spiritual life, our spiritual path. But more importantly, it teaches us how to consciously access our dreams.

So we explained previously how the Being has many manifold expressions that all work in unity with the diverse functions of our being, which become perfected as we transform our psychology. We mentioned a few before like Morpheus and the Maiden of Memories, but the Guardian Angel is very distinct. This Guardian Angel is something very special and unique to us, and can help us maintain continuity of attention within the dreaming state. Once we are there, we can call upon our Guardian Angel within dreams to perform many magical works for us, which are very universal and unlimited.

The authentic knowledge of the Guardian Angel was preserved amongst the initiatory Mystery Schools and was maintained within distinct monasteries and orders from antiquity.

So we can invoke our Guardian Angel as we are falling to sleep, but also in the dream state itself, when we return to a dream, in order to take us to where we want to go, to go beyond ourselves.

Initiates of dream yoga discipline can awaken internally, and when we are clear, awake, ecstatic with joy, we can work with the Guardian Angel. You can learn more about this in The Perfect Matrimony, for other practices relating to the Guardian Angel besides merely transporting yourself in dreams and helping you to guard your spiritual life.

Exercises

In conclusion, throughout the day, practice self observation in the Key of SOL.

Before falling asleep, pray to your Divine Mother and Guardian Angel to help you consciously enter the internal worlds.

Upon awaking from a dream, concentrate and visualize it while falling asleep again, praying to divinity to help you return to it.

Lastly, record your dream experiences in your spiritual diary.

Questions and Answers

Question: What are these symbols from the spiritual world and how can we recognize them?

Instructor: We kind of touched on them briefly. You will know them by your heart.

What is your mood in relation to the dream?

How did it impact you?

What did you feel?

Is it disturbing?

Does it make you worry?

Does it fill you with remorse?

Does it inspire you?

In the next lecture we are going to talk about this in great detail: How to Interpret Dreams. We will talk about inspirational knowledge. Usually, a spiritual symbol hits us with a lot of force. We are inspired in the consciousness by the distinct mood and flavor of the dream. We feel in our soul that there’s something unique about it, something out of the ordinary. It has nothing to do with any murky quality, muddled or confused state which can typify most dreams. It is something that is very profound and penetrative.

So we talked about that, but also we’re going to go into a lot more depth in the next lecture about this problem specifically: how to recognize dreams from illusions, or better said, visions from illusions.

Question: In the astral plane, I don’t have any doubt that I’m experiencing something very profound, and more real than the waking world. However upon returning to the waking world, sometimes I start doubting my own experiences. Was this part of my own psyche creating these images? Were they really real?

These doubts are exacerbated by non-linearity of time and space in the astral plane. Although on a couple of occasions I have seen places that seem to be on another planet, in most cases all objects and places seem to have a quality of the waking world. So I ask myself: how come I never experience or see something I’ve never seen before? I ask myself: if time is relative in the astral plane, then why did people who traveled in the astral plane a thousand years ago not see our time? To see reports of people flying by airplanes, watching TVs and using iPhones? In the same way if time is relative in the astral plane, then why can’t I see our own distant future and technology? Of course I’m not interested in seeing our future, I just want to find a way to validate my experiences in the astral plane.

Instructor: So there is a lot going on here, I’ll break down some points.

It is common in the beginning to doubt our experiences, to fear that somehow we are going to be manipulated by our own illusions, that our ego and our mind are really projecting the contents of our own subjectivity. This is oftentimes compounded with the difficulty of the real nature of the astral plane, which is eternity, beyond the scope of our material temporality and time.

You will learn what is real and what is false by meditating. When you look at your own desires and see them for what they are, and learn to be conscious physically, and when you meditate, discriminating images in the astral world becomes easier, because you are transferring the same skill from your physical life to your internal life.

You learn to stop projecting like a film on a screen. When the mind stops projecting, when it is clear and luminous, when you have reached the Immediate Realization of the consciousness, you see reality.

Even if you see things objectively within dreams, it is important to have caution—to learn to compare the vision with physical facts, to compare data. What was the dream about? How does it relate to our daily life? If it doesn’t relate, then it is a lie. But if it is teaching you something about something physical, what is going on in your daily experience, teaching you about an ordeal or problem, a challenge, you can be more certain that there is more objectivity there and that you are receiving something spiritual.

When you stop projecting your mind onto the screen of the astral world, you can start to see that dimension for what it is—whether it is traveling to other planets, seeing cities and buildings, seeing landscapes, seeing the future, seeing architecture from other eras and ages, whether from the past like in Atlantis, or perhaps even in the future, with the Koradi. All these things can play out within our vision if we have clarified it. So, be patient. You can start to see those things more objectively and more consistently the more you meditate.

Turn off the projector of your mind. Do not let it dominate yourself in your daily life. Work hard to differentiate in your waking states what is real from what is false, and in that way you will start to have more clarity and intuition about how to discriminate what your dreams are about.

In that way, when you actually see things that are objective, you will not interpret them egotistically, because you could be very awake internally, and yet you are going to be interpreting things in the wrong way. That is a very dangerous place to be. Many people in different movements have made very grave errors, because they mistook an authentic vision which was true, and turned it into a falsehood, giving it meaning that is not there. It is a very deep topic. We will talk more about it in the next lecture. I hope this will suffice.

Question: We understand that proper invocation involves spontaneity, sincerity, a willingness to experiment. My question is: in working with invoking the Guardian Angel, do you have suggestions of movements, mantra, prayers, and how?

Instructor: Sure. “In the Name of Christ, by the Power of Christ, for the Majesty of Christ, come unto me, my Guardian Angel! Divine Father, bring my Guardian Angel unto me. Help me to perform this magical work.”

Speak from your heart. You can call to divinity in that way. The best formula is from your own being, from your soul. You can say, “My Guardian Angel, help me!” when you’re in that state. Often you will get a response if the time is ripe, if you are ready, and if what will be offered is something that you can use for your spiritual benefit.

That often happens with invoking our Divine Mother and Divine Father too. Divinity will come to us, or give us an experience, right there. Sometimes the landscape can change. Many things can happen. But really, the best invocation is whatever is most sincere. You do not really need a script. Your heart knows what is best. But if you want something to begin with, you can try that.

Question: What is a crab a symbol of esoterically?

Instructor: The crab is the symbol of Cancer in the Zodiac. There is a deep relationship there. You may have dreams of crabs. It could be related to the zodiacal sign of Cancer, to the waters. Crabs are shellfish, and in a sense shellfish are a symbol of our ego: lunar forces, lunar entities.

My understanding is very limited, so you can take this with some discretion, depending on whatever it is you have experienced. Because only you can really judge and ascertain the meaning of what these crabs may be symbolizing in a dream of yours. It is good to really open our intuition more to our own judgement and wisdom from our meditations, than to perhaps look for explanations online. However, my limited knowledge is that the crab could relate to the Zodiac.

If you dream of shellfish, it could represent perhaps egotistical elements, desires that live in the waters. This is why in the Book of Leviticus, I believe in the Old Testament, stipulated for Jewish dietary guidelines not to consume shellfish. Some people interpret this literally, but I like to look at things within the astral language presented in the Old Testament. The shellfish could represent, like lobsters specifically―maybe not crabs, but lobsters―can relate to ego or egos.

But there are dual elements and dual relationships within any symbol. There could be positive and negative meanings embedded all at the same time. This is the real mystery of dreams, because while there is a literal narrative within the experience, the symbols can operate on multiple conceptual dimensions all at once. There could be 15 different things happening all at once, in terms of how the symbol plays out in your dream.

So rather than looking at someone’s definition of it, it is good to meditate on what was going on in the dream.

What was the situation?

What was the impact or mood of the experience?

How did it play our in your vision?

What was the situation?

What was your relationship to the situation? How did it unfold?

What was the problem or the ordeal or the storyline related to that experience?

Because there are a lot of elements that are condensed within a dream, and this is why dreams are so powerful. This is why divinity does not speak oftentimes to us in a very literal way, and when he does, it is often very succinct, because symbols communicante much more than any language physically. So I hope that satisfies your question or curiosity. But that’s just my limited understanding.

Question: My dreams have the same recurring element of water. The water is always different, but water is usually present when I can remember my dreams. Should I focus on water as I fall asleep, or a dream that I can remember that had water present?

Instructor: You can do both. It is interesting that you dreamed of water. Water is a universal symbol. We often talk about its meaning within the writings of Samael Aun Weor, who explains that water is related to our sexual, creative, vital energies, and the quality of those waters are depicting for us the quality of our psychological states. You can focus on water. You can imagine it, or you can even pick out a dream―which is better, one that you actually experienced―and visualize that quality and its impact on your consciousness. That’s the best approach. Because when you have an internal experience, you can use that and should use those images as meditation symbols, like the recurring dream, the initiator element, the unifying element. They’re showing us something deep and significant. So imagine the image that you saw in your dreams.

If you have any other questions, feel free to unmute yourself.

Ok, there are no more comments or questions, we will conclude. I thank you all for coming! We will continue I believe in the beginning of October, the lecture on How to Interpret Dreams. So, I thank you all! Much appreciated.

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How to Remember Dreams

7/21/2022

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We have discussed many methods for awakening consciousness within dreams. Today we will provide practical techniques for how to remember them. We will first explain why dream recall is important, followed by ways to record our deepest spiritual experiences. By remembering everything we experience, we can cultivate a rich spiritual life.

Subconsciousness and Consciousness

Although we might have great success with awakening in dreams, it is still possible that we do not remember them.

This can sound confusing or contradictory. How is it possible that we can awaken within our dreams and yet not remember them? While surprising, this problem is clearly reflected in our daily life.

Do you remember what you ate for breakfast a week ago? Can you recall within your mind the route you took across your neighborhood or city to get to a job interview? Do you remember everything you witnessed, said, and heard? Or are there gaps in your memory, even though you know you were engaged in diverse situations with people?

We live in a paradoxical state. We think we are conscious, and yet we cannot recall all the facts of our experiences. We believe we are alert, and yet there is much that we cannot remember despite our interactions with the world. We might remember snippets of conversations, images of people and places in our mind, and yet there are gaps. Memories can be fuzzy. While we can recall whom we met, we might not remember what we thought, felt, or said. We might also forget what we were told regarding minor or even consequential issues. In some cases, we remember nothing at all.

Some would argue that it is impossible to remember everything. However, all the world scriptures emphasize the need to know ourselves completely, to remember ourselves in relation to every aspect of life. Likewise, each world religion emphasizes the possibility of becoming something more. The same dynamic applies to our ability to remember and recall our experiences, to bridge our subconscious and conscious worlds.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this topic:

32. Our head is a tower with two rooms, the cerebrum and the cerebellum.

33. The cerebellum is the room of the subconsciousness. The cerebrum is the room of the consciousness.

34. The wisdom of the internal worlds belongs to the room of the subconsciousness. The things of our world belong to the room of the consciousness.

35. When the consciousness and the subconsciousness are united, one can then study all the marvels of the internal worlds and pass them to the physical brain.

36. It is urgent that our disciples join the two rooms of this marvelous tower of our head. —Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose, “Esoteric Discipline of Mind"

Possessing a keen memory is important in our Dream Yoga studies. If you cannot remember your dreams upon awakening from rest, you are missing out on an entire world of data. There are entire dimensions or realities to be known. To ignore that is to ignore a huge percentage of your existence.

An average person might sleep eight hours a day, which, as a third of the day, constitutes a third of one’s life. Someone who lives for 75 years spends 25 of them asleep, or 9,125 days.

Just as you can imagine, there is a lot of missing time spent in unconsciousness. Yet we also know by experiencing a lucid dream that there is much to be discovered even in a single moment. This is how we can understand the magnitude of being spiritually asleep.

Also, if you cannot remember your dreams, it is most likely because you are not conscious of yourself during the day. We have already established the relationship between waking and dreaming life. They are two sides of the same coin. If you want to explore one, you need to know the other.

Three heads composed of bushes with leaves falling out

Mechanical vs. Conscious Memory

In order to advance this discussion, let us explain two distinct types of memory.

To remember signifies to “keep or bear (someone or something) in mind,” to “retain or preserve unforgotten in the memory.” This is from the Old French remembrer, to “remember, recall, or bring to mind.” The prefix “re-”means “again.” Therefore, to remember is to bring a memory or experience again to one’s attention.

Despite these specific definitions, we need to consider how memory recall has diverse qualities.

Memory, in the conventional sense, is often unreliable, as you see in the image to the left. Memories can change, fade, or disappear altogether, precisely because they can be impermanent. Or if such memories are significant, we do not tend to see them objectively for what they are.

Memories can also fluctuate and morph, primarily through how we narrate them to others. We might hear a story in one way and tell it in another. Stories can change from person to person, to the point that we cannot recognize the originals. This is the basis of gossip, whereby a falsification gains power and influence because it may contain a half-truth, a kernel of reality with the shell of multiple embellishments.

Most of our memory is egotistical. By this we typically recall information and experiences through the filter of a self. If we are angry, we recall the injustices we’ve suffered from someone in the past. If we are afraid, we might recall how we grew up in poverty and do not want to repeat its miseries. If we are proud, we relish in the memories of victory and success. These are thoughts, memories, images, or experiences related to some event.

It really does not take any effort to attend to such states. It is simply instinctual, mechanical, unintentional. We do not will it to be. It merely arrives through association.

Mechanical memory is related to the ego, the self, and our sense of self, as we’ve explained throughout this course, is the origin of dreams. A memory is a form of dreaming. It is a crystallized representation of the past in the mind. When we are engrossed in memory, we tend to ignore the present. This is how we’ve been able to assert that we are dreaming all the time.

If we wish to advance in dream yoga discipline, it is essential to develop a different type of memory that is fundamental, accurate, and reliable. What we are referencing is conscious, intentional, objective. It is known as work memory: the perception and remembrance of the real.

Work memory is the conscious capacity to accurately recall and factually remember our experiences. The consciousness has a form of memory that is objective and unfalsified. It is the result of putting our Essence, our consciousness, to work, to perceive reality as it is. This means that we do not filter anything through fear, attachment, craving, affliction, identification, or selfhood. We merely recall what is without preference.

Man's image reflected in multiple mirrors

Work memory is developed through conscious imagination, as we see with the image on the right. Conscious imagination is intentional. It is willed. It is purposeful. Such perceptions arrive, sustain, and cease according to our volition. When you imagine something consciously, you see it without an interpreter, without a self. Your imagination clarifies and expands like multiple mirrors augmenting the light of a candle. You perceive more without any distortion or flaw, like a reflective and polished surface.

This clear seeing is often accompanied by a lack of an “I,” or sense of “me, myself.” Since it is pure seeing without an interpreter, one can arrive at an objective assessment of phenomena.

We often reiterate in these studies the need to remember the Being. The Being, our divine nature, is impersonal. It is pure perception without a filter. When we remember the Being, we are bringing to our attention, to our awareness, a state of consciousness that is devoid of any “I,” and yet it is characterized by spontaneous joy, profound insight, and perfect serenity. This is what can consistently and precisely recall dream experiences without fault, because it is free from mistakes in observation.

Samael Aun Weor also explained in The Great Rebellion how work memory involves psychological photographs of different stages in our development, to visualize and compare how we were behaving in the past to what we are now, followed by what we might become. This can provide inspiration to work on ourselves and change, to possess greater motivation to awaken within dreams. Work memory allows us to recall our dreams, yet this skill is developed through training our consciousness to accurately remember the events of our daily life, and to see the connections between them.

Woman in red hood and robes approaching inner sanctum of light

Atrophy of Memory

The reason why we cannot remember our dreams is because our conscious memory is atrophied.

Any muscle lacking exercise atrophies. If you refuse to engage your body in some type of work, your muscles will become weak. The same with the consciousness. The same with our ability to recall experiences.

It is crucial to remember our internal experiences, for as I stated, we tend to go through our physical and internal existences without cognizance. There are possibilities accessible to us when we dream that can inform our daily life, wisdom that is so profound that we do not need to rely on anyone or anything for spiritual guidance. Mystical experiences constitute the ethical compass of the Gnostic. Without this connection, our spirituality is deficient, because we are not aware of the genuine messages we receive from divinity regarding how to live.

The fact is that we might be traveling to the temples of the White Lodge to be helped, and yet we do not bring those experiences back with us to our body. This is like the sci-fi television show Severance, where employees at a certain company receive an operation that splits their identities. Whenever they come to work, they are one person and can only remember their life at the job. When they leave the building, they are someone else with a completely different set of memories. Even these two distinct personalities are colloquially termed “innies” and “outies.”

This is our reality. We live two lives, a physical and internal existence. Only one who has awakened in dreams is conscious that there is another reality. However, those memories must be brought back for there to be an integration of the psyche.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor said about the topic:

The ego lives in the internal worlds and travels to different places while our physical body sleeps. There, within the internal worlds, we are exposed to tests many times. It is within the temples of the internal worlds where we receive the initiation. Therefore, it becomes necessary to remember everything that we do outside the body. Thus, with the instructions given in this book, every human being will be able to awaken the consciousness and remember his internal experiences.

It is painful to know that there are many initiates who work in the great temples of the White Lodge whilst their physical body sleeps; nonetheless, they do not remember anything because their memory is atrophied. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Let’s explore why we might not remember our dreams.

Psychological Integration, Equilibrium, and Alignment

Dream recall is facilitated by the full integration, equilibrium, and alignment of the psyche.

We spoke previously about the five centers of the human machine. If our intellect, emotions, movements, instincts, and sexuality are at odds with each other, then we live in a state of psychological confusion. If we think one thing, feel another, and do something contrary to both, we suffer from a lack of inner clarity.

For example, if someone insults us, we might be filled with self-justifying thoughts. We also might experience a barrage of desires for retaliation. Lastly, we are also torn between fight or flight impulses. These related but disparate reactions all occur within a moment. However, they demonstrate that our consciousness is fragmented, dispersed. We lack a sense of cohesion, which is unity and peace.

We’ve also explained how our consciousness needs to be super active while our personality and mind must be passive. This allows for our human machine to operate optimally, with balance.

Memories from the internal worlds flow better into our human machine when it is passive and integrated. If we train our intellectual center to function consciously, alongside our emotions, movements, instincts, and sexual drives, then we will possess a better vehicle for receiving experiences from the higher worlds.

Silhouette of man by starry heavens and the silver cord

The best technique for balancing the five centers is meditation. In this way, we can leave our bodies behind to experience the superior states of the Being. While out of the body, we witness and perceive beyond the limitations of the ego. If our human machine is healthy, balanced, and integrated, then such memories of our internal experiences can flow freely down through the silver cord, the Antakharana thread (like in the image to the right), to be permanently established within our interior.

Moving Upon Awakening

Besides a lack of psychological integration, there are other reasons why we might not remember dreams. A major one is that we usually move upon awakening.

This is the first and most important step for dream recall: don’t move. It is very simple, but easy to forget or ignore out of habit. Normally upon awakening, you might feel agitated or antsy after having slept for eight hours. The natural compulsion is to stretch, move, or adjust your position. Despite these tendencies, it is very important to become conscious of yourself and to make the deliberate choice not to move.

Why is this, you might wonder? In the beginning, our dream memories, because they belong to the subconsciousness and not the consciousness, can be delayed from transferring into our physical brain. It is normal for dream experiences to take some time to transfer from the astral body into our brain, especially if we’ve never trained ourselves to do this before.

Just as you would not click cancel while in the middle of an important download, likewise you should not move upon awakening. This is because the astral body, while a material and energetic vehicle, is more fluidic. Ever watch the reflection of a pool of water after it is disturbed? The images on it its surface become distorted. However, when it is still, water can reflect with perfect clarity, vibrancy, and translucence. The same with the astral body after it returns to our physical body.

When you awake in bed, your astral body naturally integrates with your physical body after having been engaged in activities in the astral world. You have basically just gotten back into your car again after a night’s journey outside of it. Now you have the opportunity to transfer any dream memories into your physical brain. You do so by making as little to no movement as possible upon awakening.

When the astral body reintegrates, its memories and values are still present in the form of images and experiences. They naturally reside within the translucent nature of the astral body. In such a delicate moment, you can try to remember your dreams by not moving. You will have greater efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability in this, because you do not agitate the fluidic composition of your astral body. When there is no ripple of movement, you make it easier for dream recall to happen.

If you move upon awakening, even if you remember some fragments of dreams, it will become increasingly difficult to recall them as you engage in your daily activities. Just as the stars of the night vanish with the rising of the sun, so do our dream memories dissipate as we engage with the responsibilities of life. This is why we have to discipline ourselves not to move upon awakening and to concentrate on remembering dreams before we move in bed.

Some people really struggle with this. Perhaps some are too mechanical and feel like they have the move first thing upon awakening. If this is a problem, train yourself and do not beat yourself up if you initially fail. This is a lifestyle. Take your time, but practice consistently so that you make a new habit.

Others have difficulty getting up for work and therefore need an alarm. Perhaps this is problematic because it is disturbing to your dream recall exercise. If you make an alarm to wake you since you sleep deeply, set it ten minutes before you need to get up and move. Make sure the alarm is not so annoying that it distracts you, but can wake you up in time for you to try and remember your experiences.

Retrospection Meditation

While you are awake and bed and have not moved, it is now time for a retrospection exercise.

Retrospection is the conscious review of our memories. We perform this to help us remember what we witnessed and experienced while out of the body. We also perform retrospection meditation daily as a means of strengthening our capacity to remember events during the day, so that our conscious memory is exercised and strengthened. This is thoroughly explained in our course on Gnostic Meditation.

I will synthesize this practice for you here. When you find yourself in your body again, concentrate upon any lingering memories that are still present with you since you dreamed. If your dreams are fuzzy, distant, or obscured, concentrate upon the last thought you had as you awoke in bed. This last thought will relate to the last dream you experienced.

You want to focus on either the last thought or image you have in your mind and trace it back in sequence, for the latest to the earliest. You may find that if you focus on the freshest memory, you will get a better foothold in the door between the vigil and dreaming states. The earlier dreams will be easier to access. Sometimes it just takes one dream memory to lead into the rest.

It is important to balance drowsiness when performing this retrospection exercise. This might not be hard for some people upon awakening, since one has just rested for eight hours. However, it can be easy to fall asleep again if you’re particularly tired, so it might take some discipline to maintain the threshold of drowsiness without falling asleep again. This is something you can only know through familiarity and practice.

Light in the cave of the subconsciousness, visible on a horizon

The Mantra Raom Gaom

However, lying still might not be enough. Even after concentrating upon our last thought, image, or memory, the door to the internal worlds can feel shut. In this case, it becomes necessary to work with mantra.

We provided an entire lecture on Mantras for Astral Projection, where we explained how sacred sounds can activate conscious abilities. The following mantra, Raom Gaom, is most effective for dream recall.

Samael Aun Weor explained how each word is divided and prolonged into two syllables, like this:

Rrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaa… Ooooooooommmmmmmmm… Gaaaaaaaaa… Ooooooooommmmmmmmm…

Do not worry about whether you can trill the consonant R, because these mantras are performed mentally. You only need to imitate the sound in your mind. We do not vocalize the mantra upon awakening because the vibrations of the sound will agitate the astral body. We instead pronounce Raom Gaom mentally.

Samael Aun Weor explained that this mantra is like dynamite. When you mentally pronounce this mantra, you concentrate upon a memory and hold your attention upon it. The mystical sound within your consciousness will, with repetition, sincerity, and prayer, open the caves of your subconsciousness and allow for its contents to come out.

If you have absolutely no memory of your dreams in the beginning, then this mantra will be even better for you. Concentrate upon the mantra in your mind. Reflect upon the contents of your mind with serene attention, and then wait. Suddenly, memories associated with your dream experiences will flood into your mind. This often occurs as we simultaneously pray to our Divine Mother to show us the rest of our experiences, to help us remember. We do not need formula, but simply, “Help me, my Mother!” The more natural the prayer, the better.

Abracadabra

To strengthen our conscious capacity to remember, we can also vocalize the mantra Abracadabra for one hour daily. It comes from the Hebrew אברה קדברה Ebrah K’Dabri, which means "I create what I speak." It has traditionally been used as an incantation and magical seal for amulets, talismans—and now—T-shirts.

This mantra, due to its exposure to humanity, has been greatly denigrated and vulgarized. However, it is exceptionally powerful for strengthening not only our consciousness, but our thymus gland.

There are many benefits to this exercise. However, I only want to highlight its contexts for dream yoga, since the vowel A—pronounced as the A in Father—helps to activate the pulmonary chakra, whose power is past life memories and dream recall.

Glorian Publishing produced a video on how to pronounce the mantra, whereby you do so in its entirety, and then subsequently remove a letter off the end of each repetition, prolonging the vowels. For example, Abracadabra becomes Abracadabr, followed by Abracadab and Abracada, and so on, until finally you are reduced to the vowel A. Afterward, you repeat the whole process again with Abracadabra. For more information, you can reference the article and video from Glorian [the article has been removed. You can reference a chapter from Samael Aun Weor's book on Sexology].

People wonder why this mantra is diminutive through each repetition until you are reduced to the single vowel A. The reason is that when you retrospect your dreams or even your life, you are slowly increasing your resolution, reducing your vision to an even more distant and primeval moment in your experience, before all the complications of life eclipsed it. When you perform this mantra to remember distant moments of your past, you sequentially strip away the superfluous aspects of the personality to arrive at the simplicity of childhood, whereby the tendencies for much of our current, everyday life originated.

Raom Gaom is great for when you first wake up. But if you still struggle to remember dreams with facility, then you might want to consider using Abracadabra as well. Prolong and sing the mantra with all of your being.

The Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba Mantra

There is another series of mantras to help access memories, especially from one’s childhood. They are the mantras Ma Ma, Pa Pa.

These sacred sounds are the first syllables children pronounce. The letter M relates to water and the Divine Mother. The consonant P relates to the Latin Pater, the Divine Father. The vowel A activates the pulmonary chakras, related to past life memories. When children are born, they breathe and cry, since their lungs and chakras come into activity.

People ignore why children really cry at birth. We often have a very simplistic view of children, that somehow as adults, we possess greater intelligence and understanding and that children are helpless. In reality, children are conscious, intuitive, awake. They have not been acculturated into society because they have not yet developed a personality. Their Essence is present and alert, since the world has not yet conditioned their capacities for novelty and imagination. In such moments of birth, children can remember their past lives and how they are now reborn. Therefore it is very unpleasant to remember one’s past mistakes and sufferings with the foreknowledge that such circumstances will repeat in a new cycle.

Such memories are part of the consciousness, which process and manifest themselves in the form of images. The perception of internal imagery, as we previously explained, has been known by the terms imagination or clairvoyance. Such memories come into activity when we are born because of the pulmonary chakras, the vowel A, which we exclaim whenever we are born into this world.

We do not remember such primitive moments because of acculturation, experience, personality, and the gradual sleep of our consciousness throughout time. However, if we wish to remember our dreams and access greater insights into them, it is necessary to reactivate our lost powers. Jesus stated in the Gospels to become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. This does not mean we become naïve and defenseless. It signifies that we reactivate our work memory, that we resurrect the internal images and abilities of our infancy that have been submerged within our subconsciousness. Such capacities are encoded within our psychological energy and are referenced as atoms, not in the literal sense, but as forces and principles that need to be stimulated and manifested again.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this practice:

…the syllables Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba are the first syllables that we articulate in childhood. You can start the initiation with these syllables. You must sing these syllables while assuming an innocent and infantile attitude. You can learn the intonation of these sacred syllables when listening to The Magic Flute of Mozart.

Mozart placed these syllables in his marvelous opera. The disciple must fall asleep assuming an infantile attitude while remembering the first years of his childhood and then mentally singing the sacred syllables.

The word Pa Pa should be vocalized intoning the first syllable Pa in a high voice, then the second syllable Pa will be uttered in a lower voice. These two syllables should be pronounced many times. You must do the same thing with the syllable Ma.

Fall asleep while meditating on your childhood. Review with your imagination your whole childhood and mentally articulate the sacred syllables.

You must know that every child is clairvoyant until the age of four years. Afterwards, the innocent atoms of clairvoyance submerge themselves within the subconsciousness. Therefore, if you want to reconquer clairvoyance, meditate on your childhood and profoundly fall asleep while articulating the first syllable of the child, Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba.

This type of meditation and the sacred syllables will awaken the infantile atoms of clairvoyance. Then you will elevate yourself into Imaginative Knowledge. You will learn to think with living images. —Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message, “The Pure River of the Waters of Life”

We included a link here to the scene in The Magic Flute of Mozart where the mantras Ma Ma Pa Pa are sung. The innocence and purity of childhood is beautifully reflected in this opera. I highly recommend you listen to it to understand the quality of such a state.

I will also pronounce these mantras for your use now:

Mmmaaaaaaaaa Mmmaaaaaaaaa, Paaaaaaaaa Paaaaaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaa

Pronounce them with serenity and happiness, so that your inner child is manifested to your consciousness.

Dream Journaling

As you start to remember your dreams, it becomes essential that you record them.

The act of recording dreams is significant. Having an accurate record with thorough details regarding each dream, no matter how incoherent or vague, is important for three reasons:

We need a record of our progress in dream yoga
Documenting dreams helps us pay attention to their details, and:
The act of writing trains your memory to be more reliable

Many dreams might be so complicated, abstract, or disjointed that it becomes difficult to discern what to document. If a dream is hazy, write down whatever general feelings or mood accompany it. You can articulate the thought of idea associated with the dream. If the dream is super crazy and sophisticated, then documenting it with as much detail will help you later in deciphering what it all means.

It is better to do more than less, because each entry is a proven record of your psychological states when you go to bed. There might be details of your dreams that seem insignificant, but in reality prove to be crucial later in your analysis.

Thoroughly recording your dreams with as much possible detail provides greater data points when assessing, month by month, your general progress in awakening consciousness. It also helps to pay closer attention to what is going on. Plus the act of writing or documenting your ideas, whether on a notepad or an electronic device, goes a long way toward helping your memory be more reliable. You will likely find after adopting this practice that if you stop recording your dreams, it becomes more difficult to remember them, even with a retrospective exercise.

It’s good to be consistent with writing dreams down, because any lapse can have medium to long term consequences. We might miss out on really important experiences. Also, any missing piece to our dream yoga discipline can corrode our entire efforts, since all these practices come together to form a cohesive whole.

Nutrition memory diet almonds citrus fruit and honey

Nutrition to Develop Memory

Another method to remember dreams is dietary. It consists of consuming, for breakfast, ground almonds with honey and citrus fruit. These foods are packed with spiritual nutrition to help with work memory and dream recall.

Food not only provides sustenance on a physical, biological level, but spiritual as well. The reason why we are nourished by whole foods is their vital elements, the energies and spiritual forces that help animate our physicality. Ground almonds with honey and citrus fruit are particularly condensed forms of spiritual nutrition, since they are packed with atomic principles for the brain and consciousness.

Some things to keep in mind, however. You do not need to make this the only thing you eat for breakfast. It can merely complement your current regiment. Also, if you are allergic to nuts, then you will obviously not be able to eat ground almonds for this dietary stipulation. You can try to consume foods with honey, preferably raw and organic, along with citrus fruit if you can. The better the quality food, the better results.

The Four Ethers

The spiritual forces that animate our body, as well as make up our food, are known as vital or etheric energy.

Our physical body is constituted by four different forms of ether, some of which play a significant role in the quality of our memories, dream recall, imagination and perception. Similar to an astral body, we even possess a vital body that permeates every atom of our physical body so as to animate it with life. This vehicle has often been shown in Kirlion photography, which was developed to document the living aura of people, animals, plants, and even minerals.

Our different ethers determines a lot for us, including the quality of our life, health, perceptions, offspring, and memories. The etheric or vital body is like a solar panel that attracts energy into our physicality every time we go to sleep. One reason why we leave in the astral body every time we sleep is so that the vital body can repair the physical body from its daily activities. Once we return and awake in bed, the vital body is done rejuvenating the physical body.

The quality of our etheric vehicle determines dream recall. The vital body is an intermediary between our physical life and the astral body. It is like a conduit or channel whereby our internal values can express out into the world. It also, like a mirror, can reflect internal imagery into our consciousness, if it is polished, maintained, and clean.

If our etheric body is sick or polluted from harmful behaviors or substances, then it cannot clearly transmit information and memories into our physical brain. This is why we are very careful in our studies regarding what we eat, drink, and, most importantly, think. The quality of our minds determines a lot for our spiritual well being. This is why we work, through the path of initiation, to purify our psychological environment, our mind, so that we can access the internal worlds with more frequency, profundity, and clarity.

There are four ethers. Let us relate how Samael Aun Weor described them:

The Vital Body is constituted of four ethers:

A) Luminous ether

B) Reflective ether

C) Chemical ether

D) Ether of life

The first of these ethers is found intimately related with the diverse functions of willpower and imagination.

The second ether is found secretly associated with all the sensorial and extra-sensorial perceptions.

The third is the foundation of all biochemical and organic processes.

The fourth serves as a medium for the forces that work with the processes of reproduction of the races. —Samael Aun Weor, The Three Mountains: “The Second Initiation of Fire"

These ethers are graded on a spectrum, from more base and coarse to more subtle and refined. The ethers associated with our biology and reproductive abilities are obviously the most basic and material. The ethers associated with our sensorial perceptions, imagination and willpower are more abstract and synthetic. While our biology plays a part in how we perceive physically through our organs, the superior two ethers help energize and catalyze our very being in the physical and internal worlds. They are the fuel that animate the car of both our physical and astral bodies, allowing for that relationship to even exist between them.

While the two inferior ethers drive our physical body, the two superior ethers can be separated and imprinted within our astral body through the process of initiation (See The Secret Path of Initiation). This allows the astral body to better retain and transmit our dream memories to our physical body when we awake from rest.

Let us continue with Samael Aun Weor:

I learned to liberate the two superior ethers in order to travel with them far away from the physical body during the Second Initiation of the Fire.

Unquestionably, clairvoyant and clairaudient perceptions are extraordinarily intensified when one absorbs the two superior ethers in one’s astral body.

These ethers permit us to bring into the physical brain the totality of the supra-sensible memories. —Samael Aun Weor, The Three Mountains: “The Second Initiation of Fire”

If your etheric body is healthy and you conserve its vital energies, then the thread that connects your astral body with your physical brain will become enlivened and strong. This way, you will have greater bandwidth and processing of internal experiences within your physical body, so that you don’t forget anything.

Maiden in white clothes hovering by castle

The Maiden of Memories

Samael Aun Weor builds off the two superior ethers in his explanation of the Maiden of Memories. She is part of our unique, idiosyncratic divinity, our Being. She is part of us, and also the divine.

Some people get hung up over the idea that there are parts to the Being, or that divinity is male or female. Do not think of parts as some kind of disassociated fragments, but rather constitutive principles and forces that exist within an infinitude of expression. They can be characterized as having either masculine or feminine characteristics. Together they form our perfect Being.

When Arjuna asked Krishna to show him His true form, Krishna manifested as an army of people of diverse appearances.

A rabbi in the Midrash (or Jewish biblical commentary) related that when divinity spoke to Moses and the Israelites, His laws and commandments were pronounced all at once in a cacophony of voices, which were too powerful and overwhelming to experience.

Therefore, the divine unity always manifests as a multiplicity.

The Maiden of Memories is one such expression that seeks to help us remember our dreams. She is described as salient, a sapient soul (sapience referring to authentic wisdom). She thrives within our two superior ethers and can be consciously utilized to enter with us in our astral projections, so that she can help us retain our dream experiences and remember the wisdom we receive in the internal worlds.

Here is an explanation and practice from Samael Aun Weor to work with the Maiden of Memories:

The sapient Soul expresses herself within these two [superior] ethers. She is the beloved Maiden of our Memories. When seen clairvoyantly, this Maiden looks like a beautiful lady within the Ethereal Body.
It is necessary for the disciple to learn how to take the beloved Maiden of our Memories into his astral travels, in order to bring the memory of all that he sees and hears within the internal worlds. She serves as a mediator between the senses of the physical brain and the ultrasensible senses of the Astral Body. It comes to be (if the concept fits) that She is like the storage space of memory.

While in bed, at the time of sleep, invoke your Innermost in the following way:

“Father of mine, Thou who art my real Being, I beseech Thee with all of my heart and with all of my soul to take the beloved Maiden of my Memories out from my Ethereal Body, with the goal of not forgetting anything when returning into my physical body.”

Then, while becoming sleepy pronounce the mantras: La Ra S… —Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic: “Ens Naturae”

We previously explained the mantras La Ra S, which we not only use for conscious astral projections, but also to work with our Maiden of Memories. Pronounce the mantras aloud at first. Then whisper them. Finally, pronounce them in the mind as you fall asleep, meditating and praying.

The Primary Colors and Memory

There are other reasons why we might not remember dreams.

In our lecture on Overcoming Obstacles to Astral Projection, we talked about decorating our homes with the three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red. These represent the three primary, spiritual forces characterized by Affirmation (the Father), Negation (the Son), and Reconciliation (the Holy Spirit). These creative forces permeate all of existence, down to the level of the atom up to the magnitude of a galaxy. Even the three forces can relate to the proton, electron, and neutron, respectively.

You might already realize this, but colors have profound significance in dreams. Lighter, happier, and pleasing colors bear positive connotations. Dark, shadowy, or foreboding colors set a negative precedent. Neutral colors are indifferent in dreams. Bold reds can signify lust and passion. Luminous white can indicate psychological purity.

Now our brain is a receptacle for spiritual forces. Such forces are characterized in the internal worlds by colors. Our vital body can be illuminated by a beautiful spectrum of color. This is why Tibetan Buddhism refers to the perfected vital vehicle as the Rainbow Body of Liberation. When our brain is energized, manifesting a wide range of colors within the vital body, then internal memories are easier to retrieve. Just as light refracts due to moisture in the air so as to form a rainbow, likewise when we work with the waters of our creative energies, spiritual light refracts and forms a healthy vital aura related to the rainbow. Light, when perfected through spiritual practice, augments into many varieties and colors. The same principle applies to our vital body.

Sometimes such vital values, represented by distinct colors, are absent within the student. Other times those vital values are spent outwardly within a materialistic lifestyle rather than being conserved through a spiritual discipline. Likewise, people can forget their dreams due to the overall lack of brain health, which can result from bad habits.

There are ways to heal the brain so that we can remember all our dreams. One can petition to the spiritual masters of the higher worlds who are responsible for universal medicine, who can visit sick patients within the internal worlds. They work through the Temple of Alden in the astral world. Some of them are renowned in our own history: Hermes, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus are just a few initiates who spent their lives healing people, both physically and internally. They will often appear like terrestrial doctors, whereby they will place you in a chair underneath a light with the three primary colors. This apparatus allows them to examine your internal bodies so that they can diagnose and treat you.

Let us reference what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this problem and how to remedy it:

Also, there exists within the Gnostic Church a lens with which the colors of the disciple can be examined. When the disciple does not carry all of his complete colors, then he cannot bring the memories into his body. Many times, due to daily preoccupations, these colors remain within the physical body.

In our brain there is an extremely fine nervous tissue that is totally unknown to the men of science. This tissue is the instrument in order for us to bring back our internal memories. Yet, when an injury is present in that tissue, then the disciple cannot bring his memories into his brain.

Then, there is the need to ask the Masters Hermes, Hippocrates, or Paracelsus for the healing of that center. A letter must be written to the Temple of Alden, asking for the help of any of the three mentioned Masters. That letter must firstly be saturated with the smoke of frankincense. Afterwards, the letter must be burned with fire, while pronouncing the mantras Om Tat Sat Om.

One must perform this action filled with faith, kneeling, praying to heaven, and begging to be heard. Certainly, the material part of the letter is burned, yet the Astral counterpart goes directly to the hands of the Master to whom the letter is meant. Thus, the Master reads the Astral counterpart of the letter and then proceeds to heal the disciple. —Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub: “The Elixir of Long Life”

You can perform this last practice if everything else is failing you, or if you just want to be sure to remember everything you dream. Incense is important, because frankincense is a spiritual aroma that attracts positivity and the help of the masters.

Some people wonder how a burnt letter can get into the hands of a spiritual master. People might wonder why the masters can’t just use Google. In truth, our prayers, amplified through frankincense, deliver the astral contents of our message. This is much more reliable and profound than sending an email. In fact, it is transformative and moving, especially since a hand written letter is more personal and sincere. Likewise, not all of these masters are incarnated. Therefore, the best way to reach them is through the best search engine: meditation.

After performing this practice, you have to be patient for the results, because it takes time to heal ourselves. With practice, you might even have an experience where the master you petitioned appears to you internally using the three primary colors to examine your astral body.

Exercises

We will now conclude with practices.

Throughout the day, develop self-observation.
Practice the Key of Sol from moment to moment.
Every day, practice meditative retrospection. Recall what you perceived externally and internally from the entire day.
Before falling asleep, invoke the help of either your Maiden of Memories (with the mantras La Ra S) or Morpheus.
Upon waking from sleep, mentally vocalize the mantras Raom Gaom before physically moving. Review and recall your dreams.
Record your experiences in your spiritual diary.

At this point, I would like to open up the floor to questions.

Questions and Answers

Question: At least in one state or layer of astral projection, there appears to be three kinds of people. There are people who walk around and do not notice me floating above them. If I approach them, or try to interact with them, they do not notice me, or barely notice something (usually a small child). Then there is another group who also walks around and sees me but do not interact. They seem to be on a mission of some sort. The third group are people who like me float around and seem to be discovering their state or whereabouts. They see me and I see them.

The question is, what are the possible differences between these groups and who the initiates should try to contact or interact with?

Instructor: Obviously there are a lot of different kinds of people within the world. Most people when they enter the astral dimension do so unconsciously. People who wander the astral plane usually are merely repeating their daily life. Someone who has never trained their consciousness to be awake through the Key of SOL (Subject, Object, Location), will not be aware when their physical body is either asleep or deceased.

Plato had said that a man is known by his dreams. If we go to bed and eight hours pass and we do not see anything, it means we are not conscious in the objective sense. Most people are like this. The astral world is often just a repetition of one’s physical existence. So if you work at a bar or serve as a teacher, such people will repeat their occupations within the dreaming state, but they will not be aware of it.

But there are people who you can recognize in the astral dimension who are awake. You can see it through their eyes. Descartes said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Clairvoyantly in the astral dimension, you can look at the eyes of an individual to determine their state, their level of being, their quality. It’s an intuitive process. You have to be very sharp and alert.

There are beings who, like us, are trying, people across the globe who want to awaken within dreams, so they are applying these techniques and are getting results. So you can run into many people internally who are part of, say, the Gnostic movement, or other traditions and religions who are being conscious, and you can recognize them by interacting with them. The difference between them is obviously people who train and people who don’t.

I don’t recommend spending a lot of trying to wake up people who are really unconscious, who don’t make the effort to know themselves. Samael Aun Weor related an experience how he tried to wake up a person in the astral plane who did not have any type of training. He was with a high master of the White Lodge who attempted with him to stimulate the consciousness of this individual through a spiritual transference of force, because the masters of the White Lodge can provide assistance in that way. They give you a type of light or force, kind of like fanning a fire in order to awaken some sparks, some recognition that one is dreaming.

Obviously, someone who has no fire, no light, the firewood is damp, is dead, is dense. It won’t light, and so this master told Samael Aun Weor, “Don’t waste your time. This person is too asleep.”

However, people who are working in the physical world to awaken internally are developing fire in themselves. We know from his teachings that one should work with the creative energies of sexuality through exercises like pranayama, sexual alchemy, the perfect matrimony. By working with the fire of our spirituality, the creative force, we awaken sparks and flames, so that it is easier to awaken internally. No fire, no light.

So the initiates and the masters do have a preference. They like to work with people who have some semblance of sincerity, who are trying to change in themselves so that they can really better themselves and humanity.

It is good to interact with masters internally. It is the best use of our time, not trying to appease lunar people.

Question: I rarely understand what my dreams mean and therefore struggle to motivate myself to remember dreams or perform dream yoga. What do you recommend?

Instructor: It’s difficult. We talk a lot about spiritual nights where we lack motivation to really do what is in our best interest, spiritually speaking. It can be difficult to motivate ourselves if we feel depressed and we don’t get the results we want. Or we have many dreams that we don’t understand.

I think the solution, especially for motivation, is prayer and remembrance. We have to remember those spiritual and psychological states that pushed us to even study this in the first place. Obviously, any person who approaches Gnosticism or dream yoga has had some type of experience, however fleeting, vaporous, abstract, or enigmatic. If we reflect on those moments and reflect on why it is we want to study dream yoga, we can in turn inflame our heart, especially by connecting through prayer to our Being.

We have to remember divinity, to remember the presence of the divine. A lot of people might not have had a dream about that or an experience, but in our daily states, perhaps in childhood when we were young and uncorrupted, we tasted that. We tasted what it means to be awakened, to be able to see a mountain in the grain of sand, or through our imagination, to see an ocean in a droplet. There is a type of spontaneity and profound joy that we knew when we were young.

In truth, many of us when we were young had very lucid dreams. That might be the reason why a lot of people approach these studies. With age, acculturation, and time, our experiences as an adult often obscure or smother those remembrances. So it is very difficult to even understand our dreams or to be motivated to want to remember them because we are so hypnotized.

The mantras we gave earlier, such as Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba, as well as Abracadabra, are very powerful for motivation, especially the former, Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba. If you struggle to remember your dreams or to be motivated, make the sincere effort by praying to your Divine Mother and working with that mantra. Remember your childhood. Remember what it was like to be awake. Those experiences, when they come to you in meditation, are so profound that they will change your life and what you thought you knew about yourself, about your family, about humanity. When you see those images emerge from within your subconsciousness with that practice, you realize that truly one can enter the kingdom of heaven by becoming like a little child, by recapturing and reconquering that state.

So I recommend working with that. When you recognize those superior states of consciousness, you realize that there is more to life than what our television shows, our popular media, our social media would have us believe. There are profound realities that are far beyond our current grasp. In that way, you will be more motivated. You will try harder because you want to experience that.

The meanings of dreams unfold even after many years of practice. Some dreams you can experience and understand immediately. But the more you reconquer your intuition, those infantile forces that reside within the subconsciousness, the easier it becomes to access and to push ourselves further in this path.

Question: Do you have an experience or insight into what being attacked by a dark entity is like, to the point of feeling your heart or soul being crushed inside of a lucid dream? This experience has not left me since I was a child.

Instructor: Yeah. There’s a lot of entities out there. Not all of them are good, but there are ways to protect yourself. Study our course Spiritual Self-Defense. We gave many exercises and practices that you can use to defend yourself spiritually, not only in dreams but also physically, such as preparing your home for meditation, creating a spiritual space to meditate, to perform dream yoga, etc.

Don’t be discouraged by such experiences because whenever any negative entity tries to impede our development, it is because we are making some progress. Often times students get pulled away from these studies because of fear. They do not want to experience again being attacked. But that is merely just giving them what they want, and in fact, those beings have little power compared to your divinity. So the practices we gave in that course help invoke the presence of our inner Being so that while awake and clear and alert, we know how to effectively deal with problems. Therefore they just become a little annoying rather than a tremendous sense of terror and uncertainty.

Question: This is the first time I have heard about the three primary colors. Can you explain how these came to be?

Instructor: Think of light. Light exists in a spectrum, such as the three primary colors and its gradations such as in the rainbow. Light is a metaphor and a quality of being, of divinity. Wherever there is light, there is consciousness. Light, even in quantum mechanics, is known to possess intelligence. Light particles make decisions. Likewise our consciousness is a form of light. The root of that light, that direct perception, that seeing without conditions, is divine.

We reference the three primary colors because in a cosmological sense our own particular light, our own spark of divinity, unfolds and enters the world to have experiences, to develop and mature. In the process of the creation of any universe, we can say in a metaphorical sense, that light divides and becomes three, the three primary forces which have been characterized by every single religion throughout the world. The Christians call them the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Other religions have different names, but we use the three primary colors to symbolize or represent those principles that are within us. Those principles have to be activated through dream yoga.

So in our dream yoga exercises we are training the consciousness, training ourselves to be present, alert, and aware. In the process, we develop our full potential. It’s a very deep topic. It’s not easy to synthesize in a few sentences. But if you study some of the writings of Samael Aun Weor, especially Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, you will get a good sense about what does it mean to develop light, and especially his book The Great Rebellion and The Perfect Matrimony, he talks a lot about the divine origins of the soul. These are represented by the three primary colors, which we use to qualify parts of our Being.

In our vital body, if we are very awake and alert, especially within the internal worlds, we can directly experience the different energies and colors of that vehicle. So they can relate to the three primary colors and the health of our physical brain as well.

Question: Is it possible for someone or something to affect me? I had a dream of three old women who were pressing their thumbs into my forehead (the third eye location), saying that they were locking something in me. Was it a real attack on me or not? How do I know?

Instructor: Follow your heart. What does your heart tell you? I know a lot of times people are filled with doubt and uncertainty about what they experience. But the way to interpret our inner visions is done through the heart, through intuition.

You do not need to think about it. You can discern and comprehend the experience, but it is not an intellectual exercise. Intuition works through hunches, and a lot of dreams that are very impactful or real have a very profound effect. They hit harder than other dreams.

Now witches and black magicians or negative entities can try to affect our energies in our physical and internal bodies. So it is possible to that this is a very real experience. Only you can really judge and ascertain that. If you want to be sure and secure and to protect yourself from such influences, you can practice certain prayers in our tradition that we use like in the course we mentioned (Spiritual Self-Defense). They’re called the Conjurations and the Invocation of Solomon. Glorian Publishing provided some videos about that too, but in our lectures and in our course, we do go into a lot of detail about how to protect yourself, but also how to know if you’re being attacked.

You got to evaluate your psychological states too. What elements are surging in you in response to the event? Are you experiencing any abnormalities in your daily life? Maybe health related issues, maybe psychological issues, maybe obsessions, maybe fears, unexplained terrors, different emotions, qualities of your psychology that feel very overwhelming. So those are ways that you can ascertain that maybe something is wrong and that you need to take precautions.

Part of our dream yoga discipline too is we do a lot of these prayers and invocations before we go to bed. We learn to protect our home through a seal of magical protection provided by our inner divinity. So we gave explanations of those practices in that course. I recommend that you study it and apply them.

Comment: I’ve found that if I try to write my dreams as soon as possible, just in the mere process of writing them I recall more and more. I have tried remaining still, but sometimes my mind begins to think and wander, or other times I just feel too lazy and fall back asleep. Not sure if this is a question about this part, but I would like to hear your views on this if any.

Instructor: That’s been my experience too, is that writing dreams down helps to remember them more. There is something about the act of writing, whether physically on paper or on an electronic device, that concretizes or solidifies those abstract moments in dreams into something material. It helps to remember, so it is very useful. So it is good to combine this with retrospection and Raom Gaom.

Question: Tying back to the earlier question about being attacked by three old women or witches, can I undo that harm? I felt like they predicted my death.

Instructor: Yes. There are many ways to undo works of black magic, so there is no need to fear them. Yes, there is a way to protect yourself but also take away any negative harm done unto oneself, whether visible or invisible.

Question: I actually remember dreams better when I move upon awakening little by little. What might this indicate?

Instructor: It means your memory is stronger. There are levels of intensity of forgetfulness and remembrance. Some people have a very fragile dream memory, which is the case for a lot of people. So you may find that upon awakening you can remember more even after moving because your dream recall is stronger. Some people can remember dreams more accurately, more easily. The connection between your astral vehicle and your physical brain is stronger. Some people don’t have that luxury because of abuse, of wrong behaviors, bad diet, poor psychological habits.

So you’re in a good spot, but I suggest that if you really want to go deeper and to remember more, try this exercise. Don’t move. See what it can provide you.

Question: How do you get past the vibrational stage? I woke up in the middle of sleeping with the middle of my spine feeling like it was contorting up and I felt vibrations in the palms of my hands

Instructor: Some people when they’re dreaming are psychic and sensitive. You might have perceptions within your physical body even that are metaphysical. They’re not normal. You may feel vibrations or sensations. You can even see images, hear mystical sounds even while being partially awake on the threshold of wakefulness and dreaming. You can hear different sounds from the internal worlds manifesting in your physicality.

My suggestion is that when you experience such states to not get identified with them. These things are very temporary. As you’re practicing dream yoga, because you’re working with the vital as well as the astral bodies, you start to get more sensitive to energy. Sometimes because of the changes in the vital body, especially because you’re working with the two superior ethers, you are learning to create a new type of dynamic within yourself. So sometimes that can manifest within different types of sensations in the body, where you just sense and see things, and even feel them.

They’re not indicative of long-term progress. Neither of them are indicative of any type of harm. They are just phenomena that happen. Some people experience very different things. The important thing is, don’t get identified. Don’t limit yourself to being obsessed with that phenomena, with repeating it or with hiding from it. If you observe yourself and learn to practice meditation, you can be unattached to anything. I recommend you practice meditation as taught within the course Meditation Essentials by Glorian Publishing. It’s a very good course that will teach you how to develop equanimity, serenity, dispassion.

Whenever something of this type happens, you observe it as it is and watch it. Observe it. Examine it. The more you examine such states, the more you will find their roots. Your consciousness will show you in meditation, your divinity will show you in meditation, the origin of this phenomenon. It can be related to the vital body, as I said. It may be something deeper. You will have to explore.

Question: Are there any plants that you recommend to assist in dream memory retention?

Instructor: It’s a good question! I was preparing this lecture and remembering a little bit about the book Igneous Rose by Samael Aun Weor where he talks a lot about elemental magic. He talks a lot about the relationship between the aloe plant and retrospection meditation, but also reincarnation. He explains in that chapter how the soul of the elementals of the aloe plant are intimately related with reincarnation and he hints that there is a connection between that and memory. In order to remember your past lives, you perform a retrospective exercise like we explained with any of the mantras we provided already.

However, the aloe plant is a very powerful soul. It attracts a lot of positive energies and vibrations within our home. It’s good to possess an aloe plant for many reasons. It helps oxidize the environment. It helps attract spiritual force, solar light, within the internal worlds. What’s remarkable about the aloe plant is that if you practice with the soul of the plant, there’s things that the elemental can teach you about your past lives, about reincarnation, and about remembering.

I know I included a lot of exercises for remembering our childhood. The reason being is that if you’re memory is strong and you can remember obscure moments in your infancy, you will be very equipped to remember your dreams.

The mantra for the elemental of the aloe is the letter M. You prolong it, singing it. You can pray to the aloe plant, “Help me to remember myself. Provide me with spiritual support. Teach me about the mysteries of reincarnation.” You can meditate and fall asleep, imagining the plant to the point that you see within the internal worlds the soul of the plant. You can speak to the elemental. They often appear like children with little tunics of different colors. In a way, by working with this elemental, you are accessing a part of yourself that is subconscious and relates to memory. They can teach you things related to memory, what it means to remember. That is one recommendation.

Any other questions?

OK. If there are no other questions, we will conclude. I really appreciate the turnout. We will continue with this lecture series next month. So I thank you all for coming!

1 Comment

How to Lucid Dream

6/11/2022

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Couple standing at beach and looking at planets over horizon

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As you can see from our attendance today, this is a compelling topic, and teaches us something very fundamental about who we are psychologically. The study of dreams teaches us about ourselves, and any person who is invested in exploring their dreams, awakening their potential, wants to discover something more, perhaps about humanity, or more importantly, about divinity, the divine, the truth.

Dreams teach us something about how we live in our daily life, who we are fundamentally, whether it be illusory, mistaken, confused, or perhaps illuminated, profound, spiritual.

Astral Projection, Lucid Dreaming, and Awakening

It is important to reflect on what exactly lucid dreams are. Some people confuse lucid dreaming with astral projection. An astral projection is when we physically go to bed and we as a soul, as a psyche, depart, enter to the internal dimensions, the realities of life and the mysteries of the divine, beyond the confines of the body.

As we have explained in this course, all religious traditions teach about the realities of existence beyond mere physicality, beyond the senses, beyond the mind, the realities of the spirit. Every time we go to bed, we enter the world of dreams, but without awareness, cognizance of that process. Astra projection is to fall asleep and enter that state. But for most of us, this is not conscious. It is not real. It is not realized.

A lucid dream is merely having lucidity, clarity, depth, vibrancy in color, and profound, extensive awareness, a type of high resolution within our perception. That can happen in the middle of the night, perhaps spontaneously, and often happens without us even willing it.

Some of us may be here because we had a lucid dream that we couldn’t explain, but more importantly, we couldn’t initiate or sustain. There are techniques in order to, first, initiate the awakening of consciousness, and then, second, there are techniques to maintain that state. It is the purpose of this lecture to explain that, the practical tools, the need to strengthen that part of us that has the capacity to know these realities.

We like to be very specific with our definitions in relation to the language or the definition of dreams. A lucid dream, in conventional language, again, is a type of expansive awareness. However, our purpose in this school, particularly, is not to dream. A dream is an illusion, a fantasy, a mirage. A dream in itself is often the conjuration of our own subjective tendencies like fear. Perhaps we had a dream of being chased by an animal, and then we reflect on our daily life, and we find that there is perhaps a situation in which we feel agony. We feel fear. We feel uncertainty. There is a correlation between dreams and awakening, our daily life, and the dream yogi seeks to understand the connection between our psychological states at night and during the day. But, as we have been explaining in this course, we want to understand our dreams, how we are mistaken in our perception of life.

Perhaps in our daily state, we are filled with anger towards someone, a person, a situation, and that anger has its logic, its reasoning, its ideas. We have explained that these types of feelings and sentiments themselves are types of dreaming. We may be fantasizing about revenge. We feel resentment towards someone, and we have frustrations, and plans, that churn in the mind, conflicts, sufferings, and instead of looking at our particular situation in life instead, we dream. Our mind wanders. We are never really present with our states, our ways of being, with who we are.

Awakening is different.

It is good to have more resolution to our perceptions when we physically go to bed. We have a dream. We have more lucidity. It is very powerful. It is useful, but it doesn’t mean we are not asleep, psychologically speaking, that we are not interacting with an illusion. We know perhaps, as we go to bed physically, after a long day, we felt resentment for someone, we wake up, or perhaps, we become aware in a dream that we are killing someone. We have anger, or again, any type of negative emotion that can saturate our daily life and make us sour people. These are dreams. These are illusions.

We want to awaken, not to perceive our own mind reflected back at us, but to see reality, to see what is actually there. That is the purpose of this course, to awaken, to not merely perceive what we want, but rather what is.

How Do We Awaken to Reality?

So how do we awaken to reality, the realities of the dreaming state, the internal worlds?

We have touched on the first point: curtail negative thoughts, emotions, and actions.

The second is to conserve energy psychologically, emotionally, and physically.

We also want to energize the consciousness. We also want to conserve our force, but also exercise the faculties of the soul, our perception.

We also seek to connect with divinity, the Being, specifically through superior states and superior centers that we have explained in our lecture “How Do We Dream?”

There are also things to enact in our lives that can help us develop our ethical discipline, performing services for humanity. This this might seem strange in the context of a lecture on lucid dreaming, but it’s actually very profound when you think about it or talk about it.

We also can create vehicles within the internal words so that we can navigate effectively. Some people call this the astral body or the authentic vehicle of the soul. In Christianity, it is the wedding garment of the soul, and there are many traditions that teach about a superior kind of vehicle that can help you explore those realities.

Lastly, we seek to eliminate what we call the ego, defects, vices, and errors.

How to Conserve and Accumulate Energy

It is important to conserve energy. Psychologically, we have a determined amount of capital in a spiritual sense. When you wake up in the morning, you feel an amount of quality of energy to fulfill one’s daily obligations.

We spoke a lot about different centers of our psychology: we have an intellect, where we process thought. We have an emotional center, where we focus on the expression of sentiment. We have a motor center relating to our spine. We have instinct leading to our impulses, reactions. We also have our sexuality, and all of these centers in themselves have a deposit of energy. They are like a bank, but how we spend our money, in a spiritual sense, if you want to awaken to your dreams, you need energy.

Examine in your life: how do you waste energy in your intellect? Do you read too much? Do you debate, theorize, philosophize? Indulge in any fantasy in the mind, letting the mind wander, never being present, here and now? How do we spend our emotional capital? Do we feed it with anger, pride, resentment, impatience, negative emotion? Our modern society is glorifying these emotions, but we know from experience, after the moment of anger, we feel depleted.

The same with our motor energy, our vitality. Do we do too much exercise? Too many sports? Too many activities where we are always running around, never aware of our own body, our breathing, and our heart?

The same occurs with all of our functions. We have vital values. We have to conserve them by being alert, knowing how to be present and aware in ourselves from moment to moment.

It is not only important to conserve our energy, but also, we need to accumulate it. The human body, machine and psyche, is a marvelous antenna that can attract all sorts of influences. It is important to accumulate force, because the human machine, rather than being a passive instrument where life just happens, instead, if it is intelligently managed, can attract superior forces, energy, divine qualities. Nature is filled with it. The consciousness, the soul, what we call the Essence, in this tradition, needs to be activated. It needs to awaken to its reality, its own true nature, and a way it can do that is by first conserving the energy, but then accumulating it.

We have a practice in our tradition that we use, the following form of yoga. It is called the runes. The Nordic language is a symbol of principles in nature. Each letter of that alphabet represents a posture which, when you combine with sacred sound or prayer, literally your body vibrates with the type of energetic potential that sparks the consciousness. That energy can help us to be very lucid within dreams.

This practice is given by Glorian.org. They have a video which is linked in this PowerPoint. You can access it and learn it. It is a very useful technique.

But more importantly, whenever we perform any type of spiritual practice to accumulate energy, it is important that we learn to pay attention, to be aware of what we are doing, here and now, at all times, because as Samael Aun Weor, the founder of this tradition, stated:

Wherever we direct our attention, we spend creative energy. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

Every thought, every emotion, every impulse, requires a type of energy. Everything in the universe is powered by energy. The consciousness is the same. But for the consciousness to be able to work effectively, we have to learn to divide attention. We have to observe ourselves, to be present, to be looking at our entire being. You divide yourself like an actor being filmed by a director, and you observe your reactions to life. You look at them, every thought, every feeling, every impulse.

That is because the soul does not waste energy. The consciousness does not waste our spiritual potential. Our defects do―pride, anger, resentment, lust. These qualities burn the fuel of our being. So by learning to observe that in ourselves, we save energy. The consciousness knows how to direct the car, whether in the physical world or in the astral world. But if we don’t divide our attention, if we don’t observe ourselves, it is impossible to awaken, because we are not actively looking at who we are, and what we are doing.

It is awareness, being aware of ourselves, being in remembrance of our real potential, the real qualities of the soul, whereby we activate consciousness. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated:

We can save creative energy if we divide our attention, if we do not become identified with things, people, and ideas. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

We talked about dreaming. In a moment of crisis, maybe a conflict at work, we feel resentment, pride, or a conglomeration of reactions. If we invest our energies into those states, we deplete ourselves. But if you observe it, if you learn to pay attention to the whole process, you become like a battery. You accumulate energy. You save energy. The soul learns to drive the car.

We must not dream. We must not identify with problems. We should look at them, to see them, and not to give them so much of our energy.

The Key of SOL: Subject, Object, Location

One way to exercise that consciousness is a practice call the key of S.O.L. It’s an acronym for subject, object, location. This word Sol in Spanish relates to the Sun, such as the term “solar light.” It is a practice that we use during the day light so that when we fall asleep at night and in dreams, we are suddenly walking down some street, and we start to question our reality. I am sure that all of us perhaps have had an experience, a dream, where you were interacting with someone or something, you were in some place talking with someone, and maybe something unusual happened. You saw something out of the ordinary, maybe a person flying or floating in the air, or seeing some type of animal or creature that escapes definition. But usually because we don’t question our reality, we merely accept the dream, we wake up and we realize what happened.

The dream felt real, because it is real to a degree. However, we have not understood in the moment or questioned what was going on, because it felt real and we didn’t question it. That can change.

The reason why we lack awareness in dreams is due to our current state. Because we don’t question our reality, we are not really aware of ourselves in the daytime and we do not question ourselves when we dream. That is the connection. Our dreaming life is a mirror of our daily life, with an exception. In the dream state, you are free of the body. You can levitate. You can float. You can pass through walls. You can teleport. You can see things you can never see physically, but because in our daily life we are not trained in learning to pay attention, when we go to bed at night, we just follow the same trajectory.

So the key of S.O.L. teaches us how to question our reality, how to discern what is going on, and when you know and you are in the astral world, then the fun begins: the real investigation, the real exploration into our inner Being, we could say.

Subject: Self-Observation and Self-Remembering

We talked a little bit about this: self-observation, the subject. Awakening in dreams begins when we observe ourselves.

We see in this image a woman sitting in a chair looking at a mirror and who sees a reflection of a visible man. You do not see him standing by her shoulder, but you do see him in the mirror. We chose this image because it reflects a fundamental reality. Self-observation is a different sense than our common, ordinary way of being. It is looking into ourselves to see that which is not concrete, which is not visible to the physical senses.

We cannot say we can see the color of our anger, but you can feel it. It is a quality. It is an expression. It is also possible to be able to look and to separate from anger, or any other debilitating emotion or state. You can actually observe it in the moment, only if we are actively looking and if we divide our attention to the subject.

We are observing ourselves. We are looking into alert novelty. We are looking for what is new, what we haven’t seen before.

This is very different from the modern state of knowing. We may know we are angry, but how are we looking at it? This is a distinctive state that we test, again and again, through practice.

It is not an intellectual exercise, observing and thinking, “I feel anger. I feel fear.” This does not really involve concept. It involves attention. This is a fundamental capacity of consciousness: to look.

The continuity of attention throughout the day is what many traditions call mindfulness, to remember yourself, to remember your true nature, which is something essentially divine and transcendent, and escapes the limitations of our defects. In the book Igneous Rose, Samael Aun Weor gives a very interesting quote about the quality of this type of perception. He stated:

Discernment is a direct perception of the truth without the process of conceptual selection. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

You do not think. You do not have to think about it. You look, and you know.

Thought, while necessary in life to navigate this existence, is not our fundamental reality. It can store information, identify between “goo / bad,” “yes / no,” “positive / negative.” It can label things, but the intellect is, as we stated previously, the obstacle to lucid dreaming. The thought process is like a stormy, cloudy sky, and it obscures the light. It is true, we need the intellect. We need it to function in society, but there are ways to look at the intellect without being dependent on it, a slave to it, but to be in command. If you need to use your thought process for something, you do it, but it doesn’t control you.

However, most people don’t know how to shut off the intellect when it is not needed. Try meditation for ten minutes, and you’ll find that the mind is all over the place. So it is wandering through memories, daydreams, preoccupations, anxieties, worries. The mind needs to be trained. You do that by looking at your mind, observing it.

In the process of it, we do not have to label anything. It is important not to justify or condemn what we see. Consider yourself a detective. You are looking for evidence, for your own particular mistakes. Other people often can point that out to us easily, but when looking at ourselves, it is difficult. This is a fundamental practice, to observe yourself.

You have a difficult argument with your partner you feel riled up. You say what you say. Maybe you regret it later. Rather than getting in those kinds of situations, in the moment, if you feel criticized, look at your reaction. Do an experiment. Do not justify it, and do not condemn it. Those are two extremes in a pendulum.

In the beginning, we often justify ourselves for our behaviors, but with practice, you begin to observe in yourself things you don’t like, that are very difficult, and the other extreme is to condemn everything you see. Neither of those extremes is right. The middle way is looking at it: not feeding it, not trying to push it away, but observing it.

As you are doing that, you start to remember yourself. You remember who you really are.

We talk a lot about the Being. The Being in our terms is the divine, our real nature, for a lack of a better word, God. The consciousness is a spark of that. It is a seed, and when you exercise self-observation and you remember that quality in yourself in every moment of your life, you are remembering the divine―not some old man in the clouds, but a state that is not limited to anything, to problems, to much of our daily existence.

This is important. This is the beginning, because if you practice observing yourself, throughout the day, you will start to remember yourself at night when you dream.

Most of the time when you have had a dream, perhaps, there is a vague notion that you may be someone or something. It is not entirely and necessarily fleshed out. You can have a dream about being someone else. You are in another country, that you have another identity, and usually, that is very vague. It is amorphous. It is cloudy. If you want to retain clarity in your dreams, practice self-observation and self-remembering during the day.

Observe yourself and be aware that you are in your body. You are walking around. You are talking to someone. You are exercising. You are cooking. You are washing dishes. Whatever you are doing, be aware of what you are observing, your states. Without that, you will not question or recognize yourself at night.

Object

While we self-observe, we also have to expand our awareness. We have to expand to our environment, the objects we interact with. But why? Because in the astral world, you will see objects that don’t exist physically. You may see things in your home or room, or your work, that don’t have a physical reality.

Have you found yourself suddenly talking to someone at a desk, working in an office, and you look at the desk, so you start to question and remember yourself. You start to look at an object, maybe you see a glass butterfly, but its wings are moving. It has life. It is animated, and the question becomes “Why on earth is this inanimate thing moving?” So that should shock us: what is going on here?

You look at the object. You look at the object in your home, or wherever you find yourself, and you look for the unexpected. You have to be looking. You cannot be passive. Even in your own home, you have to look at things as you have never seen them before. Question it. When you do that in the day, at night suddenly you find yourself in your home, and you see things that you don’t have in your physical bedroom, and then you question, “Where am I? What is going on?”

Location

Examine your environment and look out the window. Maybe you find that you are in your home, but you look out the window and you see that you are at the top of some tower in the 13th century, Medieval France. You see buildings that don’t exist in the world, and then you wonder, “How did I get here? What is this place? Where am I?”

This practice is like taking multiple mirrors and juxtaposing them, noticing that from the subject, you start to augment and to expand, and to devote your attention, your awareness. It is like taking a candle and reflecting it into multiple mirrors. The original light of your self-observation expands. You are in your body. You are observing yourself, and then you pay attention to your locale. You look at the objects in front of you. You question, “Is this real, or is this a dream? Where am I?” Look around you!

You may find you are walking down the street somewhere in an unfamiliar city, and you ask the question as you look. You see, perhaps, cars, or different types of vehicles than in the US. They’re different. So you look at your environment, and you ask the question, “Where am I?”

Reality Check

This for me is the fun part, questioning, doing the reality check. Do you want to know if you are dreaming or not? In a discreet way, take your finger, grab it lightly, and pull it slightly with the intention that it is going to stretch―not too hard―you don’t want to hurt yourself, but you should have the intention and the motive that your finger is going to stretch.

The reason is in the astral dimension, your astral body is subjected to different laws. The astral body can become elastic. It can stretch. It can become small. It can fly. It can come apart. The matter of that vehicle, of that body, is not as material as this physical world. It does have a type of material, energetic substance, and so if you find that in your dream your finger is stretching, you got your answer. You know you are in the astral dimension, and this is the beginning of knowing how to investigate the higher worlds: when you recognize that you are out of your body, and you’ve verified it.

Another way to do it, to check your reality, is to jump in the air. You might not want to do this at work or someplace too public, but if you are in private somewhere, you can jump in the air with the intention of flying, physically, obviously. But in the dream state, if you are levitating, you have got your answer.

You can also ask the people around you in the dream, “Excuse me, this may sound like an odd question, but what city is this?” Maybe they’ll tell you, “Boston!” looking at you kind of funny and walking away because they do not know that they are dreaming. But now you know your answer! “How is it that I was in Chicago walking around the city, and I find myself in Boston?” Then you are awake, now you can take advantage of exploring many mysteries.

One other way you can also do reality check is, since astral matter is much more ductile and elastic, you can put your hand in the window and can pass it through an object. You can take your hand in some kind of glass and put your hands through with the intention of going through it. It would be like the glass bending and you will hear a crackling noise, but it won’t break, and then you know. Different ways to check yourself.

But the only way that you can do this is if, in the day time, discreetly, when you see something very unusual, something out of the ordinary in your daily physical life, you pull your finger, or if you are somewhere alone, jump in the air. See if you float. There is this advantage to being very mechanical, meaning, we kind of repeat past behaviors unconsciously. If you train your unconscious behavior to check yourself all the time, when necessary, when convenient, when you dream, you do the same thing. It becomes automatic. You train yourself, so that now, you are awake. You know where you are and what you can do.

Connecting with the Being

The Being is the divine, our real nature. Often times when we think of a type of religious experience, as something as a matter of belief, in reality, it is fact. It is an experience. It is a perception in which the consciousness knows, within the internal dimensions, the divine.

We have talked about this quite frequently, how as a divine abstraction, that truth becomes material within dreams. It manifests in different symbols and forms. It comes to be as a type of symbolic language, an archetypal and allegorical form. So when you are lucid in a dream, you can ask, “My Being, my divinity, teach me what I need to know.”

Then suddenly, many things can happen. Maybe the scene changes. Maybe a figure emerges out of nothing in front of you. Maybe you are transported to some other place, taken to a temple of universal brotherhood, and sisterhood, where you can be instructed about how to know reality and the truth, and how to live life more effectively.

But connecting with the Being is not just that. We have to taste it in the daily life: when we are washing dishes, when we are driving a car, when we are talking with a loved one. This is self-remembrance.

When the mind is still and passive like a lake, when there is no ripple, and when the emotions are calm, then divinity can express. The Being can manifest, and divinity’s qualities are like all of the virtues and ethics that religions have taught: selflessness, compassion, conscious love, patience, altruism and happiness for others. These are things that we might taste sporadically in life, but it’s something that we can develop as we are remembering our Self.

What is that real Self? It is the Being. It is the consciousness. But that state has to be cultivated. It occurs through practice, through discipline, and often in a moment in which we don’t think. Maybe we are doing something and suddenly we just have a profound presence of being in the moment, in which there is not thought, no negative emotion, no instinct, no obscuration, but just pure presence. That is a functionalism of the divine, awareness and profound attention in oneself, that doesn’t involve any type of contamination of ego. It is selflessness, in the sense of how we think of the self in our modern conceptions.

The real Self, the real Being, doesn’t have a sense of a “I,” “me,” or “myself.” It isn’t a terrestrial identity, an individuality, an integrity. It is super-transcendent, and it doesn’t have any sense of personality, or difference. But knowing that quality takes a lot of work. It is not easy. You will not learn it in one day, or even after many years, but over time, as you train with exercises like meditation, self-observation, self-remembrance, the key of S.O.L. It becomes something natural.

Service and Sacrifice

If we want to really awaken in dreams, we should earn to develop service. Again, this might seem unusual, but the truth is that we receive in accordance with what we give.

The law of reciprocity is the law of the divine. It is compassion. It is kindness. It is giving, in whatever ways. It is natural and correct to us, according to our skills, talent, disposition or abilities.

Often times, we can get lucid experiences because as we start to practice, we try to give help to others, and divinity rewards that. We receive those ecstasies in the clouds when we lift up our poor and humble neighbor who is suffering, who cannot help him or herself. In whatever ways possible to us, we should give. It could be our time. It could be our energy. It could be our pride. Maybe we help someone, or do not want to help someone because we think we are better than them. For some, it is money. For some, it is their ego, doing the very thing you do not want to do because it hurts. But you know, in your conscience, it is right.

To be someone like Christ, selfless. There are many figures in religions, many prophets and beings who were awakened to those internal realities. They did it because they learned how to be of service, because if you give to others in your capacities, the internal worlds open, and you can often receive gifts like astral projection, samadhi and mystical experiences because we are being ethical.

Spiritual Birth

Another thing to remember too is that we need to give birth to something inside of ourselves.

We have often talked in these studies about solar bodies. People talk a lot about the astral body, but often with very vague definitions. There are a lot of people who think that we automatically possess an astral body, in the authentic sense. There are really, we can say, two forms we talked about earlier. We have the lunar astral body, which is the gift of nature. The theosophists call it the kama rupa, the body of desire. We are born with it. We use it whenever we dream, mechanically, unconsciously.

But if you want to know the higher worlds, you can create what is called the solar astral body, a vehicle that is made of a different type of energy. It is a different type of vehicle. Compare a skateboard to a rocket ship. That’s the difference between the two. With the lunar astral body, we go through our mechanical life and dreams, repeating the same behaviors and states. We wake up, and then we realize that we were dreaming. It is possible too at the beginning to learn how to use this lunar gift of nature in a conscious way, but if we really want to access much more elevated states, we can create what is called the solar astral body

This is a work related to the creation of the soul. As I said, it is called the Wedding Garment of the Soul in the Christian Gospel, to be born again, beings that have a solar astral body, a vehicle that can navigate the heavens.

The Egyptians depicted in many myths and symbols, like a sparrow hawk rising above a mummy in one of the cards of the Egyptian tarot. It is a vehicle of the stars. It belongs to heaven, to the higher worlds. To create this vehicle, one can use the greatest energy that is fundamental for life. It is creative energy, sexuality. Just as a couple can give birth to a physical child, through a work of what known as alchemy, that energy can be conserved and saved to give birth to these vehicles.

The way one knows one has them is by having worked in this path. Some people call it initiation. It is a very profound work, very difficult, but it can grant you great frequency, sustainability, and more profound experiential depths of inner worlds, because it operates on superior energy. It gives you different senses, and abilities to travel not only in the astral world on this planet, but to other planets themselves, to be a citizen of the cosmos.

If you want to learn more about how that is achieved, you can study The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor, where he explicitly discusses the methods of how to do this.

Mystical Death

Also of importance is the spiritual path of mystical death.

If you want to lucid dream more frequently, with greater resolution as we were saying, eliminate pride. Eliminate anger. Comprehend the emotions and defects that waste energy and cause pain for people, for loved ones, and for our communities, for ourselves.

It is the most unpleasant aspect of this work, giving up, removing, and eliminating everything that makes us weak, which makes us suffer, and makes other people suffer. This path of mystical death is taught in many courses and books, and the primary method to achieve purification of the consciousness is through meditation.

We deepen our self-observation practice. We gather data about who we are, about our real faults, and then we take them into meditation, and we review them. We can imagine scenes in our life in which we saw certain defects arise like fear, resentment, or pride, and we examine them and comprehend them. Through comprehension and reliance upon the divine, we ask to remove these faults and end them. When we do that, we free the genie from Aladdin’s lamp. It’s the myth. It’s the meaning of it.

Anger traps a certain quanta, quantity, and quality of our potential, and when you eliminate the defects, you free the genie that can do all the magic. You can astral travel, awaken in the internal worlds with greater capacities. You see more. You also know how to navigate those states intuitively. You do not have to think about it. You just do it.

Simple analogy: break the bottle, you free the light, because every defect, every ego, is a cage, and once removed, you integrate the psyche and become wise. You also become illuminated. This is taught symbolically in all religions, in an allegorical form.

Tips for Awakening in Dreams

So something that we can study ourselves, we have a couple of tips we can use for awakening in dreams.

Remember why you are practicing.

Why do you want to lucid dream? What’s the motive? I studied lucid dreams because at the beginning I was curious. I had an experience when I was very young, in which I had a type of awareness that was more real than the physical world, and it mainly raised questions, because if that reality was more real than this, why I am here, what’s the purpose of life? Why explore that part of ourselves that modern culture ignores?

For many of us this can be a longing to know why we suffer and to want to change. For some, it can be an inspiration to enjoy heavenly states beyond this material world, and for some people, it can be a religion in the true sense of the word, the reunion with the divine. It is good to question ourselves: “Why do we practice? What do we want? Do we want to be guided internally?” It is possible, and it will happen if we are sincere.

Establish a goal for how often you check yourself.

We can also establish a goal for how often we check ourselves. Maybe in a day, you want to set up ten stopping points on your watch, or your phone, to remember your practice. Some people use an alarm at certain times of the day where they will hear the alarm, and they will also remember to pay attention, so it is one practical tool.

Genuinely and consciously question your experience.

It is also important to genuinely and consciously question our experience, question what it is we are seeing at all times, or develop a type of inquisitive investigation like a child. A child does not have perhaps the conditioning of adult life, always seeing life through the past. A child looks at everything with awe and joy, spontaneity, intuition. That is why in the Christian Gospel they talk about becoming little children. It doesn’t mean to become naive or gullible. It means to be like a child, always looking, examining the world, seeing what is new, and finding a universe in a raindrop―the awe and the joy of being in life, and seeing it and questioning everything that is happening.

Consistently and safely enact reality checks.

We should also consistently and safely enact reality checks. I would say, if you want to try jumping in the air, it is important not try anything dangerous, like physically jumping over a cliff into a river or something. You obviously want to be safe. Do a safe jump, or reality check frequently, and you can even do so with your clock, your timer. Maybe you question yourself then, or again when you see something unusual.

Be aware of your surroundings and how you got there.

It is also important to be aware of our surroundings and to ask, “How did I get here?” Question that. Maybe you went to bed, and suddenly you found yourself at work, and you questioned, “How did I get here? What was my method? Did I drive? Did I take the metro or the bus? Why am I suddenly here?” Question that.

Use unusual moments to question reality.

Also, use unusual moments to question reality. If you see something out of the ordinary, you can even try, like every time you see a plane in the sky, pull your finger. Pick something concrete. Earlier today, I remember I’ve seen a military helicopter. I do not usually see this, and I pulled my finger. Pick something. Maybe something in the sky. It can be a certain kind of car. It can be an object. Use unusual moments.

Set frequent reminders and utilize multiple checks if necessary.

Set frequent reminders. You do so in your clock as I said, and you can do multiple checks if it is necessary.

Continue to practice self-remembrance and self-observation.

Important is to continue to practice self-remembrance and self-observation. This is the fundamental key to knowing the internal words, to develop these skills, moment by moment, every day.

Investigate how attention and awareness work in mundane activities: eating, washing hands, walking, etc.

You should also see how attention and awareness work in mundane activities like eating and washing hands, walking, etc., because at the beginning, it is unusual. Often times we have the attitude that we know, again, as I said, we know what we are thinking or feeling while we do things. But are we actually looking at it? Are we observing the act, seeing what’s new?

Maintain your awareness so you no longer dream but remain conscious.

It is also important to maintain our awareness throughout our day so that we no longer dream but remain conscious. It may be difficult in the beginning when you are walking down the street. Maybe on Michigan Avenue you see something attractive in the window of a shop, and as you are observing yourself, you finally find your attention being drawn to some kind of place, and as you get invested and identified with the shopping experience, you go about your day. Suddenly you remember: “I was supposed to be observing myself. I was supposed to be attentive.” We lost our state, and we forgot what we were doing. It is good that we recognized that in the beginning, because we will find that often, in the beginning, there are gaps in our memory. We forget what we are doing, and we have to remind ourselves again and again.

Cultivate equanimity, a receptive mind, and an active consciousness.

It is also important to cultivate equanimity, to be at peace, even in the worse situations, because those are the best defense, we can say, against getting caught up in the world. It also has to do with having a receptive mind and an active consciousness. Let thought be passive and the consciousness attentive. Be aware.

The Three Degrees of Cognizance

There are three things we can look at as we are studying dreams life. There are three degrees of cognizance to consider when we wake up in the day or wake up from night and we go about our day.

It is important to become aware of time. How long do we remain cognizant? We practice self-observation. We keep note of how conscious we are and how familiar we are with that state. Keep a mental note.

It is also important to measure the frequency. How many times have we awakened our consciousness? Maybe at night you have a few dreams, in different points of nocturnal hours. How many times we’ve woke up? It is something to keep track of, to remember.

Also, the third: amplitude and penetration. What was one cognizant of? What did we actually perceive? What did we actually experience?

These are three things that we can consider as we are studying our dreams, but also studying our waking states.

Resources for Awakening

There are a couple of resources that we have available to study that expands upon many of the instructions that were given today.

There is a course called Meditation Essentials on Glorian.org, which is very effective for teaching how to develop concentration and meditative experience, and learning how to meditate is going to go hand in hand with dream yoga. If you learn to meditate practically, you will awake in dreams very frequently. It takes a type of work.

On our website, we have free courses: Gnostic Meditation, The Sufi Path of Self-Knowledge, and Sufi Principles of Meditation, where we talk about different religious traditions that teach this science. The first course is more about the Buddhist way of teaching this discipline, but the others are Middle Eastern, and they can give you more instructions if you are looking for more.

Exercises

For exercises, every day develop your self-observation from moment to moment.
Observe the energy that takes to pay attention and sustain mindfulness, and at every instant practice the key of S.O.L. so that it becomes the motto that you repeat within the internal worlds. Question the validity of what you perceive.
Lastly record the facts of your awakening experience in your spiritual diary.

Questions and Answers

Question: Meeting people in your dreams, most of the time it is like your own projection of them. But is it possible to say meet someone who is also conscious in their dream? Is there specifics for how to engage in such?

Instructor: Yes. Some people will often experience people and places and things, but many times those dreams can be very muddled, very vague, or obscure. There may be a type of thread or logic to the dream and experience, but it does not have a type of cohesion. You wake up, and you question the validity of what you saw because you sense that there is something nonsensical about it.

We often do repeat our daily lives within the dream world. If you work at a car mechanic shop, you may find you are fixing cars in the astral plane, and you will often see your coworkers. The way to tell if you are seeing a projection of your mind and seeing what’s actually there is to follow your intuition. The power of intuition is the ability to discriminate what you perceive, and at the beginning, for most of us, it is very difficult to tell what’s what. That’s because our heart needs to be exercised. Intuition is the ability to know without having to think. You do not necessarily have to go to a dream dictionary, right, and find some type of intellectual answer that is going to corroborate what you’ve seen. That’s very often the case for most people. You have a dream, and then you want to know what it means and what’s the reality there. You discern what’s real from what’s false by using your intuition, your hunch, your conscience.

Conscience is like a little voice that tells you, “This is this,” and “this is that,” right from wrong, good and bad. But for most of us, we tend to smother that with our actions. In the daytime we may know certain behaviors can be wrong, but we don’t tend to discriminate between our own fantasy, what we want from the situation, and what is actually there. If you want to discriminate in your dreams you have to develop that in the daytime. Discriminate your own mind, because there will come a time when, when you’re deepening self-observation and self-remembrance that in the dream state you suddenly are able to see. First you might be able to see perhaps people, places, and things, but which you know are illusory. They’re a mirage, or some kind of projection of your own mind. If you have enough separation from yourself because you’re dividing your attention but also remembering your Self, suddenly you know, “This is an illusion,” and you can walk away from it, step away from the conversation with some nonsensical person or figure or place or thing. You see the illusion, you step away, you go do your investigations. You discriminate based off the heart.

A simple practice to develop the heart is with mantra. So we explained in a previous lecture on Mantras for Astral Projection the vowel O. It vibrates in the heart. You also find syllables like Om in Hinduism and Buddhism especially. It is a very ancient mantra, sacred sound, which can charge your psyche. You feed your heart with superior emotion with that mantra, ethical behavior, where you start to follow your sense of what is right or wrong, and to follow that. You exercise that muscle and it gets stronger, so that we have a sense of integrity in our actions.

If we do something we know is wrong, we are haunted by that. Our own sense of right and wrong will chase after us. You cannot run away from it. Rather than run away, it is better to follow it. That is what it means to become a real spiritual person. It is to be independent. It does not require allegiance or groups, institutions. It requires ethical integrity. The more you follow your inner discrimination, the ability to tell right from wrong, when you’re dreaming at night, you can sense and be awake and discern what’s real, what’s false, and then you can go from there.

Question: Typically when I dream, I only remember the very end. A few times I have been able to lucid dream for a bit or be aware that I am in the dream is like when there’s a stopwatch and everything’s falling apart. As soon as I know I am dreaming, it ruins… it wakes me up. I don’t know how. I’ve done that thing like checking that I am dreaming during the day and I’ve been like, “Oh, I am dreaming right now!” But then I do not know what to do and I awake.

Instructor: Sure. You can often lose an experience because of an emotion, possibly. A lot of people report talking about in the middle of a dream, you suddenly become aware that you’re dreaming. A lot of people become excited. It is a common sentiment. It is like, “I am out of my body!” But the thing is, your fear or any type of strong emotion can (snaps finger) take you out, snap you back to your body.

This is why meditation is so effective because with equanimity, with dispassion, with not getting alarmed or worried about or overwhelmed by what one is seeing, or the realization that you are out of your body, you can maintain stillness. The consciousness can effectively navigate the internal worlds by learning to be serene.

It does not mean that one does not feel emotion, because the consciousness has its own capacities for emotion which are very divine, like really positive sentiments. You can find that reflected in music by Beethoven. Very strong, intense soul, but from the heights, superior emotion. But commonly, my experience has been that when people get snapped out of the dream it is because one is either overwhelmed by a negative emotion or a sentiment that takes you out, or that the consciousness is not trained enough. In the beginning you can get sporadic moments where you are suddenly dreaming. But the question becomes, how do you sustain it?

The way that you do that is by establishing concentration and self-observation, observing yourself, maintaining your mindfulness throughout the day, and not getting carried away by maybe the mind, which gets distracted. Like when you get distracted by an emotion, an emotion like that can pull us out. I do not know if that is your experience, but typically that’s been my observation, especially in the beginning. Sometimes during the realization you get excited.

Another Instructor: Also our instructor taught us a technique where you can click your heels together and hold them. Sometimes that works to ground you in the experience, but the more you get comfortable with it and the more regularly it is happening, the less likely you are to wake up from it because it becomes kind of normal. You don’t get too excited or confused. You can try clicking your heels together and holding them together. See if this grounds you in the astral plane.

Instructor: Yeah, if you’ve also seen The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicks her heels three times. She says, “I wish I was home!”

Another Instructor: But it is our real home, right?

Instructor: Well, the real home is the internal worlds. Part of the mythology in that story, which is symbolic of these types of phenomena, is when you click your heels together, there are two chakras in your heels that when you bring them together, they form a kind of lock, so that energetically, your physical body may be trying to pull you back, because your body wants to wake up. But with this you can maintain attention and awareness in that state. It is very effective. So, perhaps if you’re having an experience and you want to learn more about something, click your heels.

Comment: I had dreams where I am flying. I am flying downtown around the buildings and then I would be, “Oh! I can’t fly!” And then I would be falling. During that fall I would realize, “Wait! I am dreaming now, so I can do anything I want!” Then I would go back and dream and it would be sort of be like all over the place. I want to keep doing more of that.

Instructor: Sure! Again, to maintain that state requires equanimity. You develop that with meditation, but also trial and error, repeating the experiment.

Question: But how do you start that, like when I go to sleep? How do I initiate that, when I am in my dream, in my sleep?

Instructor: We gave a lecture on our website you can listen into that is called Mantras for Astral Projection, which is actually how you can go into that state consciously, and to maintain it requires familiarity. Try again and again, because you learn how to maintain that state through practice, so the more you experience it and the more you meditate, and acclimate your consciousness to that dream reality, such as when you are meditating, you gain more stability, the ability to be grounded.

Now with meditation we combine it with drowsiness. Meditation in a wakeful state is actually harmful because part of meditation is that when you’re relaxing your physical senses, your consciousness needs to be active. So that when you’re physically drowsy, you’re willingly maintaining that state, you start to enter your own dreaming states. Meditation is a threshold between the physical and internal worlds. We do the same thing every time we try astral projection. You are meditating while physically falling asleep, and you allow your body to become calm. As you are attentive but falling asleep―it is an interesting mixture―you start to perceive things that you wouldn’t physically: maybe sights, sounds, voices, places, environments. The more you get familiar with that threshold, and you allow the process to unfold of itself, without trying to control it perhaps with desire, like “I want to do this and that,” you just let it happen.

There might come a moment where you are projecting out of your body, or there is a moment where you can’t leave your body, or you will sense intuitively, “This is the moment that I have to act.” It is an interesting dynamic, where you have to know when to let things be, and then knowing how and when to act is a moment of knowing ourselves. Is it our consciousness that longs to do certain things, or is it our desires? We have to question that.

Another Instructor: Will you give us a mantra for him to try?

Instructor: Yeah! One mantra I found particularly successful is Egipto. It is from Egypt. You sing it. You prolong it, each vowel. When you are falling asleep, you can do the mantra, sing it aloud for perhaps ten minutes, fifteen minutes, then you can whisper it, and then you can do it mentally. The mantra sounds like this:

You sing the mantra, let your consciousness swim in it. Be like the bee that is making honey. The vibration has a soothing effect, but also activates what we call the chakras, which are the faculties of the astral body. That physical vocalization not only helps our physical glands to vibrate with that type of superior force, but also the astral body vibrates. So when you activate that energy, you will go out.

Another Instructor: Visualize the pyramids. That helps. You can, after awhile of doing it physically for a few minutes, start to pronounce it mentally, because it is really about feeling the vibrations in the chakras in the energetic bodies as well, so that it starts to move inward, and visualize the pyramids. This mantra is usually used to try to go to a temple in the astral plane, that is within one of the pyramids of Egypt. It is spelled E-G-I-P-T-O, with a Spanish pronunciation. [Note: See also the practice of Fa Ra On.]

Question: I’ve had a couple of dreams where it is like something bad happened and I wanted to wake up, and then I wake up in another dream. It has happened to me almost three times. I do not actually wake up.

Instructor: Sure. Nightmares are common. It happens to a lot of people. Couple of reasons for that too. One of them can be for some people, eating a heavy meal before they go to bed. Often can produce nightmares. We explained that when you eat heavy foods and are digesting that when we are asleep, going to bed, it’s taxing on your body. It also activates chakras of the abdomen, relating to negative states.

I know I talked a bit about heavenly dimensions, but often times we can awaken within infernal ones too, as symbolized within different religious cosmogonies. Dante’s Inferno, for example, where he describes a journey through hell to heaven, it is a symbol of that state. If you struggle with nightmares, I recommend doing the runic practices, the runic vowels, the ones we initiated with earlier, the seven vowels, in which there is a video in the PDF.

When you energize the consciousness by taking positions, doing certain prayers, vocalizations, and you make these postures in the symbols of the Nordic runes, and you vocalize certain the vowels, seven vowels. I know in English we talk about five. But a vowel in esoteric language has to do with a nucleus of meaning. You have vowels which basically form the nucleus of a word, unites consonants. Spiritually there are seven nuclei in your spine, centers of psychological and spiritual activity, relating with the seven chakras. A lot of spiritual schools talk about that.

You do the runes for however long you need. Get a sense of it. Experiment with it. That energy will help strengthen your consciousness. I know one person as a kid who used to suffer nightmares. His father knew this teaching and would do the runes with him for like two or three hours, because his particular nightmares were very intense, and it got rid of it. The reason is you are invoking the energies of nature, the divine, to circulate through you, so when you’re consciousness is vibrating at a higher level, you are not going to be so necessarily attracted to go down into, perhaps, nightmares, which are reflections of our own hell realms, so to speak. There is a way to transcend that. So, very effective!

I thank you all for coming!

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Overcoming Obstacles to Astral Projection

5/21/2022

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Any person who has been applying these techniques faces an inevitable problem. Better said, there are many impediments to consciously astral projecting. It is the purpose of this lecture to explain what these are, but more importantly, how to apply effective remedies.

There are two primary obstacles. The first is a lack of effective methods, and the second is our own mind.

The first problem is easily fixable, although there are some issues. Anyone who explores this topic, searching on the internet, discovers a multitude of teachings. There are many astral projection techniques, theories, and instructions. It is so easy to get lost by the interpretations and the novelties of diverse knowledge. It is incumbent upon the student to discriminate the real from the illusory. But for beginners, this is not easy. It is not easy to discern what is true and what is not.

But there is a way to know what is effective and what is not. It is the lived experiences of the teachers. People have to live what they teach to a more or less degree. It is important that when we study from a school that we can verify or determine that whatever is being taught is experiential and has been experienced.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency in spiritual schools to teach what one does not know. In fact, many people make a business of the divine. They take the teachings that have a tremendous potential and merely leave it in the intellect. Personally, I have known groups that teach about astral projection, even when the instructor has never had that experience. It is really sad, and it unveils the necessity to experiment and to test, to know.

My purpose in teaching these lectures is because I have had many experiences about the techniques, so I can teach from my own faith that this is real. However, even though any missionary can give you knowledge and offer promises, can provide any type of wisdom, the reality is that it is necessary for the student to know what is being taught. The only way to know is to practice daily for many years until the results you long for become a reality.

Obstacles to Astral Projection

But of course, there is a major problem: the mind.

The mind is an obstacle. Even if the techniques are genuine, it is our own conditioned states which prevent the actualization of conscious astral projections. The tendency of the mind to be distracted is the fault, is the ultimate impediment.

Anyone who has been following this series of lectures, perhaps studying the last lecture on mantras, has experienced that the mind wanders. You may be lying down, very relaxed and yet your mind is all over the place— thoughts appearing and disappearing, cycling, churning, and fleeing from one idea to another or in a chain of associative thinking, never on the goal.

These mantras and techniques work, but only in accordance with the discipline of our mind. We can give an example. A carpenter has tools: hammers, saws, rulers and whatever is necessary to do the job. But a carpenter cannot do anything, cannot build anything, if he does not know how to apply the tools.

You have to be concentrated on what you are doing. You also have to know how the techniques work and the purpose of the tools. You cannot take these items and create anything real if you do not have the knowledge of their effectiveness and purpose. For example, an astronomer cannot study the stars with a microscope, nor could a biologist study the microbes with a telescope. These techniques have a purpose, and the only way that they work is if you are fully immersed with your whole Being into them and that your mind is not thinking of something else.

I know that the analogy may not be perfect, because someone who is very experienced in carpentry may be thinking of something else and doing one thing, but the reality is that people who do a really good job are fully focused. Their whole Being is there. They do not think of other things. They are not distracted.

So, if we lack the ability to serenely observe ourselves, to be present, to know what we are doing, then we cannot enter the astral dimension with awareness.

Samael Aun Weor gave a quote in The Aquarian Message which emphasizes these points:

Before anything else, comprehend that in order to consciously travel in the astral body, the process of thinking is an obstacle. We have given many clues in order to travel consciously in the astral body. However, we have seen in practice that those people who cannot quiet the mind, not even for an instant, who are accustomed to hopping from school to school, from lodge to lodge, always inquiring, always preoccupied are not able to astral travel. —Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message

It is the tendency of the mind to be superficial, to move from thing to thing. I do want to mention that from this quote, that Samael Aun Weor made a very profound point. He is not talking about going form school to school not learning about objective spirituality. He was a student of many teachers, many religions, many groups. But he did not approach each school or each religion with a superficial attitude. He had his own discipline of mind, his own character development, his own meditation, so he was able to learn from all of these diverse teachers and schools about how to perform this work. But most people when they go from idea to idea do so without a ground, without a foundation, and it is this foundation that is at the heart of spiritual success.

Litelantes and Simplicity

In this next slide we see the Venerable Master Litelantes, the wife of Samael Aun Weor. She is a great master. I say this not because I read about it, but because I have met her. The first time I met Samael Aun Weor was with this initiate in the astral plane in an Aztec temple. She is a very awakened master. She has knowledge of reincarnation from experience. She is a judge of the law of destiny in this solar system. She is one of the forty-two judges of the hierarchs of karma. She helped Samael Aun Weor rise. She is a severe but profoundly loving master, and despite all of her achievements, what is most remarkable, is that she was illiterate.

She could not read. She is very simple, but unfortunately in our Western culture, we think of illiteracy as stupidity, and this is wrong. There are many people who are not literate who have profound memory, imagination, understanding, but also intelligence. Real intelligence is spiritual. It is the ability to know how to navigate life with selflessness and love.

Sadly, in our modern era, the intellect predominates. The intellect has been used to create the atom bomb. That is not real intelligence. That is stupidity.

So why mention this master? It is because in astral projection, it is the heart that matters. The intellect is secondary. People who are very intellectual, who have a head like a library but have no sentiment, and no heart, are polarized in a very negative way. The intellect divorced of the spirit is detrimental, because the intellect is used for cunning, for sophistry, for articulate sarcasm, for cruel words, for manipulation and deceit.

If we want to be really successful with astral projection, it is important to develop the heart, superior emotion, and qualities of the Being. Samael Aun Weor stated the following in The Perfect Matrimony in a chapter called “The Flying Serpent”:

In practice, we have been able to prove that people who are very intellectual, full of bookish culture (the library book worms) do not manage to go out at will into the astral body. On the other hand, people who are simple, humble peasants, poor servants of families can do so perfectly. This has made us think a great deal about the matter and we have carefully investigated the problem. The fact is that traveling in the astral body is not intellectual. Rather, astral travel is more aligned to sentiment and to superior emotion. These qualities are related to the heart and not to the brain. The intellectual polarizes himself in the brain in an exaggerated fashion and abandons, in fact, the world of the heart. The result of his lack of equilibrium is the loss of the psychic powers of the Soul. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Flying Serpent”

Balancing Mental and Spiritual Faculties

We need balance, like in this image. We have Anubis judging the mind and the heart of the defunct, and above are the Egyptian gods of judgment, the lords of karma, who are ascertaining the moral caliber of the student, of the initiate. This feather represents the mind, and obviously the heart represents superior emotions.

Sadly in this era, most people do not know what superior emotion is, but we have had rare glimpses: perhaps a mother to her child, who sacrifices herself despite her faults and imperfections; to be kind, to be pure, to be compassionate; also comprehension, understanding and the building of communities. These qualities unfortunately, for most people, are very rare. We do not genuinely identify ourselves with the best, primarily because we are afflicted with ego, by pride, anger, lust, resentment, and fear.

When the heart is heavy with emotion of the negative type, of the ego, the scales tip and therefore we have an imbalance. Any imbalance between the mind and the heart results in failure. If we really want to be effective with conscious astral travel, astral projections, the mind needs to be in balance and the heart needs to be calm, present, and still.

Anytime we exercise a faculty, we strengthen it. For most of us in the West, we have a mind that is very filled with knowledge and our hearts tend to be depleted and deficient. Wherever we direct attention, we expend creative energy. Therefore, whatever actions we perform strengthens the machine that is facilitating it. If you use your intellect more than other faculties, it becomes, in a sense, more experienced, more developed, like a muscle.

However, the intellect must be balanced. You would find it strange to go to the gym and see a person who only works out their right bicep at the expense of all of the other muscles. It would be absurd, but in our Western culture, which is so intellectual, requiring intellectual responses to life, to stimuli, we tend to have the mind very fat, ignoring other qualities of our Being, and because of this, there is a problem. In our Western world, we need the intellect. We need it, but it should not predetermine everything we do. The connection between the mind and the heart has to be established because there is a fine connection and thread which is our own Being, our own Essence.

By this we are not stating, because of the faults of the mind, that we should be illiterate or should not have the intellect. For most of us who are in North America or Western countries, this is where we begin, because of our education, our personality, our background or our experience. Now it is more important that we learn to reunite the mind to the heart. Samael Aun Weor stated in The Perfect Matrimony, “The Flying Serpent”:

Unfortunately, a faculty cannot be acquired without the loss of another. Whosoever wants to develop the intellect does so at the expense of the psychic facilities. This problem is serious because we can in no way approve ignorance and illiteracy. It is logical that the intellectual culture is necessary. Ignorance leads to very serious errors. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Flying Serpent”

So by this statement, it might seem that, well, if he argues against illiteracy, what about his wife Litelantes who was illiterate? For her, she was already awakened before she was born. She had a type of consciousness or has a type of consciousness that is very distinct, very alert, comprehensive, intuitive, and awake. She was already awake before she was born. Therefore, she had a faculty in her early years that allowed her to navigate existence. But for most of us, we are asleep. We lack knowledge of our past lives, of our previous states, and of who we really are.

Blavatsky and Illuminated Intellect

We begin where we are at, and because we are hyper-intellectual in the West, we have to develop ourselves kind of like this master, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. We included her in this slide because she is a perfect example of both a scholar and a master. Anyone who reads her Isis Unveiled or The Secret Doctrine can immediately ascertain her facility with knowledge. But that is not all where she left it off. She had an illuminated intellect, and she knew how to use the mind in balance. There is a quote by Samael Aun Weor in Igneous Rose, the chapter called the “Esoteric Discipline of the Mind,” which explains what that type of illuminated intellect is.

We must learn to think with the heart and to feel with the head. —Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose, “Esoteric Discipline of Mind”

This is something you have to experience. Understanding is a distinct quality from rationalization. The mind that thinks, that theorizes, that debates, that argues, that churns, that stews, is not comprehension. Comprehension is a light. It sparks in you when you know in your very core the meaning of something, and therefore, you do not have to think. You do not rationalize. The real solar mind, the divine intuitive mind, receives knowledge and wisdom in a receptive way. The consciousness is hyper-active, but the mind is still. This is how the images of the internal worlds enter into the psyche. When the mind, the intellect is in perfect equanimity, when these surfaces are clean and still, then wisdom emerges. But to do that, we have to become like children, as Jesus says in the Gospels.

I will emphasize another quote again by Samael Aun Weor about what we must do if we want to be experts at astral projection:

Now the interesting thing is to know how to reconquer the lost psychic faculties. A man with a brilliant, illuminated intellect and with all of his psychic faculties in full activity is really in fact, by his own right, a true illuminated one. The occultist needs to establish perfect equilibrium between the mind and heart. When the mind has become excessively frozen in the brain, leaving at will in the astral body becomes completely impossible because there is imbalance. It is urgent then, that the intellectual occultist re-establish the equilibrium between the mind and the heart. Fortunately, there is a technique to re-establish the lost equilibrium. This technique is inner meditation. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Flying Serpent”

Dream Yoga Discipline

We are going to talk about some practices that you can use to develop all of this. Dream Yoga becomes our lifestyle. We will give some techniques, some guidelines you can follow. We are going to elaborate upon them now so that by learning techniques like meditation and introspection, we can become more intuitive. Samael Aun Weor states in The Secret Doctrine of Anahuac:

Those candidates who sincerely long for physical direct experience must unquestionably begin the dream yoga discipline. The Gnostic must be very demanding with himself and to learn to create favorable conditions, to remember and understand all these inner experiences that always occur during sleep. —Samael Aun Weor, The Secret Doctrine of Anahuac

Preliminaries

Let us talk about this discipline. Here are the preliminaries. In this image, we see in the top left a woman whose face is transposed beyond her own, looking at herself. We chose this because it is a perfect illustration of self-reflection. When you go to bed at night and even throughout the day, how often do we see ourselves? How often do we actually look at what we are thinking, at what we are feeling, our state of mind, our quality of perception, how we see, how we react, how we behave?

Self-observation is essential, but many people get stuck in this. It is easy to consider this an intellectual exercise, thinking: “I am now looking at my surroundings and at myself. I see anger in me or I see pride. I see fear.” The mind can label but it cannot understand, unless it is in a passive state. The consciousness must be hyper-active, but the mind must be calm, equilibrated.

But before you go to bed, especially, examine your state. Do not go to bed angry. Do not go to bed with negative emotions. It is better, like in the bottom right of this image, that we meditate. It is better that we really comprehend why we behave the way we do, why we suffer.

Look at it. If you had a problem with a family member, an ordeal with someone, look at the emotion. Look at your thoughts. Look at yourself, and do not struggle with it or suffocate it or suppress it, but look. See it.

This is psychological judo, real, spiritual martial arts. When you see something in yourself that you may not like, look at it and look at your reactions. Look at your mind. The mind struggles. The soul can disarm our own psychological opponents, which are our own defects, and as you are doing this, we learn to develop superior emotion.

When you recognize that you are not your thoughts, not your desires, not your hatreds, you can begin to see that you are a spark of the divine, the Divine Mother Kundalini, the Being. In moments of stillness, we access our true nature, and when you taste that, it will give you joy. It gives us happiness, because we realize that we are not the mind. We are not our pain, our fears, our anxieties, our insecurities. We are something more, and that we are a spark of Her. This develops prayer. When you connect with that, you ask, “Help me, my God, to not be what I am, but to be something more, to be united with you!”

Exercise, Diet, and Mood

In the process of introspection, we can develop our lifestyle.

Exercise is important. If you live a sedentary life, if you do not work out or get some type of exercise, consider it, because if you go to bed with tension, pain in your body, inflexibility, it is going to make it very difficult to practice astral projection. You will not be able to relax. It is very simple.

You may find an exercise regimen that is conducive to your schedule, your needs. Some people do martial arts, or they do exercise in the gym. Some people run. Some people walk. Find our what works out best for you.

Also, it is good to work daily with our sexual energy. We see this woman on the top left performing pranayama. Pranayama, especially for single people, is essential. Transmute every day. Conserve your energies. That is the power that is going to awaken you and give you insights.

Also, listen to good music. We often recommend classical, especially, primarily because the works of initiates like Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky originated from the Being. This kind of music awakens the heart, the superior emotion. It inflames the soul.

I have had experiences about Beethoven’s music, especially his Ninth Symphony. What was very startling for me was that when I had this samadhi, I later listened to his symphony, and I immediately recognized what I experienced. It scared me. I did not know how someone could articulate perfectly within music every sentiment and movement of that vision. Therefore, music can inspire our spirituality and help us to work, opera especially. We have given a course which is ongoing, which is The Secret Teachings of Opera, where we study operas such as Turandot by Puccini. There are many works. They educate the mind but also the heart. So, if you are looking for a practice that will equilibrate your psyche and also teach you kabbalah, study opera.

Our diet should be light at night. It is not good to eat heavy foods before we go to bed. You might find it difficult to practice. Too much food in the stomach at night can cause indigestion and then nightmares, especially from red meat in the evenings. If your diet is very heavy in that, consider diminishing it or limiting it. Your last meal of the day should not encumber your body. It should help you feel balanced, because when your stomach is filled with food when you sleep, you activate, especially with red meat, the chakras of the abdomen, which are infernal, that could awaken you down in the infernal planes. It is very common. This is well documented in science or the study of dreams, that indigestion causes nightmares. So, eat lightly at the end of the day.

Home and Environment

Something to consider, too, is that our home or our environment should be conducive to our practice. Our bed should have, like in this image on the top left, good support for our body, our neck and our spine. Our bed should be comfortable. It should not be so rigid or hard that you cannot sleep. If you cannot fall asleep, you cannot practice, or if you cannot maintain your awareness when going to bed, then consider adjusting your environment. Beds with springs that are creaking or noisy are very discomforting.

You should make your home a temple. On the top right we see a bedroom or a bed with the three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. These three colors represent the three primary forces, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having these colors in your room can help you awaken, in a sense that if you are conscious of your environment and what the colors represent, they help to create beauty in our home.

It is very difficult to relax if our home is a mess, or if it is in disarray. We should take care of our temple. Our environment or our nest should be comfortable, inspiring and uplifting. The three primary colors are beautiful for that because they represent the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now your bed does not have to look like this but you may find ways to decorate your home. For example, some people use the Tibetan prayer flags which have these colors. You can adjust this principle to suit your needs.

Every night, keep a journal nearby, a dream journal, so that first thing when you wake up, you write down what you experienced. Remembering your dreams and documenting them is essential. We will give a whole lecture on how to remember dreams in the future. But the important thing is that you have some notepad or some way to document what you dreamed about before you wake up.

There is something about the act of writing which helps us to remember things. Many people have documented that they remember things more when they write about what they experienced. The same thing with a dream journal. So, you may find that if you get up in the morning and you are rushing to work, it could be easy to forget your dreams. But if you wrote them down after performing some preliminary retrospection exercises to recall what you saw, you might not forget.

So, journal it. Write it down. Your journal does not have to be super detailed. However, much time you have, whatever you can commit to paper, do it. Make sure you include enough information that it will help you recall things.

Also, we should incense our home daily. Perfume it. Whatever incense or smells help you to relax, that help you feel at peace, use that.

You can even incense your pillows with your favorite perfumes. There is something about aromatherapy and smells that help elevate our mood. If our mood is positive, you can enter the dream yoga practice with more enthusiasm. Also, cleaning your home of astral larva with sage or other incenses that I mentioned before can help for more cleanliness, psychologically speaking, and this goes a long way to help our practice.

Morpheus, Northern Magnetism, and Astral Projection Postures

You may find that astral projection can be very difficult and there are other remedies you can use to help cultivate your spiritual life.

You can lie down in the posture of the lion. This is the Buddha that has his legs, his left leg over his right, the knees bent, his right hand holding up his head. The left hand on the left hip. This is a very effective posture for astral projection. You may find that it may help you to relax, but also be attentive, and that is the key to any exercise, that you are able to relax but also stay awake long enough that you remember what you were doing. So, finally by hitting that balance, you knock on the door to the internal worlds.

For some people, this posture may be difficult, and that is fine. You can do Chac Mool or other exercises. You can lie on your back. The key thing is that you have to be relaxed but attentive. You have to be aware of what you are doing at all times. But you will hit a transition point where, as you are entering sleep, you perhaps start to experience sounds, visions, colors, and images, and almost in a sense, it comes upon you without you really being aware of it. It just happens, and when you recognize it, that is the moment that you can get out of your body, get out of your bed, and do a test. Pull your finger as we explained previously, to see if it will stretch or jump in the air, to see if you float. The postures are helpful. You can try this, the lion’s posture.

You can also lie down on your bed with your head facing North. Northern magnetism helps with astral projection. The planet is an energetic and even psychological and spiritual body. It channels forces and energy thoughout the globe that effect our psychology. Magnetism especially influences the astral body, and the Northern pole helps to orient and align our state of mind with the higher worlds. I know we mentioned in previous lectures that certain spiritual authors associate the North with the spiritual worlds, like the mountains or the cold. So, if you lay down with your head towards the North and fall asleep, that magnetism can help you make astral projections more frequent because the astral body is a fluidic vehicle. It is material in the sense that it has its organs and capabilities, but at the same time it is organized and dominated by different laws that are more energetic and subtle.

We also have the God Morpheus, who is a part of our Being. Anyone who has seen The Matrix films knows about Morpheus and the analogy of how we need to awaken from illusion. So, Morpheus is actually the god of dreams in Greek mythology. He represents part of our Being. There is a part of our Being that helps us to awaken within the astral plane. You can concentrate on Morpheus and pray to your inner God to help you to enter the astral dimension consciously.

Morpheus is a part of us. Some people often think of divinity as singular, but the truth is that there are many parts of the Being which we are learning to work with and unite. It is all the parts of our inner consciousness which have their roles. Morpheus is that part of our Being that helps us to awaken within our dreams. So you can pray to Morpheus. You do not need formulae. Simply pray: “Help me get out of my body,” or whatever comes naturally to us.

The Lunar Influence

You can also take advantage of the lunar influence. People often report more vivid dreams and astral projections during the full moon, and this is because the astral body is lunar. It relates to the lunar-mechanical influences of nature.

There is both a positive and a negative aspect of the Moon. We know that women are naturally influenced by the lunar cycles, such as with menstruation. The tides of the Earth are regulated by the Moon. But in a negative sense, we find that there are more crimes on a full moon. We even get the term “lunatic” from the word luna. But because this is a mechanical influence that is a part of nature, but also a part of us, we can take advantage of it, take something mechanical and make it intentional. When there is a crescent, waxing moon or a full moon, we can dedicate more intensely to our astral projection exercises because the lunar influence will help us, help us to awaken.

The Moon has both a material and a psychological, spiritual influence on our mind and heart, so we should use it to our advantage.

Gemini

It is fortuitous also that we are now in the astrological sign of Gemini, as of today, May 21st to June 20th. Gemini is the zodiacal constellation associated with the brothers, the twins, and is intimately related to the sign of Mercury, the planet Mercury. There are masters in the internal planes associated with the planet Mercury. Samael Aun Weor calls them the lords of the mind. They are masters in the internal planes who can teach you how to astral project. In the sign of Gemini, they work more intensely, because the influence of that zodiac is entering our planet and is accelerating certain spiritual influences. If you become conscious of them and work with them, you can really intensify your dream yoga experiences.

In Gemini, the forces of Mercury are very powerful. Mercury is related with the mind, the mental body. But these lords of Mercury, these lords of wisdom, can teach us to astral project. So whatever technique we are using, we can also invoke and call upon these initiates. There are many beings throughout the universe not merely from our Earth.

Now, in public discourse, we have more openness about extraterrestrials, other humanities. The question is at least being raised instead of being shunned. But we go a bit further, because if you awaken in the internal worlds, you can get help from other humanities. Personally, I have received help from other humanities, not physically, but internally, where certain beings have come, humanoid, that look just like us, to help me get out of my body. The lords of Mercury can do that for you. So, you can intensify your practice during this time in the sign of Gemini.

Ethical Requisites for Astral Travel

There are also some things we can cultivate in our daily life that can help us promote our practice. Samael Aun Weor mentions the following ethical prerequisites for astral travel in his book Aztec Christic Magic, where he talks about how ethical discipline is really the key to our wellbeing.

He is not talking about morality, or whatever country thinks is good or bad. What is good in one time, is bad in another, and vice versa. We are talking about something more universal, having to do primarily with the cleanliness of the body, the lungs especially, and our sexual energy.

If you faithfully practice each one of the exercises that we have taught in order, for these six consecutive days, you will soon project yourself in your astral body, this is if you are a respectable person, that you neither abuse liquors or tobacco, that you do not propagate gossip, that you do not enjoy making fun of your neighbors and that you live and respect every living being. —Samael Aun Weor, Aztec Christic Magic

Obviously, it is difficult for people who smoke or drink liquor, but we know conventionally that these elements toxify the psychology. These elements are also very difficult for our dream yoga practice. If the body is unhealthy, the mind is polluted. If we are sick from consuming these elements, it is going to be very difficult to practice.

On a more subtle note, it is important not to engage in criticism of our neighbor, as difficult as that may be, because negative emotions spread and cause pain. A negative emotion is another obstacle to dream yoga. The important thing is to have compassion for others. This is the ideal. We should strive for it.

Tips for Astral Projection

Here are some tips you can use to astral project:

1. Rehearse the practice for 10 minutes beforehand

Before you actually practice, rehearse the practice. You can lay down, imagine, or pronounce the mantra that you are going to use as a kind of test run, so you get comfortable with the process of actually lying down and doing the exercise. If you are practicing, you may find it difficult in the beginning if you are unfamiliar with how to do it. So, if you rehearse it, it can make you more familiar.

2. Do not fear being unable to go to sleep. Practice whole-heartedly.

We should also not fear being unable to go to sleep. Some people do not practice whole-heartedly because they feel like they need to be alert in a ridged sense. Perhaps it is excitement or fear or agitation, or the idea that if I practice astral projection, I will not get any rest and therefore there is the obstacle of not wanting to practice. Do not fear that you are not going to get sleep, but give your self some space. You can practice for ten or twenty minutes, thirty minutes if you want, if you are ambitious, or maybe more but dedicate some time to yourself to figure out how long you want to engage in the exercise. You could do it ten minutes vocally and then ten minutes whispered and then fall asleep.

3. Slowly train the body to adopt a posture.

We also have to train the body to adopt the posture. Some postures like Chac Mool or the lion posture can be difficult for some people, so take some time to practice the postures. Get used to them, and then after a time of actually practicing them, you can always roll over on your side or your back, whatever is most comfortable for you to fall asleep. But do take some time to get familiar with them.

4. Deepen relaxation. Do not force the process. Let it happen.

Also, deepen your relaxation. These techniques only work if you relax. Be attentive but relaxed. It does not have to be tight and ridged. Being alert does not necessarily mean having five cups of coffee and being hyper. As I said, it is about being calm. Real alert awareness is relaxed. Do not force the process of astral projection. Let it happen. The more you try to force it or restrict it, you can jump out of the experience. You can lose it.

5. Gradually increase practice length from 10 minutes.

Gradually increase the time of your practice. Over time you can gradually increase the practice to lying down for ten minutes. Maybe you start with five at first, five minutes vocal and then you go to five minutes whispered and then you go to sleep. You may find that you get more into it or more relaxed and then you can basically extend the practice.

6. Conscious efforts, not mental exertion.

These are conscious efforts, not mental exertion. As we hinted before, the consciousness has to work. The mind must be passive. The personality has to be calm. You will know the difference through experience, through how you apply your perception.

7. Practice consistently and with dedication.

Also, practice consistently with dedication, because if you practice one night but not the other, you loose momentum. Then sleep becomes another reoccurrence of our former habits. We go back to bed and enter oblivion for eight hours and we do not remember anything.

8. Enjoy the exercise and the results of your practice.

Enjoy the exercise and the results of your practice. It is like working out. People do not stick with a workout regimen if they do not enjoy what they are doing. But if you find something that you enjoy doing and you enjoy it, like this exercise, you are going to be more enthusiastic to practice it. So that is something to keep in mind.

9. Maintain equanimity and dispassion.

We should maintain equanimity and dispassion. The more excited you are, the more agitated, the more fearful, the more anxious we are, the more attached to results, the less likely we will consciously astral project.

10. Develop concentration and visualization.

Concentration and visualization are the key, to focus on one thing and visualize what we are doing like with the Fa Ra On exercise we taught about previously. You imagine the pyramids. You see them with as much vivid intensity and color as you can, and you see yourself going there. Or better said, rather than imagining that you are imagining it, you actually imagine the sand, the wind, the heat, and the environment. It is important that we maintain our concentration and visualization exercises, so we have more depth and strength to our exercise or our work.

11. Adopt a prayerful attitude.

Adopt a prayerful attitude where we humbly ask for help and pray, “Show me, Divine Mother, the internal worlds. Help me to change. Help me to experience this for myself!”

12. Take a comfortable position when ready to sleep.

Lastly, take a comfortable position when you are ready to sleep.

Intermittent Sleep

There is another exercise you can do if you want to increase your likelihood for astral projection. We call it intermittent sleep.

You can practice getting up in the early hours of the morning or late at night. You set an alarm, sleep for a few hours, then get up in the middle of the night and you perform a practice. The Qur’an is a perfect example of a scriptural source of this discipline, where in Islam they mention about supererogatory prayer, which are additional exercises or prayers that one performs in the middle of the night or the early hours of dawn. As it says in Surah 17:78-79:

Perform the prayer at the declining of the sun to the darkening of the night. And the recitation at dawn—truly, the recitation at dawn is ever witnessed! And keep vigilant prayer for part of the night, as a supererogatory act for thee. It may be that thy Lord will resurrect thee in a praiseworthy station. —Qur’an 17:78-79

You may find that if you wake up in the early hours and you practice and then go back to bed, that you suddenly enter the astral plane with a lot of intensity, a lot of vividness of color and depth. It is because you take the time to awaken yourself even physically to be more alert and aware until finally you take that alert state and go back to the dream world. It is very useful. It is a form of spiritual resurrection, because you are literally coming back from the world of the dead and then entering it again.

But of course, there are some caveats to this. You do not necessarily want to perform intermittent sleep or practices when maybe you have work during the week, or you have a busy schedule. It is not good to do it all of the time, especially if you find that you need rest. But instead, you can basically perform it maybe once in a while or whatever is conducive for your schedule. You can also go to bed earlier. That is important too, to make up any sleep you have lost, but also you do maintain a schedule that is going to be healthy for you.

Elementotherapy: Nature’s Royal Art

We are going to explain these last few slides, a couple of practices with elemental therapy which is nature’s royal art. There are certain plants that can help us to astral project, especially if we struggle with achieving it.

In synthesis, elementotherapy is a term coined by Samael Aun Weor about working with the souls of plants. Every plant in nature has a soul. It is animated by life, and every plant has a spiritual purpose. So we can work with the intelligences of nature to teach us how to astral project, to help us go out of our body. I will only mention two.

Elemental of the Angel’s Trumpet

We have a plant called the Angel’s Trumpet. Samael Aun Weor talks about this in Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic, in the chapter on “The Magic of the Angel’s Trumpet.”

So, typically what you do is you concentrate and visualize the soul of the plant. You perform a mantra that activates the plant itself and helps you to facilitate inner experiences.

One thing to be conscious of with the Angel’s Trumpet is that it is highly toxic, so there is that caveat. It is important not to consume the plant. What we are working with is the elemental, not the physical substance of the plant itself. Samael Aun Weor, when he mentioned this practice, he mentioned how in his past lives in certain temples of the White Lodges, he would take some of the juice of some of the plant and dab it very lightly on the forehead of the initiates when they would fall asleep so that they, with the combination of mantra and prayer, would go out. But personally, since I am not a master nor am I under the jurisdiction of one in my physical life, and do not have that kind of guidance in my personal existence, I do not recommend doing it for oneself, with the juices. Personally, I do not know the accurate dosing, although he does describe dabbing it. But that is something very easy to abuse, and in fact, there are many indigenous shamanic cultures and traditions that have abused this plant. So, my personal recommendation for this type of exercise is that you work with the plant’s soul. Do not consume or touch the leaves of the juices itself because it could be harmful. But the elemental of the soul of this plant is very powerful.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor stated in his book, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic:

Every angel’s trumpet tree has its corresponding elemental, which has to be utilized by those who wish to consciously depart in their astral body. […]

With a branch that I took from the same tree, I would trace a very wide circle on the ground around the tree. I would then crush the tree’s flowers and dab the pressed juice from it over the head of the disciple.

Then, while lying on his bed, the disciple would fall asleep; I then commanded the elemental to take that disciple out of his physical body. These commands were accompanied by the mantra of this tree which is “KAM” and must be pronounced by prolonging the sound of the last two letters. You must imperiously command the elemental like this, “When I call you, you will always assist me. I need you to take me out in my astral body every time that I command you to do so.”

Afterward, the disciple will pierce a finger of his hand with a needle and with a knife he will make an incision on the tree where he will deposit his blood. In this way, the pact with the genie of this angel’s trumpet tree will be formalized. —Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic: “Magic of the Angel’s Trumpet”

“Write with blood, thus, you will learn that the blood is spirit.” —Friedrich Nietzsche

“Blood. Blood is a very special fluid.” —Goethe

So, it is like a little prick, and we know that ancient blood rituals were performed by Jesus in the Last Supper, where he took a drop of his blood and deposited it in the chalice of the Last Supper, which was shared amongst his disciples or the Apostles. This united the astral bodies of all of the initiates with Christ.

So, blood is a very potent substance which carries the life of our humanity and our spirituality. With this, you take a little bit and connect it within the incision of the tree and it creates a bond where the elemental will vow to help you. Here is what Samael Aun Weor also had to say about this topic:

Then the disciple will cut some hair on his head and will hang it on the tree. He will collect a few petals from the flowers of the tree and place them within a little bag and hang it around his neck as a talisman. Hence, from that moment on, the disciple has under his service this humble elemental, who will always assist to his call.

When the disciple wants to consciously depart in his astral body, he goes to sleep on his bed and pronounces the mantra of this tree. His mind needs to be concentrating on this elemental genie, calling him mentally and begging him to take him out in his astral body. In the state of transition between vigil and dreaming, the elemental of the angel’s trumpet tree will take him out of his physical body and will take him consciously to the places longed for.

Anytime the disciple can visit this tree he must do so in order to water it, bless it and to cut its flowers, which he will utilize whenever he wishes to do so. These flowers must be crushed with a stone, then their juice is extracted and applied over the head in order to depart in the astral body. It is beneficial to warn that the application of this juice is performed at the time when the disciple will lay down in his bed, when he is going to sleep. —Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic: “Magic of the Angel’s Trumpet"

So, again he mentions a dab, but personally it is my recommendation to work with the soul of the plant, because one could abuse it, using too much of it, obviously, and that is a problem.

Elemental of the Peyote

There is another plant which is very controversial, which is talked about in a lot of shamanic traditions. It is peyote. But there are a lot of problems with peyote, even though authentic peyote can produce conscious astral projections. I will name a list of issues, although it is not exhaustive.

To find authentic peyote is very difficult. It is only found in certain regions of Latin America.

Not only that, but one has to be educated on how to dose it which is learned by certain indigenous masters within Latin America. But then the problem becomes how to discriminate who is authentic and who is not, or who has maintained the purity of any lineage. Unfortunately, in these times, this is very rare. Personally, when I have met certain indigenous masters, it has been in the internal planes. That way one is not easily fooled, if you are very alert and conscientious.

The elemental of the peyote also only works with meditation, and for this, one has to be a practical meditator, not merely learning how to calm the mind or how to concentrate for a few minutes, but actually meditate to experience internal truths.

This is based upon chastity. The elemental of the peyote only obeys chaste people, not those who waste their sexual energy.

It also requires sanctity, eliminating a lot of ego, because the elementals do not respect people who do not have any ethics.

Also, when the authentic traditions of peyote were utilized, they were done so in sacred spaces and temples and even so, most of that has been in the internal worlds.

Some people would be surprised how is it that one can work with peyote in the internal worlds. It is because the astral plane is material. It is a plane of spiritual matter and energy. This elemental magic is internal. While there is a physical component, the real work of that magic happens within the spiritual planes.

There is also the issue of when to use the peyote, and when it is appropriate. That is based on divine will, in very rare cases, but also knowing what divinity is commanding what to do is obviously difficult for us as beginners. Most people do not discern reality from illusion or reality from desire and attachment.

There is also the issue of frequency of use, how frequently to do it, when it is allowed, and how it is allowed, because often this can lead to abuse—and has.

Also, it is illegal in many countries.

Let me relate some things that Samael Aun Weor stated about this topic.

In Mexico, the Aztecs used the buttons of the peyote to astrally depart. Such a cactus is very abundant in Chihuahua. Unfortunately, the peyote that is known in the valley of Mexico does not serve for this purpose. Whosoever wants to obtain the true peyote, has to search for it among the native Tarahumara in the mountain range of Chihuahua. Moreover, they have to learn how to dose it. Those native Indians are the only ones who can teach how to administer that cactus. Many people have wasted their time with the peyote in the valley of Mexico. The people who have obtained this cactus in the North of Mexico did not achieve anything because they do not know how to use it. This is the difficult problem of peyote.” —Samael Aun Weor, Aztec Christic Magic, “The Sephirah Hod”

He also states in a lecture called “Questions About the Path”:

Peyote is not found in the countries of South America or Central America. It is only found in Mexico and with difficulty. —Samael Aun Weor, “Questions About the Path”:

To corroborate on some earlier points, he continues in this lecture “Questions About the Path”:

The elemental of the peyote cooperates, yes, with meditation. It does not create any kind of tendencies. The elemental is very demanding. It demands chastity. In no way will peyote help, for instance, the indecent lustful ones. It has rules. Master Huiracocha talked about peyote. He narrated how the Master Racinchi inside the temple of Chapultepec, used peyote in order to cause an astral projection. This is the only recommended plant with the condition of not the abusing of it, since it is only for the K.H., Kosmic Humans.

A student wanted to use it for the third time, and after receiving several instructions, was called to order by the Lords of Karma and was prohibited from continuing with it. To be more precise, he was abusing it. Therefore, the peyote elemental is useful, but one needs to know the proper procedures and to not ever abuse it, and do not ever abuse it. The secret is to know how to meditate. The elemental cooperates with the one who knows how to meditate. The elemental really helps, but since it is illegal in some countries, we of course, cannot in any way recommend it. —Samael Aun Weor, “Questions About the Path"

So, we mentioned this in this lecture because a lot of people like to rely on certain substances or drugs to have astral projections because they feel blocked. Some people who are very impeded by their own mind, want to rely on other things to help them astral project, and so, they may turn to peyote or other substances to experience that. But we want to emphasize that if one were to use authentic peyote, it would be under very strict stipulations. There are certain difficulties as I listed, which are just some of many problems. So, this is why Samael Aun Weor mentions in Aztec Christic Magic:

We do not recommend the use of this marvelous cactus. Indeed what we recommend is practice, much practice and soon you will act and travel in the astral body. —Samael Aun Weor, Aztec Christic Magic

I know one missionary who was helped by the elemental of the peyote, but it was performed in a ritual in the astral plane. So, as you saw from that list, there is a certain discipline needed to work with certain elementals. This is something to consider, but this person I know was very awakened in that state as a result from receiving help internally. But for most beginners, obviously, we have attachments and weaknesses to consider. What is better recommended is much practice with these exercises, so that we can achieve the results that we want.

Concentration and Visualization of the Heart

We can also develop our concentration and visualization of the heart. Concentration and visualization are essential for astral projection. If you find that it is very hard to astral project, you can work on your concentration and imagination.

Concentrate and visualize. You can take an image of the heart, maybe in minute detail, depending on your interest or needs, and see it. Concentrate on your heartbeat. Meditate and enter a drowsy state. Visualize how the heart functions in you. Be aware of its presence and the life that it gives. See it. Feel it. Imagine it. By working with the two, concentrating on this image or any image of the heart, you can start to access knowledge that is internal, where you actually see how your heart functions, how it is the Sun in your own psychological and physical solar system. But the two, concentration and visualization, are very important. Without these two principles combined together, it is impossible to really enter the astral state with lucidity and ease.

Exercise

We will conclude with a practice.

Throughout the day, develop self-observation.
Each day for at least ten or twenty minutes, develop meditative concentration through the visualization of your heart. Fall asleep concentrating upon and the visualizing of your heart.
Lastly, continue with your spiritual diary.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Questions and Answers

Question: In The Yellow Book, Samael Aun Weor speaks about how an obstacle to meditation is a lack of the drowsy or sleepy state. Could that also be an obstacle for astral projection?

Instructor: Absolutely. As we were saying in the lecture, if you cannot relax when you are practicing, when you are meditating, you cannot really access anything profound or deep, because relaxation is the threshold that leads to the internal worlds. It is when you progressively detach yourself from your physical body.

So oftentimes when you are meditating and you are entering a drowsy state, you can start to perceive different images, sounds, colors, experiences, which are not physical, but they are within the screen of your imagination. You cannot access that if you are agitated, or you are in your body or identified with your body or if you are tense. The important thing is to really relax deeply. Without that, you cannot meditate.

Actually, meditation without drowsiness is harmful. It is because you are very alert, but you are not going into your internal worlds.

There is something about drowsiness and relaxation that suspends the mind and that is actually one of the limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, where he talks about suspension of the senses is the beginning of yoga, where you let everything get calm, relaxed and become still, whereby, like a tortoise, you retract your attention inward and no longer identify with the body. So, we need to relax. Without that, you cannot access anything authentic or real.

Question: Forgive me, but I have forgotten the name of the posture but when we are lying down on our right side with the left leg on the right and our palm of our right hand is on our head, do you spend about ten or twenty minutes hoping to get into the meditative state in the posture and then could you relax on your back afterward? Or would you try to fall asleep in that position?

Instructor: Good question. Basically, what you do is rehearse it for a while. Get into the habit of trying to relax in that posture and train your body. In the beginning you may find that you cannot do it for more than ten minutes or so. Therefore, it is good if you are not able to relax fully in it yet, at least get into the practice and habit of doing it. So, with time you will find you will be able to relax more in that position. The more you do it, you train yourself and the easier it becomes until finally, you can get drowsy and relax while doing it. But it takes time.

Comment: Time and consistency. Thank you.

Question: And on that posture, the lion’s posture, can you do that on your left side as well?

Instructor: He mentions it on the right side and that when you finally feel like you are ready to go to bed, you can turn to another side, relax, and then fall asleep. But he does specify the right side, primarily because the right side relates to the lion, the solar forces. The Lion of Judah is the power of the Sun and also the Son.

Question: I recently overheard that somebody was saying that they were taking a new heart medication and it caused him to have nightmares. So, what are some obstacles that medication can present? If it is something that you have to take, is there something you can do to overcome that?

Instructor: That is really a good question. Personally, I know of students that have suffered a mental illness, therefore, they have to be medicated, for their heart or for something or a condition. It creates certain impediments while also helping to heal the body. If a person’s physical and mental health requires medication, obviously, that takes precedence, but medications that are perhaps causing nightmares or other types of experiences, obviously that is an obstacle.

For some, taking medications related to depression or mental illness, those drugs are very powerful and can make a person very drowsy or perhaps clouded of mind, which commonly is the testimony they give and that it does create difficulties in practice. But it does not mean that because there are difficulties that one cannot overcome them.

It could be difficult to have to take heart medication that causes nightmares, where that is one of the results of having to take it. Whosever’s health is affected by not taking it, obviously, you have to weigh the pros and cons. What is life going to be without the medication, if you are going to be without the medication? If you are going to die or if it is going to harm a person, then you need to take it and have to deal with the consequences.

There are ways to remedy nightmares. You can do runes. Runes are a great way to overcome negative emotion. I knew of one missionary, whose father was a teacher of Gnosis, and while growing up he would have nightmares quite frequently. What his father would do for him was, as soon as he woke up from having a bad dream, they would stand up and do runes for two or three hours. It got rid of the problem.

That energy will help elevate the soul. It can counteract some of the negative influences of symptoms of any kind of drug. So, yes there are obstacles, but it means that there is a pro and a con, so to speak, good and the bad. While it is an impediment, it is also possible to overcome it.

Question: What role does cerebral spinal fluid play in dreams and in astral projection? If one is deficient in this, can that prevent astral projection?

Instructor: Good question. Basically, with our brain and the functioning of our nervous systems, there is a connection between astral projection in the body with the health of our nerves, because when you are physically active, your astral body is integrated with your physical body. It is basically operating within the human machine.

It is good to have good health, a good spine and a healthy brain, but of course in this day and age, there are difficulties. It is very rare to find someone who is very healthy, perfectly healthy in this era. Especially in the West, given all our technology, our results of medicine and achievements, and yet still, a lot of people are ill and suffer many conditions.

If your car is damaged, obviously there is going to be an impediment to be able to drive around effectively, and there could be different problems with the car. It is the same with the physical body. It is the same with the heart, the emotional body and also the mind or the mental body. Internally, your mind, emotions and physicality can be represented by a car, and if you have dreams about a car, how it is driving and functioning, it is a representation of many things. It could be a representation of, for example, of your mental health, emotional health or physical health. If you ever get experiences of that nature, where you are being shown something about yourself and your health, it is good to consider the guidance of divinity showing that maybe we are being told to take care of our brain, our physicality, to take care of our heart or take care of our mind.

We can often get warnings in the internal world, especially in the early morning hours of the dawn, where we can get insights into what we need to focus on. It is important to be healthy, but obviously if we have an illness, because of certain karma, it can be more difficult to do the work. But personally, I have known people who have suffered some kind of injury or condition that they have had to contend with, but because they were so persistent in achieving the results that they wanted, they awakened.

It is not easy. It is not simple. Everyone’s situation and karma is different. But it can be done. I have faith in that because I have seen many students and learned about people’s hardships, challenges that were difficult to hear, but we have to do the best that we can given our circumstances. If it means taking care of one’s livelihood or one’s health, one has to do what they need to do. But it does not mean that one is going to fail. What matters is the consciousness, learning to operate with what one has, because what is more important than the car itself is how you drive.

So maybe there are certain restrictions on how you drive. But, in the end, what matters more is that you take care of your needs or learn to drive ethically. There are a lot of people who are healthy and have had a life handed to them on a golden platter in terms of their physicality, and yet they are terrible people. They do not appreciate what they have, and therefore maybe in the future they will not have that. So, there is a balance of mind, body, and heart. If you are conscious and you are serious, if someone has a condition that they are dealing with, it can be done.

Question: Speaking on the importance of the drowsy state, once I start to see events and hear voices projecting, I tend either to lose consciousness or I cannot control what I am seeing or hearing. How do I control what I see and hear?

Instructor: Do not try to control everything. Watch it. Desire wants to modify, to change or to control. When you start to have inner visions or experiences, the thing is not to grip them more tightly. The thing is to let it go and watch. Let it unfold of itself like a clock that is unwinding. Let the mechanism spring and fulfill its own objective, and just look at the results.

One obstacle to astral projection is trying to control the process. It is very common to want to accelerate things or to want to run away from the experience. I remember when I was a young kid, one of my first astral projections scared me. I was levitating above my bed, floating in the air with a lot of lucidity and intensity. I called out for someone to help me because I did not know what this was and obviously, I woke up. I wanted to control the situation. I wanted to get out. I did not want to be there. I was afraid of what I was witnessing with myself, levitating above the bed. It was very real, more real than my physical life. Had I not tried to be controlling of the situation or had I not been afraid, I could have prolonged the experience and learned to navigate effectively.

The reality is that in order to be more dexterous with astral projection, to know how to do it more effectively, you actually have to relinquish a lot of control. Do not let your mind try to control things. In a sense, let it happen. Watch what happens. Let the images come. See them like you are watching a film. You are trying to learn what is objective and real here.

With practice, you will sense that you are starting to lift out of your body, or you are in bed and the visions pass and you feel that you are about to transition, that you are about to step out of your body. When you recognize that moment, that is the moment that you have to act. But this is not a type of mental control. Do not try to modify or control the circumstances. It is about acting when you need to, but discriminating when to do that is going to be difficult in the beginning. You will learn it through time, through familiarity. So be patient.

Another Instructor: Another factor that may be at play there is that the consciousness is too dispersed, and one lacks attentiveness. You can work with the practice that was discussed earlier in this course where in our waking state, you meditate on a candle or an object for a certain amount of time each day to strengthen the consciousness and strengthen the ability to focus the attention.

Question: A gnostic instructor once advised me to pronounce the mantra “Wu” for calming the mind. How is that pronounced?

Instructor: It is like an exhalation of air, like a hurricane. So, the breath sounds like this: (Sound of hurricane wind howling through a mountain’s throat):

Wwwwwwwwwuuuuuuuuu…

It is an exhalation. It is almost like you are trying to whistle but you are exhaling the air, letting it out, followed by the “U” sound. So yes, that is also a very good mantra to calm the mind and can help to train your mind to get ready for astral projection.

Any other questions? I thank you all for coming!

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Mantras for Astral Projection

4/23/2022

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This lecture is about astral projection techniques. While we have discussed a lot of theories associated with astral projection, we will now discuss many practices to achieve it. Not only will we give many exercises from the writings of Samael Aun Weor, but we will also provide the necessary contexts for you to understand the purpose and utility of each exercise.

Mantras

Voluntary astral projections are often achieved through mantra recitations. But what exactly are mantras?

A mantra is conventionally understood as a repeated slogan, keyword, or phrase. In Buddhism and Hinduism, meditators recite particular words to aid in concentration. Mantras are a series of vocalizations that resonate in our body, mind, and spirit. Such words are usually imbued with spiritual meaning, transmitted from master to disciple through a lineage or tradition.

The term mantra comes from the Sanskrit मन्त्र Man, “to think,” or manas, “mind.” Tra or Trai signifies “to protect, to free.” In synthesis, mantra means “mind protection” or “to free the mind” through sacred sounds.

Mantras help to protect our mind from negative states. They also teach our mind how to be serene, concentrated, and obedient to our own will.

Anyone who has attempted meditation or mantra recitation exercises has discovered that the mind is undisciplined or distracted. It is wild. Thoughts come and go, one after the other, in associative succession. They even appear to have no beginning or end. Although our meditation sessions might be brief, we do get a glimpse, in such moments, of our true psychological state. However, many tend to ignore this fact in their busy lives.

Mantras are an effective tool for teaching our consciousness how to be focused. Right now, our conscious faculties tend to be deficient. In the beginning, we lack stability of concentration and clarity of visualization. If we cannot focus on one thing, if we are constantly distracted, and if we cannot clearly visualize imagery in our mind, then we will not have the capacity to consciously astral project with the frequency or sustainability we long for.

Fortunately, mantras aid with concentration and visualization through the power of the divine word.

The Divine Power of the Word

All religious traditions describe how sound is sacred and powerful. We know conventionally that a soft word of kindness dissipates anger. We also know that rude, incoherent, and abrasive words offend the mind and sensibilities.

This is because the spoken word is the vehicle of psychological meaning. If our intentions are bad—egotistical—then our words will reflect that. If we operate from psychological states of altruism, kindness, selflessness—in other words, the Essence—then our words will benefit all sentient beings.

Not only do we create situations in life based upon the quality of our speech, likewise divinity creates spiritual being through the power of the word. As indicated by Samael Aun Weor:

The Gods create with the power of the word, because, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). —Samael Aun Weor, The Spiritual Power of Sound

This slide depicts various sacred languages. We see Tibetan, Chinese, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic. They are sacred, not just because they convey the wisdom of the prophets across various cultures, but also because of their linguistic and archetypal complexity.

We can state without a doubt that these are examples of divine languages. These languages have great depth, power, and impact for the soul. They are divine because their alphabets and pronunciations reflect metaphysical realities. Each letter of their respective alphabets represent principles, intelligences, and forces. Moreover, their conscious enunciation can facilitate our complete development as a human being.

Languages represent the articulation of thought, of cognizance, and are referenced by the Greek term Λόγος logos. The first Christians iterated the fact that divinity is equivalent to the spoken word, because speech is the actualization of abstract potential. We bring into being our own psychological potential through speech. Therefore, what we say carries tremendous consequences for our own well-being and the well-being of others.

The Universal Language

Rather than exclusively speak about the negative impact of words (which is something that we are all probably already familiar with), we will emphasize how certain languages, like the ones we’ve cited, are mantric in nature. As stated by Samael Aun Weor:

There is a universal language of life spoken only by Angels, Archangels, Seraphim, etc. When the sacred fire blooms in our fertile lips made verb, the word becomes flesh in us. All the mantras known among the occultists are just syllables, letters, and isolated words of the language of the Light. —Samael Aun Weor, The Spiritual Power of Sound

All sacred languages stem from a universal language and are vehicles of internal truths. They are mantric languages. Their original structures are expressions of the Being. They are more in tune with the nature of divinity. As vehicles of expression, they reflect spiritual truths with greater accuracy than is afforded by our more modern languages.

Many languages have progressively distanced themselves from their sources, as dramatized in Genesis by the Tower of Babel. While it is normal for languages to change over time, mantric languages retain a primeval coherence and integrity in relation to divine truths. These languages are rich with meaning. Their nuances cannot be simplified or synthesized into a single English translation, primarily since each word and letter operates on multiple conceptual dimensions.

This is why if we wish to understand texts like the Bible or the Qur’an, we must have some familiarity with their original languages, since their letters contain tremendous significance. They embody eternal truths. One doesn’t need to be fluent in such languages to be successful in scriptural interpretation. One needs a basic education in the symbols of such alphabets, which, combined with an English translation, opens doors to wisdom that is not accessible to the uninitiated.

This is why we pronounce mantras in their original languages, such as Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic, because they convey tremendous power. These mantras are magical in nature. If you wish to benefit from the power of a certain mantra, you must pronounce it according to its original language and form, in the same manner that it was transmitted from master to disciple. This is why religious traditions have existed: to accurately transmit spiritual practices for the awakening of the consciousness.

The Seven Chakras and Their Mantras

Mantras activate chakras. But what are chakras?

चक्र Chakra in Sanskrit means “wheel.” A chakra is a wheel of energy, formed whenever two meridians or currents of vital energy cross. We have thousands of chakras since we possess thousands of meridians. However, when people often speak about chakras, they often talk about the seven main ones connected to our spine.

Our astral body perceives the astral world through our chakras. Chakras help to channel divine energy in the same manner as a water mill. If there is no water flowing, the mill won’t turn. The same with the chakras. Most people typically don’t have their chakras activated, either permanently or even temporarily. This is why we train with mantra recitation, so that the senses of the astral body become rejuvenated.

Mantras help to activate our chakras by concentrating and directing energy. Different sounds vibrate in different parts of our body. Sounds not only vibrate and permeate our environment—such as when our words reach our neighbor during a conversation—but also reverberate within our body, consciousness, and astral body. Therefore, the quality of our speech has significant results, both for ourselves and others.

Just as we possess seven main chakras, we also activate them through seven primary sounds or vowels. Traditionally, a vowel is a basic unit of sound within any language, forming the nucleus of a syllable. In English we often reference five main vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. However, in our spiritual studies we also recognize that the letters M and S are also vowels.

This can be confusing, since traditionally, M and S are considered consonants, which join with vowels to form syllables. However, we emphasize how the letters I, E, O, U, A, M, and S are esoteric vowels, because whenever you vocalize and prolong their sounds, they vibrate within specific nuclei or chakras in our body. Since a vowel forms the center or nucleus of a syllable, likewise these seven vowels activate the seven nuclei or centers of our chakras along the spine.

There are seven main chakras, which each have their respective sounds, capacities, and astral powers. We will list them now from the top of our spine to the base:

Sahasrara: Crown Chakra — Mantra I
Ajna: Third Eye Chakra — Mantra I
Vishuddha: Throat Chakra — Mantra E
Anahata: Heart Chakra — Mantra O
Manipura: Abdominal Chakra / Solar Plexus — Mantra U
Svadhisthana: Prostatic / Uterine Chakra — Mantra M
Muladhara: Sacral or Root Chakra — Mantra S

Some native English speakers have been confused by Samael Aun Weor’s explanation of the seven vowels, primarily since he wrote in Spanish, which has some different vowel pronunciations than in English. We will list them here with examples:

The vowel I, pronounced as the vowel in “tree,” vibrates the crown chakra at the top of our head and the third eye chakra between our eyebrows. These develop the capacity for omniscience and clairvoyance.

The vowel E, as in “bet,” vibrates in the throat, activating the ability to hear mystical sounds.

The vowel O, as in “boat,” vibrates in the heart, awakening the power of intuition and the capacity for conscious astral projections.

The vowel U, as in “true,” vibrates in the solar plexus or abdomen, which grants us access to telepathy.

We also possess a pulmonary chakra in our lungs that is activated by the mantra A. This chakra helps with remembering past lives.

The vowel M, as in “hum,” vibrates in the prostrate in men or the uterus in women. It activates the ability to control and direct our creative energies, the waters of life.

The vowel S, as in “serpent,” vibrates at the base of the spine and awakens sparks of the sacred fire or energy known in some traditions as Kundalini or Pentecost.

Here is what the seven vowels sound like together from the top of the spine to the bottom:

Some people really struggle with pronouncing the letters M and S. M should be prolonged, with the lips closed, humming like a bull.

S is extended like the hissing of a snake. Place the tip of your tongue close to your tooth ridge. This is close to the upper backside of your top front teeth. Allow the air to pass through as you exhale, extending the sound.

By working with our chakras, we can learn to consciously astral project. Each astral projection mantra is a key to the internal worlds. Just as our speech is imbibed with meaning, likewise astral projection mantras contain a fundamental keynote that allows our consciousness to resonate with the superior worlds, thereby facilitating the transition of our Essence into the internal dimensions.

Types of Mantra Recitation

Before we get into actual astral projection mantras, let us describe different ways to vocalize them.

...the verb is of triple pronunciation and that it endows three norms: verbal, mental, and conscious. One can articulate with the creative larynx, one can vocalize with his thought, and one can vocalize with the superlative consciousness of the Being. —Samael Aun Weor, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic

When we lie down to practice our astral projection exercises, we can first vocalize a mantra aloud, perhaps for fifteen minutes. Then we can whisper the mantra for just as long. Lastly, we pronounce the mantra in our mind. This gradual diminution of sound helps us to increase our concentration from vocalization, to whispering, then to silence. You allow yourself to eventually get drowsy as you are whispering, until finally you are concentrated within the mantra in your mind. Then, fall asleep reciting the mantra, immersing your entire being within it, until you consciously transition into the astral.

Egipto

Many people complain that they cannot achieve conscious astral projections. This is often the consequence of having abused the senses of the astral body.

Despite the fact that we have made our internal bodies sick, depleted of spiritual force, there is a way to restore such powers to their normal functionalism and capacities. We do so through pronouncing the mantra Egipto for one hour daily.

We have included an image of the pyramids of Giza topped by an illuminated figure at their apex. This represents the illuminated powers of the astral body, which grants any initiate access to heavenly states of consciousness.

Some contemporary anthropologists have questioned the age, utility, and purpose of these pyramids. Some have argued that the pyramids, rather than serve as a catacomb for dead kings, instead were conduits for spiritual forces. These buildings were meant to channel energy conducive for the psychological and spiritual elevation of the local Egyptians, whose culture once resonated with and reflected higher principles.

Each corner of any pyramid represents the solar bodies: the physical, vital, astral, and mental vehicles. The apex can represent, much like in the American dollar bill, the divine eye of omniscience and mystical perception. It also can relate to the human consciousness or causal vehicle that has dominated the lower aspects of our psychology.

This mantra is a primer for our psychic machinery, the spiritual engines of our chakras. By pronouncing this mantra for one hour a day, minimum, the chakras of our astral body activate and operate in an optimal manner. In this way, like the pyramids, we charge ourselves with tremendous power and teach our astral body how to be a useful instrument for our inner divinity.

The mantra is pronounced like this:

Samael Aun Weor explained the significance of this mantra in The Seven Words, which was published in the book entitled The Divine Science:

Our disciples must acquire the power of astral body projection. This power is acquired by vocalizing daily for an hour the sacred mantra Egipto. The vowel “E” makes the thyroid gland vibrate and grants the initiate the power of the occult ear. The “G” awakens the chakra of the liver, and when this chakra has reached its full development, then, the initiate can enter and leave the physical body any time at will. The vowel “I,” combined with the letter “P,” develops clairvoyance in the initiate, and the power to depart in the astral body through the window of Brahma, which is the pineal gland. Pronounce the letter “T” with force over the vowel “O, “ which is intimately related with the chakra of the heart; this is how the initiate can acquire the power to project the self through this plexus and thus travel in his astral body. —Samael Aun Weor, The Divine Science: The Seven Words

Fe Uin Dagj

Another mantra for awakening our lost astral powers is Fe Uin Dagj (it’s quite an unusual series of sounds, especially for Westerners). Arnold Krumm-Heller (Master Huiracocha) stated in his book Esoteric Rose that this mantra is of Egyptian origin.

Many chakras exist in our internal bodies. While we speak of seven primary ones, we also have other important chakras in our liver and spleen that regulate our vital currency or energetic values, which must be conserved and consciously utilized to achieve astral projections.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor said about this:

During the night, the splenic chakra gathers the energies left by the sun during the day. With those energies, the splenic chakra transmutes the white blood cells into red blood cells. During the day, the organic refuse obstructs the nervous canals of the grand sympathetic nervous system. During sleep, the vital energy makes that chakra spin, and this chakra uses the energy of the sun which passes into the spleen in order to transmute the white blood cells into red blood cells. Then the energy passes to the solar plexus and is distributed into the whole nervous system. The thyroid gland cooperates by disinfecting the whole organism. It is clear that when the ego (lunar astral) returns into the organism after sleep, it is already repaired, and we feel healthier. When one awakes tired, it is because the organism is sick.

The hepatic chakra serves for astral projection. The astral body is connected with the liver. By awakening the chakra of the liver, anyone can enter and exit the physical body at will.

The splenic, hepatic, and solar plexuses are developed with the Egyptian mantra: Fe Uin Dagt. This mantra must be sung in the note Mi. Then the three mentioned chakras and the lungs are developed. —Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

Also, he says elsewhere that:

The mantra Fe Uin Dagj (the last word pronounced gutturally) serves to awaken all the chakras of the astral body. —Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: Manual of Practical Magic

The pronunciation, especially with the guttural “G,” is in the back of the throat, like a prolonged “Gugh.”

Sing this mantra in the musical note Mi of the musical scale: Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si.

Therefore, we can find the right note by singing, then pronouncing the mantra like this:

Do… Re… Mi…

This mantra enlivens our chakras. But remember that the proper functioning of our chakras is deeply connected with our physical health. This exercise purifies our spleen, liver, and abdomen, since the vibrations of the mantra invigorate our glands to work with greater intensity, efficacy, and wisdom. When our glands work optimally, our mental and spiritual health is also sustained, since our hormones, digestion, and lymphatic system intimately relate to the purity of our consciousness.

Ephraim

We will now discuss the mantra Ephraim.

In Genesis, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Manasseh was the first born and Ephraim was the second born son. They were both adopted by Joseph’s father Jacob to share in Jacob’s inheritance. However, rather than bequeath the first-born Manasseh his inheritance, Jacob honored Ephraim, the youngest. Jacob placed his right hand upon Ephraim and his left upon Manasseh, Joseph’s first born. This act displeased Joseph, since this blessing symbolized how the first born would be second in patrilineal succession, an act that went against custom and tradition.

The Bible is a symbolic text, not just a literal retelling of history. Manasseh and Ephraim are mantras for the astral body, the former being inferior and the latter being superior. Manasseh symbolizes the lunar astral body, which is developed by black magicians, and Ephraim represents the superior qualities of the solar astral body, which is developed by white magicians.

Just as both brothers contend for Jacob’s favor, in the same manner our defects and virtues strive for primacy within our consciousness. Most of us incline, psychologically, towards the ego, represented by Manasseh. He is the first-born, which represents how our psychological center of gravity is within the ego. However, the Essence—fully developed in Jacob—always favors Ephraim (the superior astral forces), even though he is younger and less experienced (in that these energies are less developed in us).

Those powers are “of the stars,” signified by the term astra or astral. The Hebrew name אפרים Ephraim is also associated with “being fruitful” in Egypt, the land of affliction, since the mantra Ephraim makes our astral body fertile with heavenly forces.

It’s important to understand how the Bible is replete with sacred geography, which have a symbolic rather than a literal designation. Rather than exclusively represent physical places, they actually reference spiritual states and the multidimensionality of our universe. This is because divinity communicates through an abstract, symbolic language, which is often contemporaneous to any initiate’s cultural setting and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, the symbols that Moses received were documented in the Torah, using the names, language, and locations of his time. Likewise with any sacred writing. God speaks to certain initiates in a way that is understandable to them. Therefore, spiritual knowledge is always clothed in the garb of the times, so that such wisdom becomes accessible.

Egypt often represents our physical world where we live enslaved to mechanicity and suffering. To escape pain, we learn to ascend Mount Ephraim, a symbol of elevating our consciousness to superior states as outlined in the Tree of Life. We do so by making our consciousness fertile, to vibrate with divine power.

Ephraim is also considered an Egyptian mantra because this exercise, like many in the Gnostic tradition of Samael Aun Weor, transforms the fertility, potency, or virility of our physical body and elevates it to spiritual use. Mastering and directing our creative energy helps to liberate us from suffering, from slavery, which is what the mantra Ephraim does.

We will not elaborate upon using Manasseh as a mantra, because it is negative. We will explain how to work with the powerful mantra Ephraim instead.

This mantra activates all of our chakras and invokes the Cosmic Christ within our interior. This mantra is pronounced like this:

Here is what Samael Aun Weor said about this mantra in The Seven Words:

All the occult powers of the astral body enter into activity with this powerful Egyptian mantra.

The vowel “H” is pronounced like a deep sigh, and the pronunciation of the letter “P” gives force to this vowel like when one is blowing out air.

A catholic priest asked an Aztec magician, “How do you name God?” And the Aztec magician answered him with a deep sigh. This sigh was the vowel “H,” this is why the word ‘breath’ has the vowel “H.”

The letter “H” is a vowel, even when the grammarians do not affirm it is. The “H” is the breath of life, the igneous breath, and when combined with the “P,” like this, “PH,” it gives the sensation of pressuring with the lips, the breath of life.

Thus, this is why this mantra contains remarkable powers.

The vowel “E” develops the thyroid chakra and the powers of the mind. The sound “PH” places the igneous breath on all the chakras of the astral body in order to awaken them. The mantra “RA “ forces all the chakras of the astral body of the human being to vibrate.

The vowel “I” awakens the chakras of the head, and when it is combined with the vowel “M,” namely: “IM,” it acquires a remarkable power that diffuses through all the astral chakras, by animating and enlightening them.

The vowel “M” is pronounced as a sound that is felt in the mouth, but since the lips are closed, the sound has to come out through the nose. The vowel “M” contains remarkable powers. —Samael Aun Weor, The Divine Science: The Seven Words

The Microcosmic Star

We perform the microcosmic star before laying down to astral project, especially before vocalizing the Egyptian mantra Fa Ra On. Before we explain the next mantra, let us examine what the microcosmic star is.

It is a symbol of the perfected human being, made into the psychological and spiritual image of divinity. The upright apex represents the head, which should be above the rest of the body. This signifies that our spiritual understanding is in command of our other faculties, and not the other way around.

The inverted pentagram, with the apex facing down and the legs up, is negative, because one’s reason is governed by animal instinct. This represents how the soul falls downward into negative states.

We perform these movements to align our mind, heart, body, and soul with the divine. This exercise helps us to get into the right mood for astral projection, but also any spiritual practice. It is a form of spiritual protection against internal and external negativity. The gestures of the microcosmic star symbolize the descent of spiritual force into our inner universe. Movement is sacred, which is why Catholics genuflect with the sign of the cross, Muslims kneel and bow in submission to God, and Jews shuckle (sway back and forth) when reciting prayers.

Begin with your hands over your heart, the right hand over the left. This is the same posture as the Egyptian pharaohs praying to the solar deities, to the creative divine.

Next, join your palms together over your head. Then separate and lower them downward, so that your fingers touch your shoulders. Afterward, extend them to your sides. Next, lower your hands over your sexual organs. The right hand should be over the left.

Divine influences descend into the matter of our body and eventually synthesize in our sexual energy. Our hands form the cross over our sexual glands, representing the union of spiritual forces within us. The cross is also a sexual symbol, a representation of alchemy (as described in our other courses). When our right hand covers the left, it means we enact divine will to dominate our animal impulses.

We transform the sexual potential into a spiritual force through transmutation exercises. This is especially represented when we inhale and raise our hands. Hold them over your heart, the right hand over the left. Your palms should rest on your chest and your forearms should be crossed, right over left, with your fingertips reaching to the front of your shoulders.

This indicates that we have elevated the creative energy into our heart, thereby strengthening our spirituality. Breath is deeply related with transmutation and prayer, since through rhythmic and profound inhalations, we channel our sexual force and transform it into a source of spiritual empowerment.

Fa Ra On

Perform the microcosmic star whenever you feel the need. But also, perform it before you practice the mantra Fa Ra On.

This mantra is intimately associated with the mysticism of Egypt, since Fa Ra On syllabically and symbolically equates with the solar dynasties, the pharaohs or sacred kings of the Nile.

It is important to remember that Egyptian, Aztec, and Mayan mysticism share Atlantean roots, since their pyramids, religions, and cultures originated from the same wisdom. You can see that a lot of mystical knowledge came from Egypt, evidenced by the mantras Egipto, Ephraim, and Fa Ra On. Such mantras are passcodes for entering spiritual states and dimensions. You can even astral project and approach the pyramids of Giza in the superior worlds, since a marvelous temple of mysteries is active there within the astral world.

If you wish to visit this temple in the astral world, first lie down in the same position as the Aztec and Mayan sculpture of Chac Mool. This figure was described by Samael Aun Weor in Aztec Christic Magic:

In the Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City there exists a stone figure of a man who is partially lying down in a dorsal decubitus position. The soles of his feet rest on his bed; thus his knees are elevated. The backs of his thighs are pressed up against the backs of his calves because his legs are bent. His upper body is arched as if he may get up at his first impulse; his face is towards the left and his sight is fixed on the horizon. At the height of his solar plexus his hands hold a container. —Samael Aun Weor, Aztec Christic Magic

Chac Mool is significant. He is the god of rain, holding a receptacle at his solar plexus. This is a symbol of the abdominal chakra, which receives and stores divine, solar energy from our spiritual practices. This collection of energetic potential is like a cup that accumulates the dew of heaven, the rain of transmutation.

It is this reservoir of energy that helps one to astral project. If you deplete your energies throughout the day, emotionally, psychologically, and especially vitally, then you will not have the energy necessary to activate the consciousness.

However, saving energy is not enough. We must consciously utilize it. We do so through imitating the posture of this Aztec god. For this, our knees must be bent like the pyramids, whether of South America or Egypt. Our solar plexus receives the power of our solar divinity in the same manner as the pyramids transmit tremendous spiritual potential, which is why our knees must be bent in imitation of this fact.

When performing this practice, you can rest your hands over your solar plexus and prop your head up with a pillow. However, Samael Aun Weor also describes placing one’s hands to the sides if that is more comfortable.

What is also significant about Samael Aun Weor’s description of Chac Mool is the fact that he faces the left, his body is arched and ready to move “at his first impulse,” and “his sight is fixed on the horizon.”

The left side of the body signifies the lunar energies we seek to dominate within our interior. We represent this fact by laying our face on its left side during this exercise.

We must also be ready, through this practice, to get up in our astral body after we have consciously transitioned, thereby demonstrating Chac Mool’s alert and responsive state. These qualities are essential when distinguishing the time to transition and act through the astral body.

Lastly, Chac Mool stares at the horizon, a symbol of how the consciousness aspires towards the height of spiritual attainment. We do so through remembering the presence of divinity.

While in the Chac Mool position, concentrate upon and visualize the pyramids of Giza in your imagination. See it with as much color, vibrancy, and clarity as you can. Do not let your mind get distracted by thought. Become drowsy while pronouncing the mantra Fa Ra On.

Fa Ra On helps us to resonate with the cosmos. As Samael Aun Weor stated:

When this mantra is vocalized is must be divided into three syllables. The first is “FA,” which is the note that resounds in all of nature. The second is the Egyptian “RA.” The third is the “ON,” which reminds us of the famous Sanskrit mantra OM from India. —Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

The mantra sounds like this:

Vocalize the mantra aloud at first, perhaps for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then whisper it for the same length of time. Finally, pronounce it mentally as you fall asleep.

The Mantra Rusti

Here we see an image a meditation mural, common amongst many Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples. It represents the top of the nine stages of meditative concentration. It is a map of the different degrees of serenity, from a wild, distracted mind to a disciplined and tranquil mind.

As we explained previously, conscious astral projections are facilitated through serenity and concentration. We can deepen our serenity and concentration through pronouncing the mantra Rusti. Samael Aun Weor provided this exercise in relation to the zodiacal sign of Gemini, the astrological sign of the twins. They represent the two pillars of any temple of mysteries, since balance is achieved through serene reconciliation of opposites. When the mind is no longer afflicted by dualistic notions, it learns to perceive reality with penetrative insight and discovers how to open the doors to the higher worlds.

Some people become terrified by the idea of astral projection even though they unconsciously enact it every time they sleep. The mantra Rusti can help overcome that fear, to develop comprehension of the astral projection process. The mantra is pronounced like this:

Astral projection is natural. All living beings do it every time they sleep. When you pronounce this mantra, first aloud, then whispered, and lastly in the mind, you will become drowsy. Thereafter, get up out of bed. Do not imagine it. Actually do it. With enough practice, you will find that you have transitioned, seemingly without knowing how or when. Patience is the key.

Tai Re Re Re

The next mantra is Tai Re Re Re. It causes us to resonate with exceptional energetic vibrations. Like this image of a hummingbird, this mantra accelerates our consciousness into higher states, so that we rise like a bird to fly within the superior worlds.

The mantra Tai is chanted with strength, accentuating the vowel A. Chant the syllable Tai with a deep tone.

The remaining three syllables are pronounced like the ringing of a melodious and prolonged bell. In this exercise you do not need to roll the R. Simply pronounce it, giving unto the vowel E (as in “red”) a song-like quality. Sing the syllable Re three times in a higher tone than Tai.

Here is what the mantra sounds like:

With enough practice, you will transition into a drowsy state of equanimity, balanced between wakefulness and sleep. The student will rise from bed without hesitation, doubt, laziness, or reasoning. This is an instinctive, automatic process that does not require thinking. One must adopt the attitude of a child: inquisitive, alert, spontaneous. Birds don’t reason. They do not harbor doubts, nor entertain preconceptions. They simply fly away, naturally, instinctively, automatically. In the same manner, one must imitate the birds through this mantra, rising from bed to depart within the astral world towards any place of the cosmos.

The Anahat Sound of the Cricket

So what is the Anahat sound of the cricket?

Every existing thing is in perpetual motion, from the universal and the planetary level, down to the cellular, the molecular, and the atomic. Wherever there is movement, there is sound, even when it is not readily perceptible to our limited senses. Likewise, wherever there is movement, there is energy, since all action and activity requires the emergence, subsistence, and cessation of force.

Our physical brain also vibrates with energies and forces. Just because we don’t perceive them in our waking state doesn’t mean they don’t exist. One such vibration is the Anahat sound. It is a vibrational keynote that characterizes our physical brain.

All existing things are permeated by the spiritual power of sound, since every independent entity enacts a specific vibrational character. The combination and synthesis of such disparate notes make up a fundamental tone or keynote.

All the cells of our physical brain produce the harmonious keynote known as the Anahat sound, otherwise known as the “still small voice” that Elijah heard in a mountain cave (see 1 Kings 19:11-13 in the Bible). This sound is similar to the chirping of a cricket, which is accompanied by an electrical current of tremendous force.

This is why in the story of Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, which is southern slang for “Jesus Christ,” is the wooden puppet’s guide. The still small voice that Elijah heard in the cave is also associated with the voice of Christ within the soul.

Concentrating and meditating upon this mystical sound will unlock the entrance of the internal worlds. However, to hear it one must disassociate from all distractions, thoughts, preoccupations, memories, worries, problems. One must become absorbed within this sound, which is similar to a chirping cricket or the hissing of a serpent. Become like the bee that labors with love within the pollen of a flower, so as to transform that substance into divine nectar.

Quiet the mind. Do not repress it. Do not stifle, gag, or choke it. It is essential not to treat the mind with violence. Tranquility is not found through suffocating thought. We experience equanimity through serene observation of our states, not identifying with any thought. Let the mind settle by looking at it. Do not invest your energy into thinking. Let it be. If you learn how to listen with clarity and spontaneity, when you no longer let yourself get carried away by mental chatter, no longer anticipating what might happen, remaining unattached, you can begin to perceive these mystical sounds directly.

You can also acquire a cricket and keep it in a cage near your bedside. While falling asleep, concentrate and meditate upon the sound of the cricket. With enough discipline, attention, and consistency, your brain will start to vibrate with the cricket’s chirping, thereby expanding your own awareness of the Anahat sound. Allow your consciousness to vibrate with it. If your concentration is profound, these vibrations will produce the separation of the astral body with your physical body. Then you are free to travel to any place you wish in the astral world.

La Ra

The next mantra, La Ra, is associated with the Caduceus of Mercury. This medical symbol has ancient roots, relating to the spiritual science of alchemical transmutation. The alchemical tradition is symbolic, representing the transformation of base metals (our terrestrial personality) into the gold of divine wisdom.

The staff is a spiritual symbol of the spinal column, whereby two serpents of power entwine. These serpents represent energetic channels where sexual energy rises to the mind, thereby blossoming, upon our backs, the wings of genuine spirituality.

One serpentine channel is composed of lunar forces and the other with solar forces. Sometimes esoteric authors refer to these forces as spiritual atomic intelligences, which are not atoms as we think of in conventional physics, but internal principles and potentials. These potencies originate from our sexual gonads, the testicles or ovaries, and can rise up the spine through their respective conduits to illuminate the mind. Such energies, elevated through spiritual practices, aid us in achieving conscious astral projections. One way is through the mantra La Ra.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor said about this:

The sexual energy is bipolarized into positive and negative. The solar atoms from our seminal system ascend through the right ganglionic cord, which entwines around the spinal medulla. Likewise, the lunar atoms from the seminal system ascend through the left ganglionic cord, which entwines around the spinal medulla.

The solar atoms resound with the mantra: RA.

The lunar atoms vibrate intensely with the mantra: LA.

The sexual power of the two witnesses known in the Orient by the names of Ida and Pingala can be used in order for the still, small voice, the Anahat sound, to resound within the brain.

The Anahat sound is produced by the sexual energies in motion. It is already known that all motion produces sound. Therefore, if we compel the “solar and lunar atoms” of our seminal system to vibrate with intensity, then, the Anahat sound will strongly (and with more intensity) resound; this will grant us the capacity to consciously project ourselves in the astral body. […]

With these mantras, the above mentioned solar and lunar atoms will intensely spin, forming an electric whirlwind. The spinning movement produces the Anahat sound, which will allow the student to consciously escape from the physical body. It is essential for the student to get up from the bed (while in a slumber state) and take advantage of the mystical sound.

The two witnesses of the Revelation of St. John grant the power of prophecy, because they produce the awakening of the consciousness. The solar fire rises through the right ganglionic cord; the lunar water rises through the left ganglionic cord. Fire plus water is equal to consciousness. The fire of Phlegethon and the water of Acheron cross in the Ninth Sphere (Sex), forming the sign of the infinite. This sign is the Holy Eight. If we carefully observe the Caduceus of Mercury, we perceive the Holy Eight, formed by the two serpents that are entwined around it. —Samael Aun Weor, The Divine Science: Logos, Mantra, Theurgy

Here is how we pronounce the mantra La Ra:

Through activating our sexual potential through these mantras, we in turn awaken the power of the two witnesses, the Caduceus of Mercury, which opens the door to internal, spiritual perceptions

The Mantra S

Another way to produce conscious astral projections is to pronounce the mantra S. This letter activates and transmutes the sexual energy, allowing one to resound with the still small voice within the brain. Some people pronounce the mantra S on its own to achieve conscious astral projections. Some have combined the mantra La Ra with S, as follows:

The mantra La can signify the element earth and the mantra Ra can signify the element fire. When you combine the syllables La, Ra, and S together, Ra becomes Ras, or the Hebrew ראש Rosh (or ר Reish, א Aleph, and ש Shin), which means “head.” These mantras raise the solar fire of our sexual energy (Ra) to the head, from our physical body or earth (La), to ראש Rosh. The letter S sounds like the hissing of a snake, which also represents the element of fire. The mantras La Ra S or just S can provide powerful results if practiced with dedication and consistency.

The Mantra O

A simple but effective way to develop internal illumination, the capacity to consciously travel in the fifth dimension, is to vocalize the mantra O.

This mantra is often recited within Hinduism and Buddhism. It has tremendous potential for awakening consciousness. As we mentioned before, many people suffer because they can’t consciously experience the astral dimension, even after many years of study and practice. There is, however, a remedy. Vocalize the mantra O for the development of the cardiac chakra.

As with other astral projection mantras, you vocalize the vowel O and immerse yourself within its vibration, energy, and sound. This exercise empowers the heart chakra, which grants the student the ability to project and travel within the astral world. For millennia, yogis have utilized this mantra to experience divinity and awaken intuition: the capacity to know without having to think. We’ve already mentioned how too much intellectual activity depletes us of energy, creates imbalances, and impedes the realizations of the heart. While the intellect is needed, balance is necessary, especially for Westerners whose intellectual pursuits predominate other activities. Conscious vocalization of the mantra O can aid in the restoration of our lost astral faculties.

You also pronounce the vowel O while falling asleep, prolonged and pronounced like this:

You might suddenly find yourself transitioning into the astral world through the heart chakra. People often report coming out of their bodies through the heart with this exercise. It is very effective, especially when you charge your heart chakra through an hour-long vocalization each day. This mantra reinvigorates the powers of the heart.

Tips for Astral Projection

Here is some practical advice for performing any of these exercises.

Practice an astral projection mantra consistently. If you select a mantra, don’t practice it sporadically. Perform it every night before you fall asleep. These exercises work when we are consistent. Just as you would brush your teeth as part of a healthy, hygienic routine, likewise you should vocalize a mantra every night you go to sleep without expecting results.

It is good to select a mantra to work with in accordance with your needs, intuition, and inspiration. Practice whatever mantra inspires you most. If you lack inspiration to use a particular mantra, then try another. However, whatever you select, be sure to stick with it for a prolonged period of time if you want results. Some people stick to a mantra for many years before getting results. Therefore, we should not expect immediate results from little practice. It takes dedication and effort.

Do not change mantras during your practice. If you lie down to pronounce a mantra, don’t switch it up in the middle of your practice. Whatever mantra you start with, dedicate yourself to it fully. This is because each mantra trains your concentration, which will not become integrated and strong if your attention is dispersed among different practices during the same session.

Vocalize a mantra aloud, gradually softening to a whisper, and then pronounce it internally. This general sequence helps us to initiate, sustain, and complete a practice. Vocal recitations help us get situated in the practice, since we are using our lungs and speech to concentrate and begin the exercise. You can vocalize for ten to fifteen minutes if you like. Then you can whisper the mantra as you get drowsy. Do so for another ten to fifteen minutes. Finally, recite the mantra in your mind, your being, silently as you go to sleep. This gradual abbreviation of sound, from vocal to silent recitation, helps us go from the body into our internal worlds.

Also, be sure to completely relax and concentrate upon the mantra. You cannot go to sleep and astral project if you’re tense. You also cannot concentrate effectively if your mind is chaotic and strained. Relaxation is essential. To relax, vocalize the mantra and dedicate your entire being to it. Do nothing else. Do not even think of a problem. Eventually you will calm down and start to become drowsy. The key is to not lose your attention as you become sleepy. This is why we must hold onto the mantra as we fall asleep, because otherwise we drift and get lost within dreams. Any astral projection mantra gives us a foothold into the internal worlds, so that we can eventually transition with awareness and intentionality.

Remember to practice astral projection whenever you sleep. This tip is simple: you cannot get results if you forget to practice every night.

Lastly, do not pretend or imagine getting up from bed. Actually do it when you feel you have detached from your physical body. As we mentioned earlier, some people think that astral projection is an imaginary exercise, that you do it in your mind. The kama rupa or astral body is material. You operate in it just as you do with your physical body, although with less restrictions on your activities. Therefore, translate your movements into facts. When you feel that you’ve transitioned, get up from bed and perform a quick reality check. Jump in the air. If you float, it’s because you’re in the astral world. If you don’t, come back to bed to reinitiate the practice. Keep practicing each day until you get results.

Exercises

Throughout the day, develop self-observation.

Each day, for at least 10-20 minutes, develop meditative concentration through visualization of an image.

Select an astral projection mantra and work with it every time you go to sleep.

Lastly, continue your spiritual diary.

If you have any questions, you are free to ask them.

Questions and Answers

Question: How important is it to lay down with the head toward the north for astral projection?

Instructor: For those who are not familiar, Samael Aun Weor mentions in a bunch of writings of his that you can facilitate astral projections with greater frequency and sustainability by falling asleep with your head facing the north. This is because northern magnetism has a profound effect on astral projections. This is something we are going to talk about in a future lecture, but I will explain some of that detail here.

It is not necessary that you place your head toward the north to be successful with astral projections. What it does is increase the likelihood. So if it is possible in your room or your bedroom, your home, to place your bed with the head facing the north, that will be very helpful and conducive for your practices. If you can’t for whatever reason, whatever your living conditions are, that is not fundamental. But it is an additional help that can benefit us.

It is because the magnetism of the Earth acts upon the astral body. We know that the northern climate tends to be more cold, particularly in relation to how the forces of the Earth magnetize. Some esoteric authors have attributed colder weather to spiritual states, such as Friedrich Nietzsche in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra where he explains that by climbing the mountain, he always felt rejuvenated. He utilized mountain symbology and geography to correlate with the experience of higher states. In the same way, the magnetism of the Earth helps to activate certain astral potentials.

Since the astral body is fluidic and dynamic in nature, it responds readily to energy and magnetism. If you want to help facilitate astral projection practice, laying down with your head to the north can help with that. There is a deep correlation with that. But if you cannot, it is not going to be the end of the world. Yet it would be very useful.

Question: Is it possible to listen to an audio recording of a cricket for the still small voice practice?

Instructor: You can listen to the audio recording, but it is not going to create the vibrational equivalent of the real thing. The thing with this type of sound is that it acts upon the magnetism of the brain and the body. You need a physical cricket if you want to work with this, because the actual vibration of the sound has a much more profound and penetrative effect on the physical brain.

The sound actually enters the ears and affects the brain directly, and therefore strikes at the consciousness. You need an actual cricket to do this, not an artificial recording. An audio recording is synthetic, digital, and doesn’t produce the same vibrational output. This is why it is always good to go to classical music concerts. I know we talked in previous courses about the effects of classical music upon the psyche. It is good to listen to recordings, but nothing can replace the actual live performance because the vibrations of those instruments act upon the soul.

In the same way, the cricket has the potential to work upon the mind if we actually have the physical creature there to do the work.

Question: Do these practices work for a person who has experienced emotional pain? I currently meditate and am getting used to calming my mind and body. I am also trying to stay in the present moment.

Instructor: Yes, these practices work for anyone. They are universal in the same way that speech is universal to all human beings, the capacity to articulate thought. In the same way these mantras belong to the divine, golden, luminous language of the angels, of the prophets.

Obviously, it is difficult for a person who has an emotional illness or is suffering from depression, from negative emotions, from anger, from resentment, or from problems of the heart, to access a deeper state of serenity. We have mentioned in the previous lectures how serenity and visualization are essential in order to achieve conscious astral projections with frequency and sustainability. While it is an obstacle and a hurdle to overcome when dealing with emotional pain, there are remedies to help alleviate suffering and to develop equanimity in the heart, so that the heart, aligned with the mind with its capacity for imagination, can open the doors to the superior worlds.

These mantras are very helpful for calming the mind and the heart especially when you practice with them every night while falling asleep.

We do also have another practice in our tradition in order to deal with emotional pain. It is called the magic of the roses. You can find it on Glorian Publishing’s website and we’ve referenced it a couple times on our website as well.

The magic of the roses can help to deal with emotional and spiritual trauma. That, combined with the mantras, can help us gain really profound results. So don’t lose hope, because these practices work. What matters is that we are consistent with them.

Question: What is the first, best thing to do when we awake in the astral plane?

Instructor: It depends. Actually I am planning towards the end of this course to give a whole lecture on that. What do you do when you navigate the internal worlds? What do you do there? We kind of hinted at some of those things in the first lecture of this course (called Fact and Fiction).

I’d say listen to your heart, your intuition. Your soul will tell you what to do. The mind will deliberate and perhaps hesitate, vacillate, wander, but if you are very in tune with your sentiments when you are actually there, when you are conscious, many times you will know what to do without having to think. It is instinctive. It is not an animal instinct. It is actually more of an automatic, spontaneous impulse from the soul. It is very different from animal instinct, but it is, in a sense, automatic. Sometimes when you awake in the astral plane you can simply know what you got to do.

For some people it might be, in accordance with their dedication and practice, to visit a temple, to visit the white lodges, to go to pyramids of Giza, and enter, if possible, the threshold of that divine sanctuary, that temple of light.

Others might require an answer to a difficult spiritual problem, and therefore they invoke their inner God, their Being, to teach them what they need to know.

Some might wake up in the astral plane and wish to investigate a particular issue, maybe the past life of a prophet, or even their own particular past existences.

It is going to depend. There really isn’t a best thing for every person to do, but there are many things that you can do, and that depends upon your own inclinations, the inquietudes of your heart, and most of all, the inspiration in the moment.

Obviously, if you are practicing astral projection, it is because you want to visit, like with the mantra Fa Ra On, to the temples or pyramids of Giza. Then you have a specific, consistent, and established goal that is inspiring you to want to practice in the first place. So again follow your heart. Follow your intuition. The mind is the donkey that is awkward and flounders and stumbles. But if you listen to your heart, you will know what to do.

Question: When performing mantras, is it OK to raise the pitch from the usual low tone? Sometimes the lower tones dry or affect my capability to perform the mantra for so long.

Instructor: Yeah, I mean, you have the gauge your lungs and vocal cords when you pronounce these mantras. I have heard mantras from many different instructors and even pronounced by Samael Aun Weor, which are varied, different.

Certain mantras have very specific tones to pronounce such as Fe Uin Dagj, right? Samael Aun Weor specified that that mantra is pronounced in the musical note Mi. But he doesn’t really give other types of specifics such as the particular note on the musical scale that you have to perform.

There are generalities that are important to remember. Every person is going to be a little different. Obviously, our vocal capacities are unique and if you need to accommodate your lungs and your vocal cords by adjusting yourself when you pronounce these mantras, like raising your pitch from a lower tone, that’s fine.

It comes to my mind the mantra Tai Re Re Re as we pronounced it. If you’re listening to my example, I always have a deeper voice, so I am going to pronounce it in accordance with my own range. So you have to gauge and judge your own vocal cords when you pronounce these mantras. Some people who listen to other instructors or even such as in Tibetan Buddhist chants, try to imitate very deep voices, very deep tones that are not natural to their capacities, and that can actually harm the vocal cords. It is better that you pronounce in the range that is natural to you, and you only gauge that through practice.

So, it is good to keep in mind how the mantras were described in our tradition and to follow them accordingly. But there is going to be a little bit of leeway and play when you are actually performing them, to see how they actually work in your own circumstances.

OK! I thank you all for coming. This recording will be available online so that you can also study these pronunciations on your own time and I appreciate the turn out! It is a nice day here in Chicago, and hopefully the weather is bright and wonderful where you are at. So I thank you very much!

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How and Why Do We Astral Project?

3/19/2022

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Today’s lecture is entitled “How and Why Do We Astral Project?” We have spent a lot of time discussing the preliminaries: the causes and expressions of dreams within our daily lives. Without an understanding of how our psyche functions (or malfunctions), it is impossible to consciously astral project at will.

You might practice what we present today, but without a thorough understanding of the psyche, your results will be sporadic and inconsistent at best. We suggest that if you are new to this series, that you take the time to study and reflect upon the previous lectures, since this course is structured in such a way that you can gain the necessary tools and understanding by which to make conscious astral projections a sustained reality.

Why Learn Astral Projection?

So why learn astral projection?

A lot of people approach dream yoga, astral projection, lucid dreams, or out-of-body experiences due to an innate curiosity. Some seek the supernatural, the spectacular, or the sensational: the ability to fly, levitate, teleport, or pass through walls in the astral world. Truly, such possibilities inspire many to approach the study of dreams, which is the doorway to genuine mysticism and religion.

However, many students do not realize that astral powers are just a tool. They are not an end. There is really a deeper objective than merely flying around or spying on one’s neighbor. Some have wanted to experiment and find material, physical proof of astral travel. However, this discipline is not about convincing skeptics. While some individuals have worked hard to scientifically demonstrate its reality to a larger public, the true depth of astral travel is personal and experiential.

Its beauty and mystery cannot be communicated by another, although the great prophets and luminaries who founded religions all expressed the same truths in the scriptures. The truth is that astral travel can only be verified by you, through your own work, since it directly relates to the quality and capacities of your consciousness.

The astral vehicle has many faculties that can help us find solutions to difficult spiritual problems. One can investigate the inner worlds to extract wisdom about how to live in one’s daily life. When we leave the physical body behind and enter the astral dimension, we have access to a type of knowledge that is truly transcendental. Beyond the limitations of the flesh, we can obtain objective knowledge that is not limited to any particular time, language, or place. Instead, our consciousness intuits and speaks a universal language, known through the divine archetypes or symbols of dreams.

Such astral experiences are truly esoteric or occult. While these two terms have a negative connotation within mainstream culture, they simply refer to knowledge hidden from and inaccessible to our ordinary senses. However, they are perceivable and comprehendible through the awakened consciousness.

The body of spiritual literature we possess, whether from religions or spiritual authors, are merely an introduction and not a conclusion. This is because mystical knowledge can only be known through experience. Therefore, the author M. of The Dayspring of Youth wrote:

This work is but a slight introduction to an unlimited science... —Morya, The Dayspring of Youth

Samael Aun Weor corroborates the former statement:

Occult science is studied in the internal worlds; therefore, the one who does not know how to be willingly projected in the astral body does not know occultism. —Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

As we have explained in the previous six lectures, we need to cease dreaming and awaken consciousness. However, there are degrees to this. Just as you find more skilled, practiced, and experienced people within all disciplines, the same occurs with astral travel.

Samael Aun Weor also wrote:

It is necessary for the dreamer to awaken within the internal worlds before converting himself into a competent investigator in the superior worlds. —Samael Aun Weor, Sexology: The Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology

By activating and training our consciousness, we can become familiar with the laws of the internal dimensions. However, you will only gain skill in navigating the internal worlds by first being aware of them. Some temporary experiences are not enough. One must sustain such states through practice.

Reasons to Astral Travel

There are great reasons to learn astral travel. One of them, which we previously discussed, is visiting the temples of the White Lodge. This is any order of divine beings, masters, prophets, or initiates who have perfected or are perfecting themselves spiritually.

“Whiteness” signifies the spiritual purity of the consciousness and has nothing to do with race. Many masters from all races constitute the White Lodges, including the Gnostic Church.

While many Gnostic Churches, lumisials, or temples of light exist in the physical world, the real Gnostic Church is in the internal worlds. There one can personally speak with awakened masters, luminaries, Christs, without any intermediary. This is why Samael Aun Weor wrote:

Our disciples should learn to project themselves in the astral body in order to visit all the White Lodges of the world. In the Gnostic Church, all our disciples will be able to receive inner instructions. —Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: The Manual of Practical Magic

While we might deeply value the insights of physical Gnostic instructors or missionaries, such knowledge and assistance is insufficient. This is due to the fact that even effective instructors have limitations, either in relation to their capacities or their lived experience of the teachings. Also, some students seek guidance about deeply personal issues that is not even appropriate for missionaries or instructors to solve. Teachers have their place and role in the work, but not to tell students what to do in their personal lives. That power lies only within the Innermost Being or divinity. The most that a physical instructor can do is teach the student how to investigate solutions within.

Inner instructions are communicated to us by divinity, who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Such instruction is personal and profound, conveyed through abstract dream symbols and spiritual experiences. They are direct representations of how to succeed in the secret path of initiation. This is the process whereby we spiritually develop, overcome inner obstacles, and transform our suffering for the benefit of others.

The one who provides such powerful guidance is God. Individuals are liable to make mistakes, yet divinity is infallible. Therefore, it is important to consider the contexts of physical groups and why we should train in astral travel.

The most secure guidance you can receive about difficult issues is within, from your Being. While physical groups can benefit us, the real transformations occur when we are in direct contact with the Gnostic Church of the higher worlds. In this case, the only obstacle to interpretation and insight we face is our own mind. Otherwise, we risk becoming confused by relying on people who may not be objective.

Why Do We Astral Project When We Sleep?

Many do not recognize how common astral projection is. Due to conflicting testimonies, theories, or embellishments, there have arisen mistaken concepts within the popular imagination regarding the nature and frequency of astral projection.

Many think that astral projection is for the few. However, just as our heart beats and our lungs breathe without our awareness, likewise we unconsciously enter the astral dimension every time we sleep.

Astral projection is a natural part of life. Without it, the human machine would not be able to recharge or revitalize itself.

When the body goes to sleep, the consciousness and the ego depart through astral projection. In the same manner that you drive to a gas station and step out to refill your vehicle, the Essence, bottled up within the different egos, detach from the five centers of the human machine and enter the internal worlds during sleep, so that our physical body can recharge.

Many people report hearing a cacophony of voices when falling asleep, random remnants of conversations, memories, moments, and recollections. These are the voices of our different egos which are separating from the five centers of the human machine. This occurs every time we go to sleep, whether we are aware of it or not.

It is important for our psychological values to astral project every time we go to bed. In the same manner that you cannot drive a car without fuel, likewise the physical body needs rest and recharging in order to function. Astral projection allows the vital body, which is an energetic vehicle, to restore life and energy to our physicality. The vital body penetrates every atom of our physical body but becomes more active at night when we rest.

We would not have life without the vital body, known as יסוד Yesod in Hebrew, “the Foundation” of our spiritual life in Kabbalah. This body attracts solar energy into our five centers and revitalizes them so that, once we get back into our physical body, we can operate in it again.

This is why Samael Aun Weor wrote:

During the hours of ordinary sleep, the internal man, dressed in his astral body, leaves his physical form so that the ethereal body can repair the physical body. […] Thus, this is how after sleep, our physical body is completely repaired for the new activities of the internal ego. —Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

Therefore, everyone astral projects. However, people who suffer from insomnia are an exception. They cannot enter the astral dimension regularly because they do not sleep. Therefore they suffer tremendous fatigue and illness because they cannot naturally recharge through the vital body, lacking the necessary fuel to optimally operate the human machine.

Who Can Astral Project?

Some people think astral projection is dangerous. But as we’ve demonstrated, this is a lie. We astral project every time we sleep, to recharge our batteries, so to speak. Our consciousness returns every time we awake in bed. Therefore, everyone does it. What happens is that most people are not conscious of the process, in just the same way that we lack cognizance of our heart beating and lungs breathing.

Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this topic:

Indeed, projecting the astral body is not dangerous, because every human being projects the astral body during the hours of normal sleep. Unfortunately, all human beings project themselves in their astral body with their consciousness asleep.

People do not know how to project their astral bodies at will. There is no danger whatsoever in becoming conscious of one’s own natural functions, which are eating, drinking, marrying, and projecting the astral body. These functions are completely natural. If traveling in the astral body were dangerous as the fear mongers state, then by now there would be no one living on Earth, because everybody projects the astral body, and still worse, they do so with their consciousness asleep. Nevertheless, nothing happens. And so…? —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Unfortunately, very mistaken people have spread propaganda against astral projection due to lacking an awakened consciousness. Those who have awakened consciousness know and have experienced this reality for themselves. Therefore they do not rely on any beliefs, either from others or within themselves. They simply know.

Do Not Confine Yourself

To know how to consciously astral project takes practice and experience. What we want is to transform an unconscious activity into a conscious one. For this we need practice and discipline, not theories.

It’s important to neither doubt nor believe in this discipline, but to experiment and know. One must test these principles with dispassion, just as a scientist has a hypothesis that he or she wants to explore through testing its principles.

The point is to neither affirm nor deny what we don’t know. However, most students either fall into the extreme of intense excitement or outright skepticism. Intense emotions actually block us from consciously accessing the internal worlds. What’s necessary is a middle ground: to have spiritual enthusiasm and inspiration without agitation or attachment. Success comes when we neither expect results nor rigidly refute their possibilities.

Skeptics reject these studies altogether due to doubt and pessimism. They might practice a few times and get no results. They ignore that this is a lifelong discipline predicated upon activating the consciousness, not the mind.

Astral projection is not an intellectual exercise. It is a conscious activity. We’ve already discussed how we dream all the time. People who do not comprehend how they dream, who do not cease dreaming, never awaken consciousness. These exercises work when we do them consciously. In the same manner that you cannot build a house if you do not know how to use the appropriate tools, likewise skeptical people who do not know how to consciously perform these exercises never get the results they want.

Also, craving experiences is an obstacle. Aversion towards astral phenomena is also an obstacle. To perceive these higher realities requires we learn to see without attachment or fear. One must see oneself and the astral transition process with equanimity and comprehension, neither chasing after nor running away from the facts.

Samael Aun Weor stated:

The disciple who wants to progress should not confine himself. The disciple who wants to progress must inevitably learn to project himself in the astral body so that he can transport himself to the Gnostic Church, where he shall be able to converse personally with Christ and with all the Masters of the White Lodge. —Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: The Manual of Practical Magic

We confine ourselves through theories and beliefs. We also confine ourselves with statements such as, “I will never learn how to consciously project into the astral world.” Or: “I am not capable like other spiritual people. It is impossible for me to do it.” Others might even believe that it will only happen in a remote future through some type of blessing.

However, the reality is that we liberate ourselves and experience the realities of the spirit when we discover how to practice with directed attention and conscious awareness. Becoming conscious of our full potential requires patience, just as learning any new discipline takes familiarity and practice.

What Projects into the Astral?

People often talk about the astral body within esotericism, occultism, or New Age mysticism. However, there is a lot of ambiguity and imprecision when relating to others how we actually astral project.

I mentioned how the Essence, trapped within the ego, astral projects every time we sleep. This is an unconscious process. It is logical that if we astral project unconsciously, without will, then it means we are using mechanical methods and means. Falling asleep without cognizance, becoming unconscious for the eight hours when we sleep, is a mechanical function. It does not take any effort or will on our part.

We have a vehicle through which we enter the internal worlds every night with our egos, but it is not a conscious or voluntary one. We call this the kama rupa, the body of desires. This is a mechanical vehicle, a lunar apparatus, that—like the physical moon—regulates our unconscious and instinctual processes.

We know from astronomy and science that the moon influences many mechanical processes on our earth, like tides, vegetal life, and menstruation in women. These processes happen automatically. In the same way, we possess a lunar astral body that is a gift of nature. It is a vehicle composed of protoplasmic matter. As this term implies, such a substance is more ductile, malleable, and subtle than physical matter.

Some people have the wrong idea that the astral world is immaterial. Yet this is not true. It is a dimension of matter, energy, and consciousness, but in a form more subtle than our physical dimension. The kama rupa, which is made of astral matter, allows us to go into the astral dimension automatically.

However, there exists another type of vehicle that is not dependent upon mechanical laws or means. It is called a solar astral body. This vehicle is an earned luxury that few possess because it must be created through the spirit. It is the direct product of a particular labor known as initiation. Through the initiatic science of sexual alchemy, a married man and woman can conserve and transform their creative forces to give life to this interior vehicle. Just as a husband and wife can sexually join to create a physical child, likewise the same creative energy, through a specific procedure known as alchemy, can give birth to the solar astral body. It is made from a divine, solar matter and energy, the sexual energy, which is a solar force. We use the term “solar” to reference the creative potential and principle of God. This is the mystery of the second birth referenced by Jesus to Nicodemus in the New Testament, “to be born again” (John 3).

The solar astral body channels superior forces and laws beyond mechanical nature. It is like a light bulb that can manifest a certain capacity, amplification, or magnitude of spiritual potential. Therefore, this body gives an initiate conscious access to superior dimensions, spiritual states, and realms. Such experiences tend to be inaccessible for people whose psychological center of gravity is in the inferior worlds, within desire, the ego.

It is important to clarify that there are superior astral regions and inferior astral regions. The superior worlds are heavenly and divine, inhabited by angels, while the inferior astral world is negative, inhabited by demons. The inferior worlds are known throughout diverse religious traditions as hell.

We travel to places in nature in accordance with our affinities. If our psychological center of gravity is in the ego, then we will be attracted to the inferior worlds, because that is where the ego belongs. To possess a solar astral body grants us access to the heavens.

Now, people often confuse the legitimate, solar astral body with the kama rupa, and this is wrong. The differences between the solar and lunar astral bodies are like day and night. Even in appearance, the solar body possesses an interior luminosity and brilliance. When we speak face to face with a master of Major Mysteries within the astral plane, they often irradiate a powerful golden light with tremendous radiance, penetration, and depth. The kama rupa is also a material vehicle, but ephemeral, dark, phantasmic, like a ghost.

The former grants spiritual capacities, full lucidity of the higher dimensions, the ability to consciously project within the superior worlds at will. For most, the lunar astral body facilitates unconscious astral projections into the inferior astral regions, unless we begin to train ourselves and start to learn how to use this vehicle intentionally. But to create a solar astral body requires work in initiation. For that you can study The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor.

It’s important to clarify for students that a solar astral body is not required in order to experience the superior dimensions of nature. It is possible to awaken within the kama rupa and learn to use it consciously, even to visit heavenly regions and the White Lodges.

Samael Aun Weor related in The Magic of the Runes how he and his priestess-wife Litelantes visited a temple of the superior worlds and saw many neophytes there. Dressed in lunar rags, lunar bodies, these sincere disciples were given access to the temple by the guardians out of compassion. Despite the fact that superior beings see our lunar rags as a form of disrespect, such masters possess conscious love, mercy, and understanding. What matters is that we are sincere and genuine when seeking divine aid.

How Do We Experience a Conscious Astral Projection?

Conscious astral projections are facilitated through comprehension and imagination.

Comprehension is a quality of the Essence, the consciousness. It is an alert, voluntary, cognitive state, whereby we discern the significance of any phenomenon without any sense of self.

This is a very different activity than thought. We’ve already demonstrated how thoughts can be active while our consciousness is inactive. Thoughts merely happen to us. They are mechanical, whereas conscious attention requires will.

Don’t believe me? Try to stop thinking. Tell yourself, “I will not think for the next ten minutes.” Observe the results. Anyone who has attempted meditation discovers this problem, that we cannot turn the mind off. This indicates that we are machines and have no control over our psyche.

Not only are we victims of thought, but also negative emotions. Similarly, we are driven by unconscious impulses and desires whose existence we are typically not willing to acknowledge in ourselves.

Each thought, feeling, and impulse originates from a different self, a desire or ego. Every ego expresses as a trio of thought, feeling, and will within our psychological centers, manifesting within us when the opportunity arises.

Most people never question their psychological states. They merely think what they think, feel what they feel, and do what they do, attributing their multiple contradictions and conflicting desires to the illusion of a unified entity. This is the state of identification. When we become fascinated with our desires, we sleep as a consciousness. We persist with the dream that we are singular, not multiple.

We shatter this dream through self-observation. What self are we observing? Our ego. Who is observing? The Essence, the soul. Compare your Essence to a director making a film. The director is the consciousness who observes the scene of any drama, comedy, or tragedy. The different actors are our defects, egos, reactions, thoughts, emotions, desires, etc.

What do we want from psychological self-observation? By looking at ourselves without presuppositions, assumptions, attachments, expectations, or beliefs, we activate the consciousness. We direct our attention within. We can then understand the roots of our thoughts, feelings, and desires, so that they don’t control us and waste our psychic energies. However, this can only occur if you comprehend your defects.

Comprehension is an active force born from direct observation. It is not static or passive, like knowledge. Observation of the facts is different from knowing. We may know we are angry, but are we observing this fact? Are we looking at the structures of anger, its logic, justifications, and reasoning? Are we actively perceiving this element and how it relates to a particular event? Or do we give it our energy and make it stronger, thereby deepening our suffering and the suffering of others?

Knowing we are angry doesn’t require will. It is mechanical. Observing anger is a highly active, conscious state. The same with comprehension.

Why does comprehension aid with astral projection? Remember that we involuntarily astral project every night without awareness. If you comprehend your psychological reactions during the day and no longer allow yourself to be mechanical, then that same skill will transfer to when you go to sleep. If you consciously manage your human machine when it is active, you will likewise consciously manage your psyche when it detaches and departs into the astral world.

Comprehension is strengthened through imagination, since the more you can perceive within the spectrum of dimensionality, the greater your conscious range for discovery and insights. By activating the consciousness and its capacities to perceive—such as through imagination exercises—we also gain greater penetration, depth, color, hues, tones, and resolution within our soul. The ability to perceive non-physical imagery is the door to accessing the superior worlds, since the latter is the dimension of imagination.

This is why Samael Aun Weor stated:

Comprehension and imagination must replace reasoning.

Imagination and comprehension are the foundation of the superior faculties of the mind.

In order to enter the knowledge of the superior worlds, it is necessary to acquire the superior faculties of the mind. —Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

What Are the Superior Faculties of the Mind?

So what are the superior faculties of the mind that facilitate astral projection?

We already explained self-observation. Let’s talk about self-remembrance.

Self-remembrance must be combined with self-observation. We cannot perceive objectively within the astral world if we do not remember the presence of divinity.

What does it mean to remember divinity? This is a form of spiritual pressure within our interior awareness. We also sense it in the manner we direct attention. Is our attention and awareness manipulated by a desire? Or is it selfless, unconditioned, unafflicted?

We recognize the divine presence in our heart, the superior emotional center, through conscious states like altruism, compassion, patience, fidelity, and conscious love for others. Such genuine states have no “I,” no desire or self. This means that we feel ourselves to be a child of God within the body, that we are aware of being in the body.

Astral experiences are fueled by emotional energy. If you save such energies through curtailing negative emotion and enacting superior emotions, you open the door to the astral world.

These conscious qualities are distinct from the ego and can only be discerned through patient work and experience. As a general rule of thumb, the less self you experience in your alert perception, the more conscious and objective you will be. However, the more attachment or identification with a sense of self you feel, the more egotistical your states and the greater your disconnection with divinity.

Awareness is important for voluntary astral projection. To know our psychological states, surroundings, and locale are necessary, since you cannot consciously drive your car if you are inattentive at the wheel.

In our studies of dream yoga, we activate the consciousness through the Key of Sol, which is an acronym for subject, object, location.

First, Subject: become aware of your psychological states. Do not invest your energy into the ego, the self, desire, but learn to look at yourself like a director filming an actor, your own mind.

Second, Object: expand that awareness to your immediate objects. What are you interacting with? Whom are you with? What are you doing?

Lastly, Location: become aware of your environment. Where are you? What city are you in? What country are you at?

By utilizing these three parameters, the consciousness clarifies, expands, and strengthens.

However, awareness is not enough. Discernment is necessary. Are we aware as an ego or as an Essence? Who is using our body in a given instant? We already explained that the ego can be aware too, but that is not the type of awareness we are recommending. What we want is a selfless awareness, an awareness without any condition or sense of “I.” This is pristine cognition lacks an interpreter. It merely perceives and understands without having to label, compare, or critique with thought.

The continuity of this awareness throughout the day and night is mindfulness. This means that we do not forget ourselves or what we are doing at any moment in our life. The longer you remain awake as a consciousness, the greater the possibility that you will maintain awareness when you go to bed.

Through developing continuity of presence throughout the day, we also increase our potential for going much deeper into our understanding, to intuit what is really going on beneath the appearances of things. Intuition is the conscious ability of knowing without thought. You simply know without reliance upon the mind.

The Essence knows how to voluntarily astral project. It is intuitive and does not require any activity of the mind. The more you rely on your intuition throughout the day, the better your outcomes for conscious astral projections.

Likewise, the greater our serenity and equanimity, our dispassion or non-attachment, the greater our cognitive powers for astral projection will be. Strong emotions are an obstacle to astral experiences, but a calm and confident heart, a relaxed mind, are beneficial.

Lastly, the awakened faculty of imagination deepens our astral perceptions, since we allow ourselves to see beyond our normal range of cognition. We expand our imagination through visualization exercises, some of which we have previously referenced.

The Clue of Discernment

Let’s discuss a basic technique to achieve conscious astral projections.

The disciple should lull himself to sleep in his bed. When the disciple finds himself in that state of transition that exists between vigil and sleep, he should rise from his bed exactly the way a somnambulist does.

Before leaving the room, the disciple will jump with the intention of floating in the atmosphere.
If the disciple does not float, he should get back into bed and repeat the experiment again.

However, if the disciple floats in the air after jumping, then he should leave the room and fly towards the Gnostic Church. —Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: The Manual of Practical Magic

People often get caught up in their mind. What we are stating here is the need to actually get up from bed. Do not imagine doing so. Astral projections are an active phenomenon. Our consciousness must not be passive. The mind that fantasizes is an obstacle. The physical body must rest, yet the soul has to be alert.

Abandon thoughts as you lull yourself to sleep. However, we have to maintain a certain threshold between wakefulness and dreaming. This balance is very difficult to establish and maintain for beginners, yet is something one can learn through meditation.

Meditation is the doorway to the internal worlds. By consciously regulating drowsiness, we allow ourselves to access these inner dimensions. We must neither be too drowsy that we lose consciousness, nor too tense that we don’t relax at all. Temperance is the key. When you hit that perfect balance, you are then ready to consciously leave the body.

How to Astral Project

Samael Aun Weor also emphasized the following:

This is not a mental exercise. What we are saying here should be translated into facts.

During the moments of falling asleep, the disciple will rise from his bed the way the somnambulists do. The sleep process breaks the very strong connections that exist in the vigil state. The sleep process permits the soul to separate itself from the physical body. —Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology: The Manual of Practical Magic

A somnambulist is physically active while the consciousness is asleep. However with this exercise, we want the physical body to rest while the consciousness is active. The one who gets up like a somnambulist is the consciousness within the astral vehicle.

Detaching the astral vehicle is not something imaginary. It is factual. Do not imagine getting up from bed. Actually do it. Some people have the wrong idea that the astral vehicle is immaterial and unreal, and therefore they think that astral projection is a matter of the mind. As we stated earlier, the kama rupa is material, but of a more subtle composition. Yet recognizing this is not an imaginary exercise. It has to be done in the same way that you physically move your body.

You do so when you identify the right moment between wakefulness and dreaming. Recognizing this state requires practice. You have to learn how to balance your attention within the threshold of wakefulness and sleep so that, once you’ve transitioned into the internal worlds, you can become aware of being in this other vehicle.

Signs of Astral Projection

There are very specific signs that you have or are about to transition into the astral world.

They include “heaviness of body and lightness of soul.” As you are entering the dream state, your body might have the sensation that it weighs a ton, that it possesses a dense feeling of gravity and solidity, whereas your consciousness in the body is becoming like a feather, like it can float any second.

Many people relate hearing “sounds, voices, vibrations, electric sensations, and energy.” Usually the voices we hear are our own egos detaching from our body. But some people also hear non-physical mystical sounds, auditory perceptions that are not coming from the exterior world, but from within. This is known as the faculty of clairaudience, or “clear hearing.”

Another obvious sign that one is projecting are electrical sensations and vibrations, like energetic shocks permeating one’s body. This often occurs between the astral vehicle and the physical body during the detachment process.

You might also feel and hear “high-pitched whirring noises in your head.” Or your heart beats intensify. Psychic palpitations occur when your heart beat becomes loud and magnified. It’s like listening to your heartbeat through an amplifier, accompanied with a psychic energy or force that intensifies to the point that you project into the astral out of your heart.

Some people project out of their head by concentrating on those vibrations in the brain. Either option can work depending on the circumstance.

You might also feel physically immobilized while you are still aware. Such physical immobilization can be similar to sleep paralysis, except that you might begin to perceive voluntary movements transferring to your astral vehicle rather than your physical body.

Be mindful that there is no danger to sleep paralysis or astral projection. We transition every time we rest, but unconsciously. In such moments, one is now beginning the perceive a deeper reality. What matters is being fearless and intrepid, to take advantage of this marvelous opportunity.

Other times people start to float above their bed, levitating and suspending in the air. You might even begin to see with your astral eyes while your physical eyes are closed.

Types of Astral Projections

It is also important to mention that we can enter superior or inferior dimensions depending on which part of the body we project from. Astral projections through the heart or the head allow us to enter the superior dimensions. Astral projections through the anus or the base of the spine will take us to the inferior dimensions. But why is this?

The head and heart possess superior psychological centers. We discussed them previously as the superior intellectual and superior emotional centers. These register and process comprehension and superior emotion. The Being expresses through these two superior centers, whereas the ego manifests through the five centers or cylinders of the human machine.

The instinctual center is located at the base of the spine and the anus. If you astral project through this area, you do so with the instinctual drives of the kama rupa or body of desires. These types of projections take one to the infernal worlds or hell realms, because such egotistical states vibrate with the instinctual desires of the animal ego.

Not only are the five psychological centers relevant to different types of astral projections, but also our chakras. A chakra is a Sanskrit term for “wheel” or “disk.” These are wheels or vortexes of vital, psychic, and spiritual energies. Whenever two or more separate energetic currents flow together, they form a chakra. There are literally thousands of them animating our body and interior. However, we mostly speak about seven primary chakras parallel to the spine since they have the most influence in the way our psychology operates and expresses.

The heart chakra has marvelous potential for conscious astral projections, since the astral world is animated through emotional energy. Although we can experience superior astral projections through the heart, we can also experience the highest spiritual realizations by projecting through the crown chakra. This is the seat of omniscience, symbolized by the halos of the saints throughout every spiritual tradition in the world. Projecting through this chakra allows one to experience the world of the Being, the highest truths, even without vehicles of any kind.

After this explanation, some might wonder: how do you ensure that you have a positive astral projection and not a negative one?

How we astral project is based on our psychological work throughout the day. The less ego we have, the greater our affinity for superior astral projections. The greater our psychological density, the heavier our desires, the more likely we will gravitate towards negative realms.

Do not be discouraged if you experience an astral projection within the inferior worlds. It is actually a great step to realize our level of being or spiritual development. Only by honestly facing ourselves can we truly assess our situation and open the door to divine reality. Most of us are not saints yet. But to become one requires acknowledging what we presently are.

In whatever way you begin to experience an astral projection, the key is to not be afraid. Do not exert or force the process. Force and exertion is egotistical. What matters is conscious awareness and control. Real control is when the consciousness is in possession of itself, which you relinquish if you react negatively to what you perceive. The consciousness knows how to respond to astral projections, to either let it happen or to take appropriate action. Conscious will is distinct from egotistical desire. The ego always reacts, but the consciousness knows how to respond with equanimity and composure.

If you are experiencing an astral projection through the heart or crown chakra, do not force the process. Do not identify. Oftentimes one should let the process unfold of itself. Don’t try to accelerate or prevent superior states from happening. Just let these symptoms be. Sometimes acting prematurely can end the experience. Other times waiting for something to happen and remaining inactive can take you back to your body. You will gauge the appropriate time and way to respond as you familiarize yourself again and again with these states.

Exercises

We always conclude these lectures with different exercises.

Throughout the day, develop self-observation.

Each day, for at least 10-20 minutes, develop meditative concentration through visualization of an image.

When in the transition state between wakefulness and dreaming, get up from bed and apply the clue of discernment: jump in the air to see if you float.

Lastly, continue with your spiritual diary.

At this point in time, I would like to open up the floor to questions. You are welcome to type in your questions in the chat box.

Questions and Answers

Question: I can sense people are able to stop me lucid dreaming as I’ve been doing it all my life, until the attacks really started. Now all of that has been taken away from me. What am I to do?

Instructor: We are going to have a lecture in the future regarding spiritual self-defense. We’ve actually given a course with some lectures on our website that discuss different practices that you can use to defend yourself spiritually, particularly within the internal worlds. This is a topic that we are going to revisit again in this course where we will provide some prayers and tools, must like the ones we’ve covered before, so that you can train yourself, train your consciousness, to enact superior, divine will.

It’s true that while we talk about astral projection as not being dangerous, there are entities within the interior worlds who can be an obstacle for our spiritual development, and therefore in the sense that there are negative entities within those regions, there are practices that we can fulfill to protect us from those influences. I recommend that you go on to our website, under the course Spiritual Self-Defense. We have three lectures up already, which talk about many different practices you can use that you can study and apply in your own spiritual discipline.

Some of the prayers are very elaborate. Some of them are very simple, but I recommend that when you memorize them, that you learn to apply them with your consciousness. These conjurations or prayers, that we use in this tradition to reject negative entities, are very effective--if we are conscious. We can protect ourselves during lucid dreaming by memorizing these tools and prayers and techniques. The reason is, if you don’t memorize these prayers, when you’re awake in the internal worlds again, you will not know how to apply the method. Likewise, you cannot take a physical Gnostic Prayer Book with you into the internal worlds. Glorian Publishing has a small little book available with that title that has many different compilations of prayers like we’ve mentioned, which we’ve talked about on our website in Spiritual Self-Defense.

The important thing is, remember the prayers, study them, use them every day, so that they become automatic. In the same way that you train in martial arts, you learn a technique from the basics and eventually develop it further. In the same way we use the prayers and conjurations of this tradition to be more effective in protecting ourselves. So yes, there are ways to help remove obstacles, whether they are from within your own mind or from entities that don’t want you to progress spiritually.

Question: When asking to go to the Gnostic lodge, after we have successfully projected, we may be asked for a password. Can you speak on that?

Instructor: There is a certain prayer that we use or password in order to enter the white lodges. What you do is you cross your hands over your heart, your right hand over the left. When you approach the guardian of any temple in the internal worlds, you then place your left hand on your solar plexus and extend your right hand in the form of the pentagram. You do so by folding your pinky and your ring fingers into your palm and extending your index, middle finger and thumb out. This is the real symbol of peace according to the Gnostic tradition.

You then say to the guardian: “Inverencial peace!” which basically means: “Peace unto your innermost divinity!” Cross your hands again over your heart, your right hand over your left, and then bow with your head to the right pillar of the temple, saying “Jachin,” and then bow to the left pillar of the temple, “Boaz.” Every genuine temple of divine mysteries has the two pillars of Gnostic esotericism, which is very well known with the masonic tradition, Freemasonry. Jachin is the pillar of mercy. Boaz is the pillar of severity. By this act you are showing the guardian of the temple that you are working in yourself, and that you promise to uphold conscious control of your mind within any sacred precinct, because these types of temples are very divine. You have to be at your best behavior. If you don’t, they can kick you out—and will.

So by performing this greeting after the guardian says “pass,” you step with your right foot first—not with the left. If you do that, they can bar you from entering. The reason is because the right foot is the symbol of spiritual force, and that we seek to walk the spiritual path by fulfilling the mercy of the law. The right pillar of the tree of life, the kabbalah—which finds its parallel within any gnostic temple—is a symbol of the purity of the consciousness, whereas the left can relate to how forces from heaven descend into the infernal worlds, and therefore there can be a negative connotation to that. So step in with your right foot. Perform that greeting and be very honest with the guardians. You can’t hide from them—anything. They literally see right through you and will prevent you from going further into the precinct if you do not know how to conduct yourself.

Question: When the ego is aware there is mental chatter, and when the Being is aware there is serene mind and intuition with no thought?

Instructor: In a sense, yes.

The ego can be very aware and awake, but that’s problematic. Every ego manifests in accordance with thought, feeling, and will. Mental chatter is a part of that continual stream of egotistical loquaciousness in our mind, with all the cacophony of thoughts, mechanical associations, memories, daydreams. But when the ego is aware, one is intentionally experiencing any negative element such as anger, with thought, desire to hurt, and the will to act. That type of awareness is very negative. We’ve mentioned and discussed some of the nuances of this problem in the other course we gave online called Spiritual Self-Defense, where we talked about positive and negative awakening.

A person can be very aware and awake, that they are killing someone. Of course this is very disastrous. The kind of awareness we are referring to [and promote] is when the Being is there, but within the Being there is no sense of “I,” or “me,” and “myself.” It is a serene conscious state in which there is no affliction of mind. There is no condition or self there. The Being is impersonal, is universal, is eternal. It is selfless in the sense of what we think of a self, but to experience and recognize that state requires that we abandon our thoughts.

We observe the mental chatter. We observe our mind stream and allow it to settle and rest. When the mind settles and rests, when the different elements of our psyche stratify within distinct layers, such as when you allow a cup full of water and sediment to rest, naturally the impurities will layer themselves and become visible to you. However, if our mind is agitated and conflicted with problems, then the waters of our mind become agitated and murky, muddied. The Being is there when the waters of our mind are clean. When you’re serene, observant without a self, without an “I,” then you can start to experience what intuition is, to know without having to think. This is why we practice meditation. This is why we study ourselves.

So it’s important. We have to discriminate what is going on psychologically. But for that, you have to train yourself in self-observation and self-remembrance, as we’ve explained. But usually, when there’s mental chatter, it often happens to us because we are on the threshold of sleep and wakefulness, even psychologically speaking. We may sense that we have a stream of mental chatter, but we just kind of let it happen. We are not even really aware of it. We are not conscious.

Negative awakening is something very distinct and also harmful, like in the example I provided. So to be awake within the Being requires serenity and no thought, yes.

Question: I feel like I am making progress in my meditations. It feels like I can get enough and there is much pressure in my heart space. Is this good progress?

Instructor: You have to judge for yourself. Personally, I am of the opinion that real success in meditation occurs the more we comprehend our psyche.

We focus a lot in our tradition on eliminating our defects. That only comes about by observing in ourselves our own faults in action, the ego, and then comprehending their roots. By comprehending the root of a problem, of our desires, we can eventually eliminate those elements and therefore liberate the consciousness.

Having some type of psychic perception like a pressure in the heart can be a signification that there are certain psychic senses that are developing. While this is good and necessary, it’s important to bear that within the contexts of a particular psychological work. By awakening our astral senses, by learning to astral project, there is a form of progress, or developing more sensitivity in the heart is good. But having that skill of knowing how to sense more phenomena, it has to be done consciously, has to be directed. So I recommend that if you are having these types of augmented perceptions, even in relation to astral projection—where you are learning to awaken in dreams as well—it’s good to learn how to apply those serene states of observation towards a deeper task.

For that we work on the ego. We study, such as in our course on Gnostic Meditation, the practice of retrospection meditation. That’s the discipline in which we review ourselves psychologically and evaluate the quality and content of our mind, so that we can comprehend our defects and remove them.

So going back to your question, there are different levels of progress, obviously. But having a pressure in your heart, you have to judge and evaluate for yourself. What is the real consequence of that? But also, how does it relate to a broader and deeper issue, such as how you are approaching your psychology throughout the day? If your heart is more sensitive, are you becoming more aware of how to fulfill your conscience? Superior emotion? The right way to act, feel, and behave in life? I think that’s even more significant. If you can get a better gauge and sense of judging your own errors and learning how to make your life a paradise by fulfilling divine will (the more we work on our ethical discipline as we teach in our other courses), the better we serve divinity and the more inflamed becomes our heart, the more powerful it becomes, the more insightful.

Question: How can we raise to a higher astral realm if we’ve already seen ourselves in an infernal dimension, and how can we differentiate one from the next? Where are we in our astral location?

Instructor: It’s a really good question because a lot of people may awaken in dreams but don’t really discriminate where they are at. For that you have to use the Key of SOL: Subject, Object, Location, but also not only becoming aware of the particular environment you’re in, but also judging the quality of that state.

You have to listen to your intuition, your conscience. Unfortunately for many of us, our heart is very deficient, depleted, and weak, mostly because of bad behaviors and bad choices in our life. But the more you learn to meditate on your distinct experiences, to look at a situation calmly and dispassionately, to visualize those experiences within your interior, you can allow those experiences to play out within the screen of your imagination and then listen to your heart. Pray to divinity to show you where you are at. What was this state that you experienced?

Other times with training and eventual development in your heart, you can have those types of experiences and then immediately know where you are at. You do not have to think about it because you just know. You ascertain the situation for what it is.

Now to go from a lower astral region to a higher one requires that we change our level of being, because as I said, we gravitate towards levels of nature in accordance with our dispositions. If you’re in an infernal astral state and you want to go to a superior one, I suggest you pray to your inner Being. Pray to your Divine Father. You can do the Our Father, the Pater Noster, especially, and if it is His will, He can pull you out, because divinity has that power. For that we have to rely on our inner God, the will of the Being.

But again discrimination again requires intuition, and it is difficult because often times in our daily life, we do not listen to our heart, and that is the problem. The more you follow your conscience, the more you develop your inner judgment, the greater your powers will be for discrimination.

There is a practice in our tradition called the runes. There is a series of yogic postures that we engage with whereby we adopt a certain posture and perform prayer and mantra (sacred sounds). There is a rune called Rita, which relates not only to divine inner judgment, to strengthen our inner conscience, but it is also very effective for deepening our intuition about what is right and what is wrong. Study in the book The Magic of the Runes by Samael Aun Weor. It’s a beautiful practice. It’s good for developing our inner discrimination of our own defects, and holding us accountable before divine law, but it can also help us be more conscientious about where we are at and what we are doing.

You can also do the mantra O to vibrate with the heart, to feed the heart with superior forces. In that way, you have more power by which to act consciously and to know your situation.

Question: Are object and location in the way the same, such as in the Key of SOL? For example, I notice an object in the room and become aware of the room, but the room itself is an object. Therefore I become aware of the object of the house that the room is in and then where I am is the town or street, which becomes then an object, etc., etc. So is it looking at the same thing in two different ways?

Instructor: OK. So first off with the Key of SOL, Subject is ourselves, as we know, knowing our psychological states. Object has to do with any item in our vicinity, and this can be such as anything constituting our room or home: pens, pencils, paintings, whatever it may be.

We differentiate objects with location because, for example, in the astral plane, you can be looking at certain objects that you’re familiar with in your daily life, and yet perhaps, strangely enough, you look outside your window in the astral world and see you’re in a totally different location. This can happen because the astral world is not limited to temporality, to time, or to any particular rigid location within the physical world. That dimension is very unusual, primarily because while we can see things there that are relative to our physical existence, there are going to be differences. The purpose of the Key of SOL is to be able to distinguish and discriminate that.

So an object really just has to do with, perhaps, you are looking at a book or a painting in the astral world, maybe even in your own home. The location is distinct because that tells you and gives you a bit of context for where and what exactly you are seeing. You can be looking at objects in your home, perhaps in a room, and yet if you explore a little bit, you discover that you’re actually not located where you thought you were. Instead you can be in another country. You can be on another planet. The only way to know that is to ask these questions: “What are my states (Subject)? What are the objects that I am interacting with?” and then, “Where am I? What is my location?”

Those three elements help us to expand consciousness. They give us the ability to comprehend what is really going on. So they are all aspects of one thing. They are different variations, but they combine together in the same way that if you want to expand the reflection of light, you can take multiple mirrors and reflect them. It is like expanding your consciousness. You’re perceiving and understanding more because you are distinguishing what is really happening, where you are at, but also what are the different items in your home. You can be in your home in the astral world, and yet you have objects in your room that are not specifically physical, things that you’ve never seen before. So? These are different: Object and Location.

There’s some nuance to this. What I want to emphasize is that we have to rely on all three and look at the connections between what we are seeing, between our psychological states, the different items that we are interacting with or the people we are seeing, and the overall location of our environment. When you combine those three and question those three things in relation to yourself, you open the doors to understanding and the discrimination of where you are at and what you are doing.

So do we have any other questions?

Question: Does astral travel depend on physical factors such as health? If you have an injury in one or more of the three brains, would that stop you?

Instructor: It’s a really good question! We astral travel or enter the internal worlds every time we go to physical sleep, so astral travel, or better said, astral projection, is a mechanical given. It’s a mechanical thing. It happens no matter what unless you have insomnia and you can’t fall asleep and therefore that’s another issue in itself. Now as to whether astral travel depends upon physical factors such as health, there is a relationship between how conscious we are and how we manage our life as a soul in relation to the three brains.

The three brains are themselves are machines. They have certain elements, energies and forces that are necessary for our spiritual life and also our physical life. There are many people who perhaps have some type of injury in their three brains. Maybe they suffer from a mental, emotional, or a physical illness. Now learning how to consciously astral travel is dependent on how we as a consciousness learn to manage and conserve the energies of the three brains. Obviously if you are physically ill, it is going to be very difficult to want to practice, to want to change, and to make progress, because there is a certain balance that needs to be reached in terms of physical health, so that we can perform our spiritual work.

Now the thing is that we go into the astral plane every time we fall asleep, regardless. We do it mechanically, involuntarily. So we are doing it no matter what, regardless of if we are healthy or ill. But if you want to know how to consciously astral travel, if you want to see that dimension for what it is, it is important to take care of our health, psychologically, emotionally, and physically, primarily because as we are going to elaborate on in a future lecture (and we have kind of touched upon this too), you need energy to awaken.

If we are wasting energy through any of the three brains, if our three brains are sick, if they’re not operating optimally, then the consciousness is going to be affected too, because consciousness is driving the car (or should be). What happens more often is that the ego abuses the three brains and therefore depletes us of energy, whether it is intellectual, emotional, mechanical, instinctive or sexual.

An injury in one of the three brains, obviously, that is a difficult thing to deal with. However, the consciousness can work, even with a serious condition injury or illness. Obviously, we want to take care of our car, our physical body. We want to drive it well. We want to treat it well, but even people who suffer from a serious condition, illness, or injury can still practice this teaching and still learn how to consciously astral travel.

It is going to mean that there will be some greater obstacles and conditions to deal with in the path, but it does not guarantee, well, that you’re not going to be able to perform this work. Anybody can perform this work, even if one is paraplegic, in a wheelchair, is sick, who suffered some kind of traumatic injury. What matters is that we work with where we are at, that one works with their particular karma in life, and does the best that with what they have because divinity helps any soul in accordance with their effort.

Question: Here is a follow up question. Are there any guidelines for working with the three brains in a book?

Instructor: For that, study Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, The Great Rebellion, The Revolution of the Dialectic, and Fundamentals of Gnostic Education by Samael Aun Weor. Those books go into great depth and detail about how to work with the three brains.

Question: Does heavy food make it hard to project within the astral dimension?

Instructor: We advise against eating a heavy meal before sleep. It is very well known in science that indigestion can cause nightmares. Those types of experiences are lived perceptions within the inferior worlds, the infernal dimensions. Heavy food can make it difficult for one to have a positive experience. It is good to go to bed with a free stomach because you do not want heavy foods like meats or other difficult elements to digest to basically activate inferior chakras within the abdomen. We’ve discussed how heavy foods like that can cause indigestion which activate certain energetic centers in the abdomen, relating to infernal chakras or elements that relate to the inferior worlds.

So its good to have an empty stomach when you are practicing. You don’t want to be hungry throughout the day, right? You do want to be conscious and manage how you take care of your body in relation to astral projection. We will talk later about certain elements related to that topic in a future lecture, such as on “Obstacles to Astral Projection and Their Remedies.” It’s going to be a future talk.

Question: Regarding insomnia, how long is it reasonable to go without physical sleep, willingly or unwillingly?

Instructor: I am not a doctor. I do not know all the science and mechanics behind how much should an insomniac sleep. It would be every night, I would think. I know in some traditions such as in Islam (it is even mentioned in the Qur’an), Prophet Muhammad would perform prayers in the middle of the night. Sometimes certain practitioners would meditate in the early hours of the dawn or even perform vigils. This is because they want to experience greater realities by making certain sacrifices.

Personally when I have done this practice, such as staying up late at night or waking up early in the morning to meditate—such as with astral projection exercises—basically you can open kind of the doorway into the internal worlds. Now a lot of research and science might mention that usually two to three days without any sleep can lead to some problems. But if you go without a day or if you make the sacrifice to perform a practice within the early hours of dawn, or to stay up for a few hours to meditate and pray, that is not going to harm you if you do it occasionally. But obviously you want to balance yourself. You have to gauge your energy levels and know how much you can do. Obviously, don’t do too much! Balance is the key.

Any other questions?

So I thank you all for coming! We will have another lecture in the coming month, continuing this discussion, primarily talking about specific mantras or sacred sounds in order to have conscious astral projections. I thank you all for coming!

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How Do We Dream?

2/19/2022

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Welcome everybody to our sixth lecture on Dream Yoga and Astral Travel. We spoke extensively about why we dream, the causes of oneiric experience, particularly in relation to our psychology—whether objective, clear, pure, selfless, factual, or subjective, based on the faults of our mind, our defects, our errors. We study our dreams because we have a very particular purpose, a very specific goal, which is to awaken our full potential, awaken to the reality of the divine.

Unfortunately, many approach the study of dreams with a mistaken attitude. There are many who wish to have lucidity, some type of intensity of experience related to the dream state, to have awareness of dreams. This has been called lucid dreaming, but we are different in these studies. We seek to eliminate dreams themselves, to no longer see through a lens or a glass darkly, but to see what is there within the reality of that dimension, the reality of that state, without any filter, any condition, any fault.

Awareness of dreams can be good in the beginning: to have a type of depth, flavor, and expansion of perception. However, there is a fundamental problem. Dreams are but dreams. They are illusory. They are not real. They are not objective. They do not truly reflect the truth of the divine, the realities of the spirit, our innermost Being or God. Dreams, as we have mentioned, are projections of the mind. They are merely an expression of our psychological content, like a projector on a screen, and while we can have greater resolution of that imagery, more vividness, like watching an improved television screen, it is still a mirage, an illusion, a lie.

The vividness and the intensity, the breadth and depth of imagination, to see what is there, that, in itself, is a quality of the consciousness, a quality of our true nature. While the capacity to perceive is wonderful, to have greater depth and breadth of one’s perception within the astral state, this, in itself, does not mean we are seeing reality, what is there. For that we need to turn off the projector, turn off the mind, and see with the soul, what we call the Essence, our true nature, our reality. Lucid dreaming, in itself, is a step. In these studies, we go further.

We need to understand not only why we dream, but how. What are the mechanisms? What are the structures of the mind? What are the ways in which we do not see life as it is? How do we perceive? How do we see ourselves?

This lecture is an expansion of the previous one where we talked about the cause of our psychological slumber, why we dream. But now we are going to explain the different dreams that manifest and what are the different types of dreams. By understanding the “how,” we can awaken.

Our Focus

So, this is our focus. We are going to examine the expression of dreams—their manifestation within our psychology. In this process we learn that through the types of dreams that we experience, we understand how we use energy, how we use force of various modifications, densities, rarities, and subtleties.

In order to awaken consciousness, we need to save energy. To awaken within the dream state requires that we conserve our psychological, spiritual forces. We are going to examine how dreaming wastes energy and by learning to control the energy of our psyche, we have the potential to activate and drive our car—the astral, the mental vehicles—and even beyond. In this process we have to discriminate what we are seeing. What are we perceiving? How are we perceiving?

In a sense, it is impossible to understand, or know how to liberate oneself from a cage, from a prison, if we do not know how we are locked up. What is the cell? What is the lock? When you understand how it all works together, you can free yourself—the same spiritually—free yourself and experience these higher realities.

Dream Logic and Awakening

Unfortunately when we study ourselves, we often approach our spiritual life with the wrong tools.

We all understand that we have a form of dream logic. When we look at dreams, we find that there is a narrative, a thread, a story in which we are the actors, the participants, and the witnesses. We emphasize that by understanding the logic of dreams, we can fully know ourselves, because our dreaming life is a reflection of something deeper, psychologically speaking, which we fundamentally ignore.

Anyone who has had a nightmare has directly perceived the reality of what religions call hell. Those are living manifestations of our deepest traumas, our deepest pains, our most unutterable fears.

Likewise, dreams in themselves do not merely have to reflect our own inferior states of mind. There is a potential within the dream state to see something real. We call them visions, astral experiences. We call them samadhis. They too have a type of logic, a type of narrative, a type of thread, but distinct from the inferior type. It is a very different quality than a nightmare or an incoherent dream.

This duality of dreams shows us that we are a true mystery. Our soul is an unexplored territory. Any person studying dream yoga and practicing it learns to experience and understand our real, inner worlds.

While dreams in themselves may seem unsolvable, difficult to interpret—(this logic which escapes a type of analysis or interpretation)—the truth is that it is possible to understand what our dreams are communicating, whether they are from above or below, whether they are a vision or an illusion. It is possible to discriminate what is going on and to interpret with wisdom, so that we can make better decisions with our life.

Visions from the divine teach us how to live. But for that we need to approach the logic of dreams with an entirely different apparatus. Many people approach the study of dreams with the intellect. They look to dream dictionaries, other people’s testimonies, symbols, to try and decipher what is going on. Many people rely upon the mind to solve the riddle of the soul.

If you have been studying the course of this series, we have been discussing that difference. Consciousness and the Essence, the pure soul, is not the intellect. It is what perceives before thought. It does not require intellectual direction, analysis. It is merely looking at phenomena and them seeing for what they are. Thought is much slower. It comes later. The intellect is a useful tool, but it has its limited utility.

People who study dreams with the intellect are like people trying to study the atom with a telescope, or study the stars with a microscope. The intellect has its place, but it must be used with understanding of its limitations. This implies that we are using the consciousness, the soul. Its distinct characteristic is comprehension, perception, and understanding—intuition. You know it without having to think. It is a quality of the heart. You perceive a phenomenon and you know what it means. It does not require comparison. The mind can only show A and B, good and bad, thesis and antithesis.

This logic of dreams in itself can be deciphered when we learn how to use the consciousness, when we direct it at will, when we train it. But for most of us, that is very difficult, primarily because our soul is not active. It is not trained. It is not awake. Everything we have explained up to this point in this course is leading us to understand that the study of dreams requires the appropriate tools, the right methods. For that we need to abandon any type of assumptions, presuppositions, attachments, fears, desires, wanting these dreams to mean a certain thing, wanting a particular phenomenon to fit within a box. We need to expand our categories, and this is a type of logic that is not intellectual. It is profound. It is universal. It does not require thinking.

Now this type of superior understanding does not mean that the intellect is not there. It is merely suspended. It ceases to be such an active force in our life, dominating our daily behaviors and making us dream. Instead, we activate a superior faculty of the mind, which is understanding: to receive knowledge, just like dreams are received or visions are received within the soul.

For that we need to put behind our terrestrial self. Use it in its place. Use it appropriately. But be aware of being here and now. You are a soul within the body, like driving a car. You are not the car. You are not the engine, the organs, the mechanism. We will talk about all of that—how we are made up—so that we can understand our psyche deeply. For that we have to study our life, our moment-to-moment existence.

As we stated, dreams at night are merely a reflection of our daily states.

No one has known himself truly, who has not studied his dreams. The study of dreams at once shows what a great mystery our soul is, and that this mystery is not altogether insoluble, as some metaphysicians supposed. Dreams reveal to us that aspect of our nature which transcends rational knowledge. That in the most rational and moral man there is an aspect of his being which is absurd and immoral, one knows only through the study of one's dreams. All our pride of nationality and morality melts into nothingness as soon as we reflect upon our dreams. There is logic in our dreams or rather the logic of our waking consciousness is just like the dream logic. —Sivananda, Philosophy of Dreams

There are levels. We stated that we are 3% awake as a consciousness and 97% submerged as subconsciousness, unconsciousness, and infra-consciousness. We study the relationship between our dreams and our daily life to understand the connections.

Water rippling over submerged book and text

Impressions

The way we do that is by studying our life, our impressions.

Life enters us all the time. We experience through our senses, sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing, all the different phenomena of life. We have a tendency in Western culture, especially, to go through existence without any awareness, thinking of something else, and yet we are not diligent. We are not present. Why is that? It is because we are not paying attention to our body and where we are at psychologically.

Life enters us through our senses as impressions. An impression is basically data: sensory, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, olfactory, gustatory information. Our psyche, our consciousness while in the body, learns to perceive with the senses. Information enters the senses, and it strikes the mind. But unfortunately because we are not really driving our mind, our body with awareness, we just take the impressions of life unconsciously without awareness.

Consider the mind and consciousness itself like a pool of water or like a film. For anyone who has done photography, you know that light imprints within a film strip in order to replicate an image. The psyche and the mind are no different. The mind receives the data of the world, and we ingest impressions within our psychology. It can be a food, conversation—really—there is an infinitude of impressions.

But we have very distinct ways of recording those experiences. We call it memory. We call it images, imagination. You ever watch a TV show and later have a dream that you are acting with its characters? It is because you took in those impressions from the television. They entered the mind unconsciously, and they were not transformed. They imprinted within the psyche, and therefore that image comes to life within your dreams.

This word impression comes From the Latin impressio, impress, “pressed in,” from the verb, imprimere, “to imprint.” We often relate the word impression “to an effect produced upon someone,” like “this person gave me a good impression,” or maybe a bad one.

What is ironic is that, in example of the television show, we take in images and we don’t digest them. We ingest information. These images and experiences imprint within our mind, but we do not question what they are. We do not question the consequences of what we psychologically take in.

The same applies to our relationships. For example, we meet a new person at work. They say something that offends us. We have a bad impression of them. That image entered our mind, our psyche, and we did not transform it. We did not understand it. That is because we are not awake. We are not conscious. We do not see, for example, that this person might have been having a bad day. Maybe their spouse is in the hospital. Maybe they are suffering from a terminal illness, and therefore, because we are ignorant of the situation, we may have anger, resentment, pride, fear and a conglomeration of different reactions which are based on fantasy. We are not seeing the reality of the person. We are merely interacting with the images that we have of them in our mind. This is dreaming.

If we do this during the daytime, then when we go to bed at night physically, we repeat the same process, because what you are in your dreams is what you are in your daily life. There is no difference, except when you are in your physical body, you have limitations.

Our mind is a film strip. We are constantly taking in data. But the question becomes: are we understanding what we perceive? Do we understand how we take in impressions and how we relate to them? It is not an intellectual exercise. It is a psychological sense that has to be intentionally activated. It has to be worked with. Otherwise these impressions enter us and leave a mark, as impressed upon a surface. The mind like water. When it is struck with a terrifying impression, a trauma, an ordeal, the mind is in chaos. It is a storm churning with emotion and pain. That typically defines the lives of most people. Perhaps a traumatic experience happened in our early years and because we have not trained ourselves to understand what we perceive and what have we perceived, we are living in disturbance, affliction.

The Human Machine

There is a method to cease suffering and to understand how we live now, but also how we can live better, and how we can understand dreams themselves. How do we dream during the day? How do we dream at night? We study what is called the human machine.

This diagram is a representation of us. We know that the physical body is marvelous machine. We have organs. We have different systems which regulate circulation, breathing, digestion, which are so miraculous primarily because we usually perform them without any intention, any awareness. These things often work without any need to regulate them consciously.

But likewise, not only is our body a machine, but also our psychology. We were discussing impressions. We receive data from the world, which enters our senses and then our mind reacts, intaking these different elements, these experiences. Then we have a type of response.

The human body needs its energy, needs fuel, from food, water, from air, in order to subsist. Likewise, the consciousness needs its food. What is that food? It is impressions, but not impressions taken in without awareness, but digested impressions, masticated, digested and processed nutrition. We call it understanding. We call it comprehension.

As of now, we take in information from the world, but without any cognizance, and then we react in different ways. We dream in different ways, whether it is through our intellect with our thoughts, comparisons, our beliefs, or emotions like pleasure, pain, etc. Similarly, we have movement relating to motor aspect of our psychology, which is where we process movement: to do or not to do, to act. Or instinct: fight or flight, freeze, for example. Lastly, we have our sexual reactions to life, our sexuality: attractions and repulsions.

These are five centers that constitute what we are not only physically, but also psychologically. We call them the five centers. We also call them the three brains within our studies. These are mechanisms that have a physical component in our body, but they also operate in a multidimensional level, psychologically, energetically and spiritually.

We know that we have an intellectual brain. This is well known from science. We likewise have an emotional brain or heart with its nervous systems. Lastly, we have our spinal column which gives us life. It allows to interact with the world—to do. These last three centers relate to our motor-instinctual-sexual brain. They are really three centers, but we conglomerate them as one for the sake of synthesis.

We dream through these centers all the time because we are not aware of this machine itself. Usually, we are not paying attention to our body. Who is driving our car? Have we ever observed this fact? We may know that we are seated, listening, perhaps with the intellect. We are taking in these impressions and comparing with what is said to what was said in the past. Maybe there is an emotional reaction, like or dislike, discomfort or enthusiasm. Maybe with our movement we feel we need to fidget. We are restless. Or the instinct perhaps of wanting to flee. Likewise, the sexual center has its form of functionalism related to attraction or repulsion, as I said.

This machine has marvelous potential. The body has marvelous capacities, but only if we know how to use them, if we know how to drive our car. We need to remember that the consciousness is not the car. This body is merely a vehicle, and this vehicle has many parts. Psychologically speaking, the vehicle of the intellectual brain is to process thought. The vehicle of the heart is to process feeling. Likewise with action, with the motor-instinctual-sexual brain. These brains have a very particular usage, and we use them all the time in life, but usually without awareness because we do not really observe the fact.

We may know that we are seated in this chair, but are we observing this fact? Are we seeing ourselves and paying attention?

If we wish to know how to awaken consciousness, we need to understand how we dream. To understand how we dream through different psychological reactions to life, it is important to understand how these machines work.

Relative Speed of the Five Centers

We all know that some computers have different processing speeds. Some are faster than others. The same thing with our human machine, our psychology. These different centers receive impressions from the external world, but also interiorly, processing or receiving them with different types of capacities.

The intellect is the slowest aspect of who we are. It is not the quickest. Thinking, daydreaming, memorizing, remembering, recollecting, these in themselves are not really quick, although because our consciousness is not really trained, we tend to get distracted by a memory or problem, something we are trying to solve with the mind.

There is something quicker than the intellect, which is our center of movement. We see that it is 30,000 times faster than the intellect. This is easily provable. Perhaps we are driving a car. Someone walks out in front of us and without thinking, we turn the wheel. We react and avoid an accident. That is because our motor center is quicker. It is faster.

Likewise, instinct is 30,000 times faster than the intellect, like movement. You put your hand on a hot stove. You feel the pain. Then you retract your hand, and then you think “That hurt.” Then you feel the emotional reaction, perhaps anger. Instinct is faster than the intellect, which explains why martial artists or boxers train the way they do by using the instinctual center in order to react and respond to danger.

Emotions are 60,000 times faster than the intellect because emotions are much more volatile than thought. Many like to pride themselves as intellectual people, being reasonable. Yet having a negative emotion is difficult because it is so quick. Maybe we received an impression of a loved one giving us criticism and then we reacted, feeling anger. That anger can be very difficult to control because emotion is quick. It is overpowering.

But even faster than the emotional center is the most profound, powerful, and influential aspect of our psychology, which is the sexual center. It is 120,000 times faster than the intellect. This explains why in a moment of introducing yourself to a new person, you can determine an immediate sexual affinity. It does not require thinking. It is just an immediate spark of attraction—love at first sight, is the phenomenon.

These centers operate in different speeds, and most of the time we receive impressions that interact in different ways with those centers. Our reactions are precisely, usually, egotistical. We react because we have anger, because we have pride. We have lust, resentment, attachments, fears. We said earlier in the previous lecture that this is ego, multiple defects, different errors.

We are studying the human machine in relation to how we dream because we dream through the five centers. An impression hits our consciousness, hits the senses, and the consciousness is not active. We are not driving our car. We are not paying attention psychologically to what is happening within us, and therefore that impression enters the psyche and it is not transformed. Maybe someone treats you with a lot of disrespect, saying something hurtful. Because we are not paying attention, that impression enters us and we receive it with the emotional center, which is very quick. Because we are not transforming it with the soul, immediately anger emerges. That anger has its own thoughts, its own will to do. Therefore, that emotional reaction, that emotional response is a dream.

We do not think of it as a dream, as an illusion, but it is. Perhaps, as in the former example, we are not listening or understanding where that person is coming from, or why they are upset. We feel anger in that moment, but we do not really question what is going on with the other person, to feel love for that person—compassion, understanding. Instead, impressions enter us, and we react. Maybe, we meet another person and we are married, and there is a sexual attraction there, lust, with its own logic, its own ways of thinking, its own ways of feeling. Because that impression of meeting that person was not transformed, it could lead to problems. This is why divorces happen. It is because our ego is making us dream all the time.

The Bad Secretary: Psychological Mistranslation and Disequilibrium

We call our ego and the personality a bad secretary. If we are not paying attention to our car, or we do not know how to use it in the moment, we can get into accidents. While this is a physical example, it is also a metaphor for our spiritual life. A moment of inattention can bring disgrace. We can make a wrong decision, an error, because we are not seeing reality. We are not understanding how we are dreaming in the moment.

So, these impressions enter the psyche, and we mistranslate them. We do this all the time. Maybe a person approaches us who is speaking with the heart, is kind, is altruistic, generally concerned with, perhaps, our well-being. Maybe because we take in that impression without being conscious of it. We take it through the sexual center and think “This person likes me,” and therefore we ask, declare one’s attractions, even though that person had no intention.

We often receive impressions through the wrong centers. When we should respond with our heart, sometimes we do it with our intellect. Maybe there is an argument between loved ones. One partner is dreaming through the intellect, having all these ideas: “I want to do this… and that. I think we should solve this problem with reason.” Meanwhile, the other partner is upset emotionally, responding with the heart, dreaming with that center and not seeing reality, not seeing the other partner, but seeing “what we want.” This produces disequilibrium.

Disequilibrium means in a moment of crisis—or perhaps when receiving a difficult impression—the intellect thinks one thing, the heart feels another, and the body wants to leave or fight. There is conflict. There is no integration there. It is confusion. Our desires, our defects, create confusion, create discordance and problems.

When we study our dreams, when we seek to understand how to awaken in dreams, we have to examine all these mechanical processes in ourselves during the day, because the way we react to life physically is a barometer of how we are going to act in the internal worlds, how we dream within the internal worlds. Our internal experiences are merely a deeper reflection of who we are all the time. But usually with our personality, our name, our language, our culture, our habits, our face, we do not tend to look in the depths or observe these mechanical actions in themselves.

If we want to awaken the consciousness, we must learn to save energy, as I said, to cease dreaming, to be aware of our human machine. We must be aware of how we waste energy, whether it is through thoughts, whether it is through negative emotions, resentment, pride, etc. Or maybe we waste energy through the motor center, always hyperactive, and never resting. Perhaps we engage in sports, like martial arts, too much. We get into fights. That is the instinctual center. Or we waste energy sexually, which is the biggest problem for people.

That energy has the potential to transform us completely psychologically. We know, even from Freud, how many of the unconscious drives of a person have a sexual root, the libido. This force often permeates the actions of our life: the way we dress, the way we talk, the way we try to impress others, our attitudes, our actions.

Likewise, it is important to understand the energies of the psyche. How do we use intellectual energy? How do we expend emotional energy? Or movement? Or instinct? Or sexuality? — which we study in many other courses available on our website, particularly in relation to alchemy, which is another topic.

Children with books, depressed man, basketball player, kickboxers, and a blurred man in shower

Our Psychological Center of Gravity

It is important to ask ourselves a deep question: what is our psychological center of gravity? What center do we tend to use instead of others? Is it our mind, our heart, or is it our body?

The human machine needs energy to work. If we wish to use our conscious potential, it is necessary to save that energy and understand these processes in ourselves. It is because we waste energy in one of the centers that we get depleted. As just as an engine will not work without fuel, likewise, our psyche will not operate, to consciously investigate the higher dimensions, if we have wasted our mental, emotional, and vital force—whether through too much intellectual activity, or arguments and fights, sports, etc.

When we waste energy through any of the centers—because there is disequilibrium, and if we keep trying to use that engine—it is going to steal energy from the other centers. Thus, there is an imbalance.

It is like if you waste intellectual energy of the mind, that intellect will start to use the sexual force. Because the sexual energy is the most potent force we carry within, it will damage the mind. It does not belong there unless we know how to direct it with intelligence. That is why we study practices like alchemy, pranayama, runes, and many other exercises that we practice in this tradition. If the intellect runs out of energy and we steal from the sexual center it is like putting rocket fuel into a car. It will damage the mind. This is how people get mental illnesses. They become sick, whether through schizophrenia, paranoid delusions, many problems we see that are affecting humanity now.

Those who abuse the emotional center through anger or self-directed hate, depression, develop emotional sicknesses. They become imbalanced in the heart.

Those who waste the energy of the motor center become paraplegic, whether through excessive sports, violent sports, like UFC for example. That relates to the instinctive center as well. People who waste the instinctual forces of their body end up getting injured and sick.

Likewise, with the sexual force. Prostitutes, people who abuse the sexual energy, get sick. We know that from news, or people we know that may have some kind of illness related to that abuse.

Balancing the Five Centers

It is important to understand how to balance ourselves and that there are many ways to balance ourselves. By balancing ourselves, by having a reservoir of emotional energy, we can awaken consciousness in the astral world. Likewise, having a reservoir of mental energy, we can awaken within the mental world. Likewise, by saving our vital force, we can get access to all of it.

But for that, it is important to understand how to have equilibrium in our life, how to respond to different situations with intelligence, how to use our human machine.

Some people may have to develop the intellect more. Perhaps when we find that we are in a sour mood, we feel emotional, we feel upset, it can be good to read scripture in order to balance ourselves, to give us orientation ethically. It can be any scripture from a tradition that resonates with our heart and give us inspiration. It gives us joy in order continue our spiritual discipline.

Perhaps we are too intellectual, and we use the mind too much. We dream with the intellect too much. We analyze. We act through our head. It is good to put thought to rest when you feel like it is being drained and you cannot think anymore. Listen to classical music. Listen to great works of spiritual art that have a high vibration and help the consciousness resonate with superior forces. As we explained in the previous course called The Secret Teachings of Opera, there are art forms that teach about the path of the spirit and are direct reflections of higher truths. It is music like Beethoven, or Mozart especially, that have a type of emotional dynamism that help heal the heart and balance the mind. If your intellect is too active, balance it with activities relating to the heart. Listening to good music, lighting incense, aroma therapy, these things help calm the mind, help you be centered in yourself.

Perhaps we are too emotional. Again, we are resonating with negative feelings. Sometimes it is good to get some exercise. Distract yourself from a problem. Put it aside for a moment and go jogging. Lift some weights, obviously, with some moderation. Extreme sports can drain the body, but everything in balance helps. Some people, in terms of the motor center as well, like to train in martial arts. Some people like to train in Tai Chi, Aikido, these help train the instinctual center—how to react to stressful situations and problems with equanimity.

These could be useful too in order to balance the other centers as well, especially when they are performed consciously. Again, these activities are useful when we are using them with the soul, when we give those activities our full attention.

Lastly, in order to balance all the centers—and probably the most profound activity—is working with the sexual energy. It is a very deep topic. We do exercises like pranayama, whether from yoga or Buddhism. We practice transmutation, which through deep breathing and visualization, prayer, we take the creative force and raise it up the spine, to the mind and then to the heart.

This is very different from abusing the intellect and the intellect stealing energy from that center because it is unmodified. It must be modified. It must be worked with consciously and with intelligence. When you take that energy and you transmute it, you take it from one form of base matter into a spiritual force. It learns to elevate your heart, your mind. This is why you have all the saints with a halo above their heads. That is because they are illuminated by that force. It is a deep discipline.

Woman with pillow, angry man, and illuminated saint

Sleeping, Subjective, and Objective Consciousness

It is also important to understand—in relation to how we dream and how to cease dreaming—how to understand different states of consciousness.

Most of the time we are not aware of our human machine, and unfortunately, we have the misconception in our modern society that just because we are active with the mind, heart, and body, this means that we are conscious. That is not true, not necessarily. We can be receiving the impressions of life, but, like I said, we are not transforming them. We are not even aware of our surroundings perhaps, observing actively where we are at, what we are doing, where we are going.

Maybe we are speaking with someone, or they are talking to us, and because we are thinking of something or feeling in remembrance of a problem we have, or filled with fear, with a trauma, we have to ask, “What did you say?” The impressions were coming in, but we were not aware of what is going on. It is because we are very asleep.

Now, what is important to also understand is that awakening has different qualities. Awakening consciousness physically, but also in dreams, has very distinct qualities. We all know about lucid dreaming, becoming aware in a dream, or seeing with greater lucidity. But just because we are aware of a dream does not mean that we are not identified with it. This is the subtle key that many people fail to grasp.

You can be involved in a dream, have some type of intense experience. You may know it is a dream at first, but then you get sucked into it. You do not have control. It takes you. This is what dreams are like. It is mechanical. It is a machine. The human machine which has the potential to be fully lucid, clear, awake, spontaneous, perceptive, and in tune with the divine, in most cases, is stuck within its own mechanical reactions. That is what a dream is.

Perhaps you go to sleep at night and you have dreamed of something really crazy. Maybe it has its own narrative: “Why is it that I thought I was some superhero in some other country fighting extraterrestrials?” But in the dream, it makes sense. Why is it that it makes sense? It is because we are not questioning how we are dreaming during the daytime. We do not have the same type of inquiry into what is going on in our daily states.

Now, in our daily life, as I said, perhaps, you could of probably be invested in a very intense emotion. You have a selfish desire in reaction to a problem or conflict. You may be very aware that it is happening, but that is not good. It is not positive, not constructive. Awareness is not everything. A lot of schools push this idea that awareness is somehow this brilliant key to everything. But being aware of yourself does not mean you are in control. Someone can be very aware of murdering a person. In fact, that is worse than being asleep, because there is more energy invested into that act.

What is necessary is that instead of being subjective or perceiving through our own selfish desires, we in turn have that type of lucidity and awakening with objective perception: no self there; no ego; no fear; no preference; no assumptions; no presuppositions; no attachments; no filter. We see reality, whether physically in our daily states or even in our dreams. We see clearly what is there and we do not dream. We do not interpret with a false sense of self, because any ego, vice, defect, error, is a false sense of self which misinterprets everything. We are dreaming like that all the time. The way to stop dreaming is to know how that error functions in you, to observe it in yourself.

Self-Observation and Filial Love: The Superior Centers of the Being

This is why we study two superior centers in relation to what we call self-observation and filial love.

The human machine has its limitations, but also has tremendous potential. Fortunately for us, there are superior qualities of being which can exist within us when we train. We call them the superior intellectual and the superior emotional centers.

These have a very different functionalism than what we are accustomed to. They allow us to receive divine data, the messages of God, the teachings of our inner buddha, our Being, our reality. These centers are like an antenna. They receive data from the heavens, the signals and messages from our Innermost, our spiritual potential.

Dreams are projected. The intellect projects. It is hyperactive. But with the superior intellectual center, you receive knowledge.

So, this happen often in a form of a vision in which you see a symbol acting out in front of you and you are engaging with it. Usually, you are the witness and the participant. The superior intellectual center is understanding. It is comprehension. Going back earlier to the beginning of this lecture, we were talking about the superior faculties of the mind, which is precisely this: the ability to perceive, but more importantly, to understand. It is possible in a dream to know what it means, if you are awake enough, and your intuition, your heart, is active.

The superior emotional center is filial love. It is love for our inner divinity. It is love for our real identity, who it is like this image. It is infinite. It can not be conceptualized or limited by a culture, by a theory. It is only something you can understand by living it. However, that infinite abstraction expresses within dreams through a type of symbolism or narrative, in order to teach us what we must do in our daily life, our spiritual life. When we have those experiences, when we are directly communicating with the divine, we experience tremendous love and awe for the power of divinity, for knowing what to do and how to change.

This also relates to self-observation, being aware, not just being aware with anger, or with pride. This means to be aware without a self. This can confuse people, because our contemporary ideas of identity, religion, and self are exclusive. We think of ourselves as “who I am”—these negative emotions typically associated with “me.” It is possible to be awake and aware without any “I,” to perceive without thought, without any reaction, without any perturbation.

In that sense, you can receive impressions. They enter the lake of the mind and there is no ripple. If you want to know what that is like, again, look at a lake. It receives impressions and there is no reaction. It does not mean that there is no consciousness there. It means that the consciousness is super active. The way that the consciousness is active is like a reflection on that surface. You can see beautiful images of the heavens upon that screen. It receives, reflects, refracts within you, and therefore you have direct knowledge. You have direct understanding.

So, the Being, our real identity, wants to teach us and often will give us hunches in our daily life. Perhaps we are doing something we know is wrong and we justify with our intellect. We dream that “I want to do this because I am going to get this result.” “I want this benefit in my life” even though we feel a sting of conscience that knows “Do not do this. It is wrong.” That comes from divinity.

Most of the time we snuff it out. We try to justify ourselves, and we wash our hands clean like Pontius Pilate in the Gospels. We betray our divinity all the time. But intuition is precisely this filial love. You know what is right without having to think, and likewise when you receive superior symbolism from the higher worlds, you do so with understanding of their meaning.

Visions and Astral Experiences

This is an image we come back to again and again. It is the Tree of Life. It is a map of our multidimensional reality, which we explained in one of our previous lectures of this course: Where Do We Dream? It is a map of our current perception, but also our potential, from the higher levels of energy, consciousness and perception to the densest materiality.

These ten spheres show us aspects of ourselves, and many times when we receive visions, superior dream, real prophetic, direct knowledge, it comes with this. This will teach us how to interpret what we are seeing, what we are perceiving within ourselves.

Real visions and astral experiences come to us when our human machine is clean. It is good to take care of the body. Some of us were discussing earlier that our physiology relates to our internal psychology. For example, there are cleanses you can do to clean out your liver, such as drinking half a glass of olive oil with half a glass of lemon juice. It purifies the toxins of the liver, and when that aspect of the machine relating to that motor-instinctual-sexual brain, connected to the liver, when that is clean, sometimes you will have very vivid experiences in the astral world. That is one example of how to clean our human machine.

But to be more specific to what I am talking about, in a deeper psychological sense, is cleaning out the ego, because the ego, our sense of self, the “I,” pollutes these five centers. These engines rust out and they work with less efficiency and less ability with time. If we abuse the intellect with too much thought, it rusts. It decays. It degenerates, likewise with the other centers.

When you are a pure vehicle, when you are conscious, when you understand the mechanisms of dreams, you start to irradiate and vibrate with a superior emotional quality and a superior mind.

Exercises

We always end these classes with practices. Every day, develop your self-observation from moment to moment. Observe the energy it takes to pay attention. Also, extend your mindfulness, the length of time that you are aware of yourself. At the end of each day reflect on how conscious you were that day. Everyday do this preliminary meditation exercise:

Adopt a comfortable posture
Carefully relax all three brains: body, heart, intellect
Become perfectly still
Imagine a brilliant blue light in your heart while vocalizing the mantra “O”
No matter what distracts you, return to concentrating on the visualization
Do this for 30 – 60 minutes every day

One reason we do mantras or sacred sounds, is because they vibrate the human machine. The vowel “O” is a very sacred syllable within Hinduism and all religions, Buddhism especially. It teaches the emotional center how to vibrate with superior sentiment and feeling. In that way, that sound, when you sing it, when you vocalize it, it charges the heart with tremendous force. That mantra can help you go out of your body. It can help you be aware in your dreams, to be awake.

Likewise, we imagine, because imagination, as explained previously, is the capacity to perceive. You want to deepen the ability to be conscious while you dream? Develop your imagination: the ability to perceive images of a non-physical type. How well you are able to visualize in your mind, within your third eye, so to speak, can help you go a long way to acquire greater depth of perceptions within dreams.

The point is to concentrate on the mantra so that you do not forget what you are doing. Do not let the mind wander. Do not think of something else while singing the mantra. Sing the mantra and immerse yourself into it like you are a bee making honey. Let it be your labor. Let it be your sole focus.

Lastly, write the facts of your day in a spiritual diary. You can document your dreams by writing about what you perceive, but also what your spiritual work is about. You can study how to perform a spiritual diary within this link.

At this point in time, I would like to open the floor to questions.

Questions and Answers

Question: You mentioned that we should not be abusing the energy of the different brains or centers. Especially, you mentioned, sports. What is a good way to know that I am using the right amount of energy for each brain? How do I know when I have gone too far?

Instructor: That is a good question. It is good to gauge yourself. You have to learn and listen to your body. Your body will tell you, “This is too much.” But the problem becomes often because of too much desire or ambition, “I need to get thinner. I need to work out more. I need to train myself more.” That desire can indicate that this is too much. If you feel like you are pushing yourself too much—it is good to get exercise—but if you find that you are over fatigued, or that you are drained, give it a break.

Question: What about the other brains?

Instructor: Same thing with the intellect. For example, anyone that has gone to a university, you perhaps read, read, and read to the point that you cannot even understand what you have read. You have lost the thread. You read a page, and then you have to say to yourself, “I do not even know what I just read!” Take a break.

Emotionally, when you find that there is simply too much emotion going on there, you are too invested in a problem, it is literally driving the other centers to act within imbalance, take a break. Try to do something else. Do another activity.

One thing I did not mention was that even though the centers operate at different speeds, the ego always manifests in each of these centers. So, the ego of pride, for example, which is very emotional, may emerge in the heart immediately, overpowering perhaps, because its emotions are very quick. Then there is logic, thoughts that justify what is going on here and the will to act. So, in terms of finding balance, because the centers operate at different speeds, it is because the human machine, in a sense, balances itself out. If all the centers operate at the same speed, then there is no way to equilibrate the others, because everything is on the same wavelength, so to speak, in terms of the centers compensating for each other in different ways, so that if you overuse one center, take a break. Relax. Move to another.

Question: So what is the sign then that the mind is stealing from the sexual center?

Instructor: When the mind is stealing from the sexual center, you get a second wind. You ever hear that statement… a second wind? It is like you initially feel exhausted, whether intellectually or physically, and then suddenly you get a boost of energy here, operating like the white rabbit of Alice in Wonderland. It is a sudden reemergence of energy in which, if you are observing it carefully, you will see that it comes suddenly. You have the energy to do it again even though before you were too tired.

Another thing to think about, if the intellect is stealing energy from the sexual center, that produces many problems intellectually. That mind cannot concentrate. It gets more distracted. The mind corrodes. This can lead to illnesses, in some people, like schizophrenia, mental imbalances, delusions. The mind just does not work anymore because it is operating on unmodified fuel. That person can start seeing things in a way that is not real. It can be different in terms of intensities depending on the person.

Question: I have one more question. You have this lecture that also relates to today’s topic. It is the transformations of emotions [impressions]. Gurdjieff also talks about this. So every day we have to sit and observe. But it doesn’t always work. Which is the real work? I mean, which is the real way to do it?

Instructor: Both are necessary, in a sense that it is not enough to perceive something, but you must comprehend it. Gurdjieff was excellent about teaching beginners to first observe what is going on, because most of us do not even pay attention to where we are at. We are not looking actively. We have the intellectual knowledge that “We know we are here,” but it is a passive state.

Gurdjieff was teaching to activate the consciousness, meaning, first, observe what is going on. But the next step is to comprehend, transform, perhaps the impression that we received, and receive it in the right centers. Sometimes we take in information with the wrong centers, and that is one the way that we dream.

As I said, maybe you are having an argument with someone, and they are trying to solve it with the intellect. But maybe what they need is just validation within the heart. It is like using the right tool for the right situation. That only comes about after comprehension: knowing intuitively what to do.

It is one thing to, again, be aware, but it is a totally different thing to discriminate what you see.

Comment: But sometimes intuition can get confusing because of egotistical desires.

Instructor: That’s the big problem.

Comment: People say I have an intuition, but in reality, it is not. It is my ego wanting this.

Instructor: That is the big problem with many spiritual people. They attribute what they call intuitive impulse, when really it is a demon. It is why people have committed many crimes in many spiritual groups. They do things that are not ethical. The thing to understand about that is, if you really want to understand, if you really want to receive intuition from divinity, examine your precepts. Does it fit or coincide with compassion, with the laws given by the different spiritual teachers of humanity, like the prophets?

We can study different scriptures and texts which teach about ethics, about how to be a true human being. Usually, this is from sources that are very pure, like Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna, masters that have proven their caliber. Study what they taught, and perhaps see if this impulse that we may have. Is it contradicting that? People do not question what they are doing. They think, “Oh, this feeling is coming from God,” wreally it is not.

Another Instructor: Another thing to consider is sometimes we say it does not work when we look at our emotions. At the beginning, when we are just observing our emotions or any of these three brains, what often happens is that the intellect starts to interfere and interpret, “What am I looking at?” There is this pressure of attention we have to exert. In the same way that we are sitting in a chair right now, if we think about it intellectually, we might imagine the chair or know that “I am sitting in this chair,” but if we actually feel it, we expand our attention. We feel our body. We feel the chair. The pressure of attention is the consciousness.

So, what happens is that people are not familiar with distinguishing from, “I think this is an intuition!” but really it is just the emotional center or the intellect coming up with what it feels right to that egotistical self that we believe in, versus the attention, expanding, opening, and receiving something new, which is the comprehension that we are talking about.

Instructor: In order to understand your intuitions, the mind needs to be passive, and the consciousness needs to be active. The only way to discriminate and really know is to taste it.

Comment: I read The Yellow Book. I am fascinated with Jinn science and how to get to the lodges. It fascinates me!

Instructor: Jinn science has a parallel with astral projection. In astral projection, you are leaving your physical body behind to enter with your soul in the fifth dimension. Jinn science, for one thing, you can take your physical body into the internal worlds. This is exemplified in stories like the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad in Islam.

According to Muslim theology, he was meditating with his head against the stone of Mecca, the Kaaba. In a Jinn state, divinity took him, symbolically riding on this mystical creature, al-Buraq, “the lighting” in Arabic, from Mecca to Jerusalem and to the seven heavens. It is a symbol of Jinn science.

That science is practiced similarly to astral projection but with a different objective. There are different exercises that you can use to train your body to vibrate with those forces, the superior energy of the hyperspace, the fourth dimension, which is related to spatiality and time. So, in a sense you are entering with your body into that state. Because of prayer and drowsiness you start to assimilate and accumulate forces that can help transport you. Similarly, that happens with astral projection.

With astral projection, there is something magical that happens when we fall asleep, particularly if we are awake as a consciousness when it is happening. You might have experiences where you are falling asleep and you start to hear voices. You see start to see scenes of landscape and places just flash within your awareness. Often, we return to our body suddenly, awake, because we realize that we were seeing something internally with our imagination. That happens when we get drowsy, because when we are falling asleep, you start to open that doorway to the inner worlds.

In training, especially for astral projection, you learn to take advantage of that state so that when you fall asleep with that awareness and attention, you enter that doorway with cognizance. Now, with Jinn science, you are asking divinity, “Take me into the internal worlds” — in order to experience something like Prophet Muhammad. The thing to remember is that it is not something that we can necessarily will for ourselves entirely. There must be divine help. Divinity does that magic.

I believe it was one of the uncles of Prophet Muhammad who was against him. He said, “I do not believe you what you did,” about this ascension called الإسراء والمعراج al-'Isrā' wal-Miʿrāj. “Lift up your right foot,” and he did. “Lift up your left foot.” He said, “I cannot.” The man said, “How is it that you can travel from Mecca to Jerusalem and into the seven heavens, but not lift both feet?” The Prophet said, “I did not say that I went. I said that I was taken.”

God does that work, and there are many exercises in The Yellow Book that can teach you how to do that. They are very powerful, and they work.

Faith
Drowsiness
Pay attention to what you are doing

It will happen if the conditions are right.

Question: How do the 49 levels of the mind correspond to the centers?

Instructor: So, we talk about 49 levels of the mind because there are depths to our being that we are not aware of. In Kabbalah, we talk about the seven bodies, the seven lower spheres of the Tree of Life relating to different vehicles we operate with, the lowest being the physical body.

There are seven levels of the mind within those seven bodies, making a total of 49. The most superficial level of the human machine is the intellect. It is the first level of the 49 levels of the subconsciousness. The intellect, as we said, is the slowest aspect of the human machine, but if we want to understand the deeper levels of the mind, you need to be aware of your human machine: how are you dreaming in those centers all the time?

Again, you go into more complexity and depth of your psyche relating to the centers themselves. Some of the centers are easier to control, like the intellect, because it is the slowest. Motion is difficult, but sexuality is the most difficult. If you become conscious of those levels in yourself physically and you start to train in astral projection, you can go into those other bodies on the Tree of Life, those other dimensions, and learn to explore those regions within yourself.

Question: Going back to Jinn science. I like to have actual hardcore evidence to research. Besides the prophets, is there anything to research about Jinn science and teachers you recommend?

Instructor: Samael Aun Weor is a big one. He does not please the scholars too much. He has a very different style. First off, his writings are very comprehensive. He studied all religions really deeply. He did have a scholasticism about him, but he was not intellectual. He was not based in theory. His writing, especially, is really the most explicit of what Jinn science is. If you look at what he wrote compared to the Bible or any world mythologies, where you see heroes flying through space, like Perseus saving Andromeda with the boots of Hermes, that is a symbol of that.

When you work with the energies of Hermes, which is the science of creative energy, the sexual energy, you can fly not only in the physical world, but enter with your physical body in those regions. Samael Aun Weor’s writings specifically are the most direct.

Question: In The Yellow Book, it is not clear when he says, “as soon as you feel like you are falling asleep, you have to jump.” Are you doing an imaginary jump or are we doing a physical jump?

Instructor: It is a real jump. One of the things he said about that: when you are in Jinn state, he said, you should test yourself. If you have some space, you can do this. By taking a marker of some kind to mark how far you have jumped, jump a certain distance as far as you can. Mark where you landed. If you keep repeating the experiment, you may find that your jumps are getting much further than before.

Another clue that Jinn states are happening is, the main description that Samael Aun Weor gave—because the physical body is penetrated by the vital vehicle—you will feel this kind of expansion, like your feet to your ankles are bloated. It is similar to an astral experience. Your body is vibrating with that level of nature. You will find that you will be levitating. That is one of the main clues that he gives.

This is obviously very difficult for skeptics. We have trained ourselves, the mind, to be very materialistic. A lot of the times, that is an obstacle to experiencing that for oneself.

But if you simply practice with it and give it as much energy and time as you need to do it, the moment may come when suddenly, you will find that your feet are bloated and you are floating in the air. It is a very powerful practice.

In Samael Aun Weor’s writings, you will find it allegorized in many different writings and scriptures. I am not too familiar if there are other more contemporary esoteric authors who talked about that. Primarily because, my assumption is that the level of being of certain modern esoteric writers are not high in comparison to prophets. Obviously, prophets, in terms of hierarchy, are something different, very distinct.

Question: How does pranayama relate to the mind stealing energy from the sexual center?

Instructor: If the mind is stealing from the sexual center, you are going to have less battery power to charge yourself in the appropriate way. Pranayama, which is the transmutation of the sexual energy, is the conscious control and direction of that energy to awaken spirituality, consciousness, awaken to Jinn states, awaken to astral projections. We say that, in a sense, pranayama is the opposite of stealing energy from the centers. When you steal energy from the other centers, there is an imbalance. You are putting fuel that does not belong in the intellect and you are going to have problems in the future.

Pranayama is learning to transform and modify the sexual energy. This is the key: unmodified sexual energy can harm a person if it is not transformed or processed. What matters is that the consciousness must be present so that by processing that energy, it learns to circulate in a constructive way.

Another Instructor: When we are performing pranayama and we are performing sexual transmutation, that energy is feeding the consciousness and the superior centers and not necessarily feeding the intellectual brain. Whereas, when we are just depleting the intellectual brain, then the sexual energy is unconsciously being rerouted to a lower center.

Instructor: Thank you all for coming.

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Navigating the Internal Worlds

​Exploring Our Internal Worlds through Self-Observation

​Real Occult or Esoteric Knowledge is Experiential

​The Lunar and Solar Astral Bodies

​The Superior and Inferior Astral

​Receive Divine Teachings

​Levitation

​The Magnetic Pull

​Teleportation

​Elasticity, Plasticity, and Ductility

​The Mantra “Open Sesame”

How to Prolong Astral Experiences

​Transcending the Lower Sephiroth

Investigate the Hell Realms

​Experience the Absolute

​Explore Other Planets

​Visit and Enter Temples

​Communicate with the Initiates

​Divination

​Commune with the Elementals

Conquer Ordeals

The Guardian of the Threshold

​Celebrate with the Masters

Witness Your Being’s Initiations

​Invoke and Verify a Master

​The Invocation of Christ

​Twilight: The Hour of Venus

​Conjure Demons and Temptations

​Exercise Astral Powers

Study the Chakras / Churches

​Sanctify Your Home

Petition for Healing

​Receive Borrowed Light

​Interrogate an Ego

​Consult the Astral Horizon

​Behold the Glorian

Karma, Dharma, and Katancia

​Negotiate Your Karma

​The Kaom or Karma Police

​The Akashic Records

​Cosmogenesis

​Anthropogenesis

​Prophesy

​Enter Jinn States

​Experiment and Verify

​Exercises

​Questions and Answers

Analyzing Dreams through Meditation

Serenity: The Door to Interpreting Dreams

​Concentration and Imagination: The Foundation of Meditation

​Balancing Serenity and Insight

​The Dynamics of Meditation

Analytical Meditation

​The Definition of Analysis

A Dream Analysis Example

​Levels of Cognizance

​Situational Factors

​Ambience

​Spiritual and Egotistical States

​Intentions and Outcomes

​Identifying Symbols

​The Intersection of Dream Symbols

Predictive Solutions

Initiation is Your Own Life

The Internal is the External

Recurring Dreams

​How to Proceed

​Resources

​Exercises

​Questions and Answers

How to Interpret Dreams

​What Are Dreams For?

How Does Divinity Communicate?

​How Do I Understand My Dreams?

Kabbalah: The Language of Dreams

​Who Can Interpret Dreams?

The Limitations of Dream Symbol Dictionaries

​How Do We Know a Dream is True?

​Who is Interpreting?

​Mythomania: The Danger of Spiritual Visions

Exploring Our Internal Worlds through Self-Observation

Real Occult or Esoteric Knowledge is Experiential

The Lunar and Solar Astral Bodies

The Superior and Inferior Astral

Receive Divine Teachings

Levitation

The Magnetic Pull

Teleportation

Elasticity, Plasticity, and Ductility

The Mantra “Open Sesame”

Transcending the Lower Sephiroth

Experience the Absolute

Explore Other Planets

Visit and Enter Temples

Communicate with the Initiates

Divination

Commune with the Elementals

Celebrate with the Masters

Invoke and Verify a Master

The Invocation of Christ

Twilight: The Hour of Venus

Conjure Demons and Temptations

Exercise Astral Powers

Sanctify Your Home

Receive Borrowed Light

Interrogate an Ego

Consult the Astral Horizon

Behold the Glorian

Negotiate Your Karma

The Kaom or Karma Police

The Akashic Records

Cosmogenesis

Anthropogenesis

Prophesy

Enter Jinn States

Experiment and Verify

Exercises

Questions and Answers

Concentration and Imagination: The Foundation of Meditation

Balancing Serenity and Insight

The Dynamics of Meditation

The Definition of Analysis

Levels of Cognizance

Situational Factors

Ambience

Spiritual and Egotistical States

Intentions and Outcomes

Identifying Symbols

The Intersection of Dream Symbols

How to Proceed

Resources

Exercises

Questions and Answers

What Are Dreams For?

How Do I Understand My Dreams?

Who Can Interpret Dreams?

How Do We Know a Dream is True?

Who is Interpreting?

Mythomania: The Danger of Spiritual Visions

Ethics, Spiritual Culture, and Restraint

The Three Stages of Dream Interpretation

Imagination

Inspiration

Intuition

Intuition and the Mantra ONRO

The Power to Interpret Dreams

The Four Laws of Dream Interpretation

The Law of Contrary Analogies

The Law of Correspondences

The Law of Numerology: The Eternal Tarot

Prophetic or Predictive Visions

Considerations for Dream Interpretation

Death, Birth, Sacrifice

Conclusion

Exercises

Questions and Answers

Recurring Dreams: The Initiator or Unifying Element

Separating from Dreams

Four Blessings: Steps for Entering Dreams

Increasing Light