The sincere student of Gnosis, of esotericism, studies and understands the nature and the functionalism of the mind, primarily with the purpose of controlling its impulses, its habits, its conditioning. We seek to understand the mind so that it can become a useful instrument of our Spirit, our Innermost God, our divinity. And a real esotericist, an occultist, someone who “cultivates the hidden,” precisely goes against him or herself, the mind itself, the intellect.
The intellect must serve the Spirit. It must not be of its own will. It must not act of its own will, and anyone who begins to meditate looks inside to see how the intellect is filled with thoughts, habits, desires, concepts, etc. These qualities are as the Book of Genesis teach, תהו ובהו Tohu Vay Bohu, “formless and void… for there is darkness upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2), which is precisely our psyche. Our psychology is that darkness, filled with ignorance, delusion, suffering. So we seek to generate light, יהי אור ויהי־אור Yehi Aur Va-Yehi Aur: “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3), as we explained in Arcanum 3: The Empress of the Tarot. So we have to go against ourselves, to study ourselves, and to wage a very difficult battle against our defects, but more importantly, our instincts, desires, habits, etc., which in these studies we denominate ego, self, “I,” etc. Arcanum 7 teaches us precisely this path of warfare, which the Muslims refer to as jihad, or better said, the Arabic مجاهده Mujahidah, which means “striving,” to strive against, to make effort against oneself. For as the companions asked the Prophet Muhammad, after the Battle of Badr I believe, they asked him “Oh Muhammad, what is greater than the lesser holy war, that against others?” He said, “War against your desires, your impulses.” So the intellect in itself is a useful vehicle that can store information necessary for our development and our potential. But the intellect is merely a machine. It does not know how to do anything except through the impulses or guidance of our ego, or our divinity. 
Arcanum 7 teaches us how to strive, how to fight against our own inner iniquity, in order to develop the qualities of the Spirit. Precisely we do that by conquering the mind, and in this image we see a warrior, wielding a sword in his right hand, and a staff in his left.
As we have expressly stated in this course, the staff is the spinal medulla, the spinal column, through which the power of the sword, the Kundalini power, rises from the Chakra Muladhara to the brain. Or in Hebrew we use the letter ז Zayin. We talked previously about the letter ו Vav, the spine, but we need to work with ז Zayin as well. ו Vav is man, ז Zayin is woman, male-female―also referring to the two energetic channels that rise from the Chakra Muladhara to our brain. We have the solar current known as Adam אדם in the Bible, we have the lunar current known as חוה Chavah (Eve) in the bible. So they represent for us qualities or forces that we need to raise up our spine, from sex, the sexual organs, to the brain. We do that in a matrimony specifically, as we teach, but individually we can learn to harness those powers and potencies, through specific meditations. So this warrior is our own Inner Being, our own Spirit, who through the power of the Kundalini in his right hand, he dominates his enemies, who are precisely all of the defects we carry inside: anger, pride, resentment, fear, lust, anger, gluttony, egotism, degeneration, etc. So he is our Spirit who wants to conquer the mind, to control it, to use it for the purposes of the light, our own inner divinity. He drives in his chariot of war two sphinxes, one white, one black, referring to occult masonry, יכין Jachin, בעז Boaz. The pillar of the right, יכין Jachin, mercy, man. The pillar of the left, black, בעז Boaz, severity, woman. So he drives his chariot, which is precisely our body, our vehicles that we also use in dreams as well, in the dream state, precisely through his will and by working with those two forces, masculine-feminine. So the body is a chariot, which we have to learn how to channel forces inside, so that our divinity can manifest in us, can work through us specifically. The sphinx also reminds us of Arcanum 4. We talked about the four elements. The sphinx is a creature with four elemental qualities: the face of a man, representing water, the paws of a lion representing fire, the wings of an eagle representing air, and the tail or the hooves of a bull representing earth. That Spirit must conquer all of the elements that we carry inside. Our physical body is the earth. Our mind with its aerial qualities is thought, which fluctuates like clouds, according to Padmasambhava in his Buddhist scripture, The Tibetan Book of the Dead [Introduction to Awareness]. We also find that the heart is a fiery quality, igneous quality. We can burn with passion, with emotional sentiment, with anger or with love. So the fire of the heart is precisely what power we have to control as well. And the waters of our energies, our sexuality, our seminal matter literally, is the waters of life, which we can use to create Genesis inside, to create light through the process of alchemy. This warrior, our inner Spirit, which we explained is חסד Chesed in the Kabbalah, he drives his chariot with four pillars in the background, which remind us of the four pillars of Gnosis, which we gave a course previously a few months past [Fundamentals of Gnosticism]: the pillars of science, mysticism, art, philosophy. These are the pillars or traditions through which this knowledge has been taught, and our own inner Spirit teaches us through these four pillars. 
These four pillars can also refer to the four lower bodies of our inner psychology, but also the Tree of Life. To skip ahead to the next image we find this famous kabbalistic glyph with its ten spheres or Sephiroth. We are speaking about our own inner Spirit, חסד Chesed, who is the seventh sephirah from the bottom of the Tree of Life, referring to the warrior of Arcanum 7: Triumph, the chariot of war.
So we find that the Spirit must work through גבורה Geburah, his divine consciousness, represented in Hebrew as ז Zayin, the woman, the feminine soul. He exercises his willpower, תפארת Tiphereth, as we have explained previously, through ו Vav, the spine, which is the sixth sephirah on the Tree of Life, but also the sixth Hebrew letter. The four lower bodies are precisely נצח Netzach, which means “Victory,” and it is interesting that this Arcanum relates to victory, to control the mind―specifically since נצח Netzach is the seventh sephirah from the top to the bottom of the Tree of Life, whereas חסד Chesed is the seventh sephirah from מלכות Malkuth to the center of the Tree of Life. But the Spirit must learn to control נצח Netzach, the mind, thought, in order to obtain victory, to conquer him or herself. Likewise we have הוד Hod, the emotional qualities of our heart, the astral body, known as הוד Hod in Kabbalah, “Glory.” נצח Netzach of course is the mental vehicle, the mental body. We use these astral and mental mechanical vehicles in dreams, when we travel many places in the dream state, usually without any cognizance of our experiences, but this is what we act in the world of dreams. We have יסוד Yesod, our vitality, our vital energies, our sexual energy itself, which descends in order to manifest within מלכות Malkuth, our physical body. יסוד Yesod means “Foundation.” This is the cubic stone of the Kabbalists, the cubic stone of יסוד Yesod, the foundation of our temple. And then מלכות Malkuth is of course is the physical body, the earth. So our inner Spirit, this warrior who drives his chariot, precisely accomplishes his mission, his goal, by learning to control these vehicles, mind, heart, energy, physicality. We see that above his head there is a sun, reminding us of the God Osiris-Ra, which is a symbol of Christ, the Christic energy. And this Christic energy is precisely at the heart of every atom, every molecule, every particle of existence, but also importantly in our sexual energy, our sexual matter, which is the water of Genesis. When husband and wife work with their energies themselves, when they learn to love one another with purity, with divinity, with remembrance of God, that energy gives birth to the soul, gives birth to the full manifestation of our potential. This is the meaning of: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ
So the earth of course is our physical body, but also refers to higher vehicles we create in the perfect matrimony, where Genesis is precisely hidden within this act of striving. We talked very abundantly about, אלהים ברא בראשית Bereshit Bara Elohim, that meaning in Genesis in our former lectures.
But here the warrior Spirit is the one who must conquer the lower qualities of himself, and what is the purpose of that? The Being, our divinity, as we have explained in previous lectures, emerged from that unknowable source known as the Absolute. So we can study the Tree of Life as a map of our consciousness to help explain all the levels of existence, but also our consciousness in materiality. 
So we have explained some of these lower vehicles previously, but from the Absolute, known as אין Ain, אין סוף Ain Soph, אין סוף אור Ain Soph Aur―meaning the “Nothingness, the “Limitless,” and the “Limitless Light”―emerges our own inner כתר Kether, the Magician of the Tarot, the first card. From him unfolds חכמה Chokmah, which is “Wisdom.” כתר Kether means “Crown,” and then בינה Binah is representative of “Intelligence,” wisdom, “Understanding,” cognizance.
This is the famous trinity of Christianity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But it is not a reference to physical people, in an anthropomorphic sense. It refers specifically to forces in nature, energies, which we carry in our three brains. We have the powers of the Father in the intellectual brain, meaning our center that operates thought. When we use the term brain in esotericism, we mean functionalities of psychic and physical forces, a machine. So the physical brain is the vehicle of the intellectual brain, which is the way we process thought, ideas, concepts. We also have an emotional brain, because we have intelligences related to the heart, sentiments. It has been explored in science that the heart has certain qualities that can detect or intuit certain things that are very hard to explain by materialistic science, such as the capacity of intuition, specifically, to know something without thinking about it. So this is a very profound intelligence that we consciously develop in our studies. And then we have the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, which is our center of movement, impulse and desire, within our sexual organs, the top of our spine, but also at the base of our spine as well. The spine is the way that we act with willpower, and manifest the will of our inner divinity. So our motor-instinctive-sexual brain, the way we live, is precisely because of our spine, which is our Tree of Life, that which gives us life in our body. We could not exist if it were not for our spine. 
The motor-instinctive-sexual brain relates to the powers of בינה Binah, which is known as the Holy Spirit, which we will be talking about very extensively today. The image above, the sun of Ra, the Solar Logos, the Christ, whose wings of the Spirit unfold in us as we work in a matrimony.
We see an image of four points, and an image that looks like a maze. This is a symbol of נצח Netzach, the mind, and anyone who begins to meditate understands that the mind is a maze. It is a labyrinth, which in the Greek myths were symbolized by, I believe, Theseus, who sought to kill the Minotaur within the labyrinths of Crete.
So that labyrinth is precisely the winding pathways of our intellect, thoughts, ideas, concepts, which in meditation, we introspect. We see that we have really a chaos, a disorder, which needs to be organized. That element of air must be dominated by our inner divinity. We have to go inside of the mind itself to slay the beast, which is our own defects, desires, the Minotaur symbolizing our ego. This warrior wears precisely, according to Samael Aun Weor, armor, and the armor is the science that defends us against our own inner defects, but also the teachings that help to instruct us how to change, how to become super-divine individuals. That armor is represented by Achilles, who is the great warrior who battled at Troy, a symbol of how we as a warrior must go against all of our desires and defects, to strive against our own inner iniquity, our hatred, our anger, our fear, our resentment. All of those qualities need to die. We have to do it precisely by facing ourselves in meditation, and by working as husband and wife, working with Jachin-Boaz, the white sphinx and the black sphinx, the synthesis of those energies. We learn to dominate those elements to become magicians. Question: Those―you just talked about those―on the left and the right, those… what do you call them? Horses?... Instructor: Sphinxes. Question: Sphinxes... That’s what you’re talking about: Ida and Pingala… working with the spinal column? Instructor: Yes, and so the words Ida-Pingala, are Sanskrit terms for these two energetic serpents that rise up the spine, to form the caduceus of Mercury, and those energies rise from our Chakra Muladhara to our brain, as we have explained in previous lectures. But so this magician, this warrior, is precisely our Spirit, but also us, who needs to fight very hard against our animality, as we have explained previously. We have the Hebrew letter ז Zayin on the top right, which we will be talking about at the end of this lecture. Likewise some astrological symbols relating to Neptune and to Pisces, which we will be elaborating at the end. 
Egyptian Mysticism and Self-Realization
So we explained that the Spirit wants to gain knowledge of himself. He descends from the top of the Tree of Life, down into more complicated levels of matter, energy and perception, until reaching finally this body מלכות Malkuth, represented in the myth of Pistis Sophia, who descends from the Thirteenth Aeon, the unknowable divinity, and enters into levels of matter. But the purpose is that the soul must return inward and upward, back to the source, back to the origin, with knowledge.
We have in the middle of this image, this glyph, Horus, Osiris and Isis. So to talk about the Seventh Arcanum of the Tarot, the law of seven itself, we talk about the meaning or the myth of Horus, Osiris and Isis. Horus is precisely our own inner Spirit, חסד Chesed, whom we have been talking about extensively. He is Horus, אור Aur, the “Light”, for when the book of Genesis states: יהי אור ויהי אור Yehi Aur Va-Yehi Aur: “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). אור Aur is precisely our own inner Spirit, חסד Chesed, “Mercy” in Kabbalah, to translate directly from Hebrew. Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis, and again Osiris-Isis is a reference to the polarity of בינה Binah, which is masculine and feminine. This is the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit is male-female, or if we look at the original Hebrew language, יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim, represents masculine-feminine, and as we talk about the creation of חוה Eve at the end of this lecture, we will see that יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim is masculine-feminine, male-female, represented by אלהים אב Abba Elohim and אלהים אם Aima Elohim, meaning male-female, Father-Mother. So it is the mistake of certain Kabbalists who associate חכמה Chokmah, Christ, as the father, and בינה Binah, as חוה Eve the mother. We find both polarities of אלהים Elohim, יהוה Jehovah, in בינה Binah. אל El means God in Hebrew, אלה Eloah means Goddess, אלהים Elohim means Gods and Goddesses, and as we have talked previously, when a husband and wife unites sexually, they are a divine אלהים Elohim, who can generate light, inside. אל El, אלה Eloah, אלהים Elohim―they are unified within that act. So Osiris-Isis is precisely above, representing the Holy Spirit, the Divine Father and the Divine Mother, whom we can experience in meditation, and through the practices of transmutation that we teach. And from that union of Father-Mother in בינה Binah, through the teachings of דעת Da’ath, sexual alchemy, we give birth to our Spirit, Horus, and our own inner Spirit Horus is the one who has to fight in us, to strive, to go against the grain of our habits. We talk about this trinity, we say, in relation to the Seventh Arcanum. Horus has to go against, in the Egyptian mythology, against Seth, who are the red demons who oppose his mission. So going back to the image of the, or picturing the image of the Tarot of the Seventh Arcanum, this Spirit has to fight against Seth, a representation of ego, egotism, our own individual defects, so that by destroying those defects we liberate consciousness, we free consciousness, and generate more light, so that all of those parts of the soul that have been dispersed in animality and defects can be unified, so that light is pure, individual, integral. That is the meaning of religion, religare, “reunion” with divinity. Osiris and Isis and Horus precisely want us to work, so the inspiration to want to study spirituality, precisely comes from the light, that wants us to study some type of knowledge that is going to help him to reunite all of the parts of the soul, or as Moses was accomplishing in the Middle East, to unite all of the people of Israel, Isis-Ra-El, all of the parts of Isis (the Divine Mother), Ra (the Divine Father), and El (which is Horus). So Moses represents our willpower, as we have taught previously, the spinal column, the sixth letter of Kabbalah. And so Moses was teaching a very profound Egyptian knowledge, about how Horus must fight against Seth, all the egos we carry within. Question: I kind of got mixed up here. Okay, חסד Chesed, the “light,” is that, did you say Horus, or is it… Instructor: Horus Question: H-O-R-U-S? Instructor: Yes Question: “The light”? Instructor: Yes, Horus is our inner Spirit, who is a spark of light that emanates from Isis-Osiris, Father-Mother. The Law of Seven
The number seven is interesting because it is the number of battles. Also, it is the number of organization, in principle. So we have the seven notes of the lyre of Orpheus, the seven chakras of the spinal medulla. We have seven colors of the solar prism, seven planets, seven Archangels, seven dimensions, seven bodies that we have to elaborate and create, represented by that Tree of Life on the left. We also have seven serpents of fire, Kundalini, rising up those seven bodies. We also have the seven sacred utterances of Jesus on the cross, relating to the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree of Life: 
מלכות Malkuth: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”
יסוד Yesod: “I thirst.” הוד Hod: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” נצח Netzach: relating to, truly this day, the thief, speaking to the thief: “You will be with me in Paradise.” And then speaking to John and Mary in תפארת Tiphereth, “Mother behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!” גבורה Geburah: relating to “It is finished.” And of course, חסד Chesed: “Into thy hands I commend my Spirit,” because the Spirit is חסד Chesed. So the path of Jesus was represented by Kabbalah, and if we do not study Kabbalah we cannot interpret his teaching. But that is something we will talk about in future courses, the seven utterances of Christ. But I just want to emphasize for you that the number seven is permeated within all religion, in every tradition. It is the law that organizes, which Gurdjieff taught is known as the law of the Heptaparaparshinokh, a very interesting language from the internal planes that is used to denominate that law of organization. Why does seven relate to the law of the Spirit, this battle against oneself? Precisely because the Spirit wants to organize the psyche, because if we look inside, as I mentioned to you, we are תהו ובהו Tohu Vay Bohu, formless and void. We do not have light. We are ignorant. We lack insight. We suffer a lot and we want to know how to change our problems, to solve them. We do that precisely by working with the law of seven, the law of the musical scale. So notice that we have seven notes, and on the right we have these notes listed in detail, in association with different types of human beings. So we can also organize all human beings in accordance with seven categories, relating to the seven notes, Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Si. We talked about the three brains: the intellectual brain, the emotional brain and the brain of movement. Those brains, we tend to use one or another more than the others. We have a dispensation or crutch, based on our habits, that make us use one brain more than another. It is easy to see that some people are more intellectual, some are more emotional, some are more instinctual. So these lower three types of people, we could say, inferior types of people who are not spiritual, they either think too much, they feel too much or they waste their energy. They are disorganized. They are chaotic. So we have to look in ourselves and see, “Which person am I? Am I intellectual, more so, or am I more emotional, or do I abuse my energies, my brain of movement?”―such as people who play sports, emotional people who are actors and actresses, and academics who are intellectual. But these types of people do not really have light inside. To be brilliant intellectually does not mean to have divine intelligence. Neither to have strong sentiment, does it indicate that one is intuitional or divine. Because someone can control the body, physically, dominate the senses, such as with Fakirism, yet this does not signify spiritual willpower. Those austerities that monks or yogis in the East, such as, there was a yogi that raised his hand for ten years and never let it down, as a testament of his willpower, to show that he could dominate his body. To have that type of willpower does not indicate that one is spiritual, because we need to learn to use the three brains in balance, and when we learn to control our psyche, we work with the fourth type of human being, which is related to the note Fa.
So the previous notes, Do-Re-Mi, and then there is a shock here in this image, transitioning from the intellectual type of person to the fourth type, which is a human being who is balanced, who has harmonized all three brains, who is in control of his thoughts, or her thoughts, feeling and action.
We also have exercises such as the runes in which we face the East and we pronounce certain prayers in a yogic posture. “Marvelous forces of love, revive my sacred fires, so that my consciousness will awaken!” We pronounce mantras, “Fa, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fu,” to activate the chakras, working with the seven notes, the seven mantras, to activate our spinal column and those energies. So we find that with the Rune Fah, is what it is called, you make yourself in the position of the letter F, the Nordic letter F, which is the basis of many alphabets in the world. We do those type of exercises in order to spark [snaps fingers] our consciousness. We work with creative energy so that our mind and our psyche become balanced. We awaken our perception. We begin to understand the source of our mental problems, our emotional anguish, and even heal many diseases of the body. Above that we have an individual who has created a solar astral body, someone who has a vehicle that they created in a matrimony. So most of us go in the astral plane at night. We fall asleep and dream at night that we are traveling in that dimension. We may have certain memories of experiences, but not really much cognizance. We tend to travel in those dimensions with lunar vehicles, as I have previously mentioned, vehicles that we receive from nature, which is why they are mechanical. They belong to nature. They are a type of matter or energy that is egotistical, not divine. So they look like phantoms: very black or dark, vaporous, not substantial. But if you meet a master who worked in a matrimony, who has created the solar astral body, they have light. A vehicle is like a light bulb that can transmit the light of divinity, as we have mentioned previously. So the solar astral body is a luxury that few people have, because one has to create that body in a marriage with certain procedures. The solar mental body is likewise a mind, a Christic mind that knows how to follow the concepts or the understanding of divinity, that does not rationalize, but is better said, intuitive. It can understand concepts instantaneously without having to deliberate or form a thesis and antithesis, good-bad, yes-no―mechanical type of thinking. And so the mental body is much more dynamic. Above that we have a solar causal body, a body of willpower, in the world of Nirvana. So we have to be born in those higher dimensions, to be “born again of water and spirit,” as Jesus taught (John 3:5). So the solar astral body is הוד Hod, the solar mental body is נצח Netzach, the solar causal body is תפארת Tiphereth, our willpower, a body, that a soul, that has reached mastery, can incarnate and manifest, a very divine body, very holy and sacred, made from a marriage, as we have said. So I do not want to go further into detail about this, but the law of seven organizes our psyche, our chakras, our bodies, who we are as an individual. We also see that there are seven lower sephiroth on the Tree of Life, and there is a trinity above. So the law of seven that organizes emerges from the law of three, the law of creation as we have mentioned. 
Evolution, Devolution, and Spiritual Revolution
So as I said to you, the law of seven relates to struggle and battles against the ego, but also against sorcerers and demons who try to attempt to stop us in our work. When we talk about the musical scale and how to enter those higher worlds, those higher levels of being, it requires a certain effort, because nature does not automatically guarantee this process through the cycle of evolution.
Many people believe that through evolution we will develop spiritually, mechanically, without any type of willpower. We just go with the flow, but people confuse evolution with the force of devolution, which means to degenerate, to be destroyed. If we have evolution, birth, life, sustenance, growth, you also have destruction, decay, degeneration, devolution. Most human beings are now in a state of devolution, entering to destruction, which is something we want to fight against very hard. Devolution relates to ego, anger, pride, resentment, vanity, all of those elements. 
So we have to go into a type of revolution, to make a war against ourselves, in order to ascend that musical scale. It requires effort through meditation and practice, learning these exercises that we teach in this tradition, so that we learn to maintain the notes of the musical scale, because you may find that it is difficult to practice. We may try to meditate, day by day, and lose the interest or the impulse, the inspiration to do so. So there is a type of willpower needed, represented by the Hebrew letter ו Vav, the spine, the Sixth Arcanum.
So we must learn how to fortify our Spirit. It may surprise some people to think that we have to empower God. It may sound like a blasphemy. If the Being is the Being, why does he need us? Because we are מלכות Malkuth, the physical body, the soul in the physical body, and we are part of the divine. We have to cooperate as the head tells the foot to walk, to obey, to act. And so the Spirit needs us. We have to do our part so that we can help develop the Being inside. So the Being is the Being, and is perfect, but we are part of him, and we have to learn to reunite with him, or her. This is the meaning of religion, as I said. So the number seven is ordeals, difficulties, challenges, struggles, but it always ends in victory, in success. To receive the number seven in a dream is very good. It indicates you are facing certain challenges, but will overcome them. Paul of Tarsus, I believe stated in, 1 Corinthians, Chapter 10 verse 13, about the nature of temptation and trial, and that you will face certain ordeals but with victory in the end. But you can trust God. He will not let you be tempted more than you can bear, but when you are tempted God will also give you a way to escape that temptation, then you will be able to endure it. ―1 Corinthians 10:13
So you can refer to Arcanum 6, as we spoke previously.
Thou art giving me labor, O Lord, and fortitude with it. ―Transcendental Axiom of Arcanum 6 
Conquering the Elements
So the elements I said must be conquered in us. We study five elements, very famously we know, from alchemical tradition, which speaks about fire, air, water and earth, but also Akash. So these elements are known as:
These are Sanskrit terms. The Hindus, the yogis of the East, study this science very deeply, and use these Sanskrit terms to refer to the energies or modalities of forces within nature, which materialize into our physical elements. But more importantly for us, these elements are inside. We are composed of water, of fire, of air, of earth, and also most especially, the synthesis from which all of that emerges: Akash, the Ether. We have different elemental creatures that dwell within the elements themselves, which are studied in certain European traditions and folk tales. We have the Salamanders of the fire, we have the Undines, Nereids, Mermaids of the waters, very well cited within, or the Sirens mentioned in The Odyssey, the book of Homer. You also have the Sylphs and Sylphids of the air, and the Gnomes and Pygmies of the earth. These are elemental creatures or souls that are innocent, that have not reached the humanoid state yet through a process of transmigration. You can speak to the elementals in your meditations and have a face to face conversation in the astral plane, with plants or animals or elemental creatures themselves. They are innocent beings. They have not left עדן Eden yet, we can say. But of course in the Akash, which is the fiery Ether, permeates all of space, a substance that is divine, and which we also carry in the Chakra Muladhara, which we also call Kundalini, or the Alchemists call הזאת Hazoth. So we must learn to work with these elements. We do so by keeping the Sabbath holy. The Jews practice the Sabbath, observances on Saturday to worship divinity through certain rituals and prayers. But if we go deeper, we find that שבת Shabbat related to בת-ש Shin-Beth. ב Beth we talked about in Arcanum 2 and relates to “house,” the house that you inhabit. We also talked about the solar bodies that the soul must learn to create, so that God can inhabit us, to manifest in us. ש Shin as we said is “fire,” so שבת Shabbat is “house of fire.” So the fire that we carry in our house, our physical body, is our sexual energy, the fire which enlivens us to fulfill that act with one’s partner. That fire is the creative energy of the Holy Spirit, the power of Christ, the power of life, or חיה “Chaiah,” as the Jews say, “L’chaim,” “to life,” referring to that energy that can result in procreation or the development of the soul, the Spirit. The Salamanders are precisely also within our creative fires, and we learn to work with these elementals in sexual magic, alchemy. We have the fire within the sexual energy, the Salamanders, who help to burn and incinerate our defects, which are like cages or shells which trap our consciousness, which condition us. The Undines, Mermaids or Nymphs, the Nereids are within our seminal waters. They help to calm the waters of lust, to produce the equanimity of the soul. And of course the elements interact with one another. The breath, our mantras that we pronounce in a matrimony, in the sexual act itself, help to harness those fires and transform them, to raise them up the spine. We pronounce sacred sounds between husband and wife in a marriage, so as to create energy and awaken the chakras themselves, those centers of energy and consciousness that we carry within. And the Gnomes and Pygmies are precisely those elementals who are within the physical matter of our body, who help to extract that golden sustenance, those golden qualities of virtues, which are within the waters themselves, like jewels and gems. To have a dream about pulling out jewels and gems from the waters is very significant. It refers to virtue, truth, and developing the soul. So we work with those elements. Husband and wife must learn to control their breathing in the sexual connection itself, so as not to overstimulate too much fire, because they will end up getting burned, losing those energies, resulting in the orgasm, which in these studies we avoid. Instead we learn to conserve that power, so that the waters, the fire, the air and the earth become rejuvenated, because if you conserve that power and raise it up the spine, it will be like a fountain that flows to eternal life, according to Jesus (John 4). He was with a woman at the well, a Samaritan woman, I do not remember what specific verse or chapter it is, but, the woman was speaking to Jesus and confessing that she had slept with many men, and Jesus had said to her “Truly I can give you a water that will give you eternal life,” and she said “What is this water?” and he says, seemingly to interrupt her: “Go, call thy husband.” But that is the answer, “Call thy husband.” If you work in a marriage, you can work with those waters of divine love and create the soul. So we work with those elements in synthesis, in harmony. All of this is found precisely within our body. The mysteries of alchemy are within us. The mysteries of Kabbalah are inside of us, not outside. The mistake of many people in the past of Europe, of trying to find how to transform lead into gold, physically, is ludicrous, because the real meaning is that we transform the lead of our personality into the gold of our spirituality. Question: This is what Christ meant when said “the kingdom of God is within you”? Instructor: Yes, and the Gnostic Gospels speak abundantly about this too. 
Vitriol
We have a very famous axiom in the kabbalistic tradition, as explained by Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition. He says that, in relation to this image, an alchemical drawing, we have a famous acrostic, which relates to the process and science of alchemy as we are explaining, which are seven letters, Arcanum 7:
Vitriol is one of the clues of the Gnostic Alchemist. The word signifies: Visitam Interiore Terras Rectificatur Invenias Ocultum Lapidum. Visit the interior of the earth, which through rectifying you will find the occult stone. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub
So we see that this image comes from Viridarium Chymicum. It is an anthology of alchemical art by Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg. It is from the 1600s. So the images of alchemy were symbolic teachings about how to work practically, which were given in a manner that was undetected by the fanatics, the orthodoxy, so that they, the initiates, would not be persecuted or killed.
This image details for us a star of seven points, referring to the seven planets of alchemy, which we will be talking about. We also find here the three brains, represented by the manifestation of “Corpus, Anima, Spiritus,” meaning, body-soul-spirit. The sign of Saturn in this bottom arrow points towards Corpus, referring to the שבת Shabbat, the Sabbath, Saturday, Saturn-day, the Seventh day, because by working with Saturn, the Holy Spirit, which that planet relates to the Holy Ghost itself, is how we rectify the earth. We transform our earth. We give sustenance to the stone, which is the cubic stone of the Masons, but also the sacred Kaaba of the Middle East, the sacred stone of Kabbalah itself. By working with that acrostic, “Visit the interior of the earth, which through rectifying you will find the occult stone,” signifies how we, in meditation, go inside, and discover how to use our energies wisely, the stone of יסוד Yesod, which is the sexual energy. So going inside you learn to navigate the darkness of your own chaos, your cavernous mind, your defects, and see that there is an energy that can help liberate you, if you learn to use it appropriately. I had this experience in the astral plane many years ago where, when I was first studying this knowledge, I was directed by a master near my home in the astral plane, to “descend into the earth,” he told me. So I dove into the earth, and my Being transported me to the center, where I entered a cavern with many sepulchers, and of course, they were teaching me that you have to descend into your own chaos, your mind, to face all of the ugliness that you have inside, all of your defects, represented by all of the skeletons and bones and ghouls and remains that were there. In that experience they were telling me the mysteries of Vitriol. By visiting the interior of the earth and by facing yourself in meditation, your defects, you begin to see that, really, the work of the stone is essential, is our foundation―daily practice in mantra or transmutation of that sexual energy. We also, in this tradition, talk about the flaming sword. So Vitriol, the work of the body, the שבת Shabbat, the Saturday, the Seventh day, relates to the mysteries of ז Zayin, the Hebrew letter of the sword. And so ז Zayin is a sword of the Kundalini that rises and aids the warrior against himself. Remember that Achilles went to war against the Trojans, again a symbol of the ego, the war that we face inside, and that sword, and the armor he wears of course protects him, but the sword he uses is that Kundalini power, to face all of his aggregates, his psychological defects. Remember that when Adam אדם and חוה Eve were expelled from עדן Eden, the angels used a sword of fire to push them out, expel them. So it is a symbol of how, any master has that sword developed in their spinal column, perfectly and fully. I would like to relate to you an explanation by a certain alchemist by the name Estolsio, who talked about the meaning of this image specifically, and about the secrecy of the alchemical tradition that we are now unveiling: That which was enclosed within many forms, now you see it included in one thing: the beginning is our Elder (represented by the face of Saturn in the center of this image, the center of the seven pointed star) and he has the key… ―Estolsio
Remember that we talked about the meaning of the key of alchemy in Arcanum 6, how that key represents, that key that we use to unlock the door, ד Daleth, that leads to דעת Daath, sexual knowledge. That is the mysteries of Saturn, the Elder.
…sulfur with salt and mercury give wealth… ―Estolsio
Sulfur is the sexual fire. Salt is the semen itself. Mercury is the energy that we transmute by certain breathing exercises so as to enliven the brain. So mercury gives you wealth.
If you do not see anything here, there is no reason for you to keep searching, for you will be blind even in the midst of the light. ―Estolsio
So many people look to this image and of course did not know the meaning of it, had many interpretations, but now we are giving you the explanation of what they were teaching here.
Alchemically, there are many symbols and images relating to the mysteries of a matrimony. Samael Aun Weor explains in his book Alchemy and Kabbalah, how the Sun is a symbol of the phallus; the Moon is a symbol of the uterus. So male-female together, working with the wind, the breath, as we have said previously―the רוח Ruach, the spirit of God that hover over the face of the waters, רוח אלהים Ruach Elohim, that hovers over the face of the deep, that was filled with darkness, in בראשית Bereshit, Genesis―we work with the wind. And the earth is formed from the void and chaos, which of course represents not only the mind, but also those higher vehicles we talked about, the solar bodies. All of these elements, the sun, the moon, fire, water, wind, air and all of the elements emerge from what we call Akash. Those are different gradations of energy and matter that manifest physically. So we have to work with the chalice of the mind. We do so by working with our energies. We talked about the caduceus of Mercury, a very famous symbol of medicine, how the spinal column is surrounded by two serpents, and those two serpents are precisely Adam-Eve, ו Vav-ז Zayin, male-female. We raise those energies up the spine so that we can awaken the wings of the Spirit, specifically. The Seven Archangels, Planets, Metals, Vices, and Virtues
Let us talk more about the seven planets themselves. There are many correlations that are very interesting and practical, more importantly, to use these for our development. So we have the seven planets, referring to the law of seven, organization.
The alchemists did not strictly believe that there were only seven planets. They knew about all of the other planets of our solar system, but they talk about seven to teach the law of order, of organization, of all the elements that we have to work with. We have the Moon, governed by Gabriel, the metal is Silver. We have Mercury, governed by Raphael, which is Quicksilver or Mercury as a metal. Venus, Oriel, Copper. The Sun, Michael, Gold. Samael, Mars, Iron. Jupiter, Zachariel, Tin. And Saturn, Orifiel, Lead. The planets relate to metals or materials that we can use to fashion pentagrams. So we have certain talismans we create with the seven metals to help charge them with certain energies, to protect us. The seven metals relate to the seven archangels. These metals are like the nervous system of any planet, and those archangels are the intelligences of those planets themselves, and govern those worlds intimately. Practically for us, we also work with the transformation of certain vices and errors into virtues. So we have seven deadly sins, very common in Christianity. We must transform the seven vices into virtues. We must comprehend our defects in order to destroy them, and liberate consciousness, so that we develop those divine qualities within. Lunar avarice is turned into altruism: happiness for others. Mercurial laziness is transformed into diligence, effort, work ethic, willpower. Venusian lust is transformed into chastity, sexual purity, and as we have explained many times, chastity does not mean sexual abstention. It means purity in sex. We have solar pride, which is transformed into humility, humbleness, and faith in divinity. Martian anger is transformed into divine love, conscious love, sweetness, empathy, compassion. Jupiterian envy is transformed into philanthropy, work for others, sacrifice for others. Saturnian gluttony is transformed into temperance, moderation in diet. We have to look inside and examine: what do we carry within? What are our defects?―so that we can learn to develop the virtues that relate to their opposite. These seven planets also relate to kabbalistic symbols, which we will not go into too much detail, but if you want to explore this a little but further, you can access this material on our website. We will say that these symbols have profound meaning. I will mention a few. 
With mercury, we have the caduceus as we have been explaining, the spinal column with the two serpents and the wings of the Spirit, which flourish when we raise the Mercury of our seminal energy to our brain.
The cynocephalus is a creature with the head of a dog, which of course is a symbol of the sexual instinct. The dog in internal language or symbology refers to the sexual energy, which is why we have myths such as Cerberus, who would allow people to enter into the hell realms, but if they wanted to escape, he would fight against them. That is the nature of lust, sexual desire. It will coax you into wanting to enjoy the delights, the pleasures of sex, but if you try to transform lust, it fights against you. It is an animal.
So these symbols are very profound. Venus relates to the sexual lingam, the Hindu symbol of an alchemical marriage (Note the phallic, vertical beam, the Lingam, united with the horizontal, feminine chalice or Yoni).
Related to the Sun, the serpent with a lion’s head. We talked abundantly about the serpent, and the lion is a symbol of the solar divinities, the Lion of Judah, specifically.
The Hebrew Letter ז Zayin
Let us talk about ז Zayin. So ז Zayin is precisely the feminine sexual energy, which is the spiritual soul, known as נשמת Neshamah. We talked about three types of souls previously: נפש Nephesh, רוח Ruach, נשמת Neshamah. נפש Nephesh is animal soul. רוח Ruach is the blaming or introspective soul. נשמת Neshamah is the spiritual divine soul.
So we are נפש Nephesh. We are animalistic with our habits, our defects, our desires. We work with רוח Ruach, which is the spiritual forces in us, in order to control נפש Nephesh. רוח Ruach is known as thinking-emotional soul, the consciousness, our conscience, that tells us “This is right―this is wrong.” “I should do this―I should not do this.” But of course, we are helped by נשמת Neshamah, which is precisely known as the Kundalini power, and in the spirit of this course we have been talking about excerpts from the Hebrew teachings, specifically the Psalms, which in this, verses 49 through 56 all begin with the letter ז Zayin. Previous verses also began with א Aleph, some with ב Beth, some with ג Gimel, ד Daleth, ה Hei, ו Vav, and now we are in ז Zayin. From the Psalms of David: 49. Remember the Word to your servant on which you make me hope;
All this relates to Arcanum 7, war against the ego, and against the black lodge, which is that organization of demons who seek to divert students from Christ, the solar path.
So “it is my comfort in my affliction: For your Word has given me life.” The “Word” comes from דָּבָר Dabar, speech, the Logos―“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God” (John 1:1). This is a symbolic representation of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. ז Zayin begins all these verses, and it is interesting that “Hot zeal has seized me, because of the wicked forsaking your law,” meaning: not fanaticism for one’s religion, but concern and despair when seeing how degenerate humanity is, and the desire to change it, the longing to change it―the works of “the wicked,” the black magicians who seek to persuade one from entering the path, from pursuing the path. 
The Creation of Eve
So the Hebrew letter ז Zayin is precisely the Kundalini power itself, which we have to raise from the sexual organs to the brain, so as to be crowned. And as we will see in our excerpt from the Zohar, Arcanum 7 relates intimately to crowning, as we see in this image, or both images.
On the left we have William Blake’s Creation of Eve, ז Zayin, the feminine sexual power, the Kundalini force, arising from the androgynous Adam אדם, or אדם יהוה Adam Iod-Havah, who is a representation of many things. There are are many levels to read and interpret Genesis. It is not literally a history, but also a psychological, alchemical, kabbalistic teaching. In the past there was a race known as the Lemurians. They were an ancient humanity that existed many ages before ours, physically. That race was androgynous, and the Bible depicts and explains how the sexes split over the process of many millennia, in order to aid those souls to developing their mind, their brain, and also the sexual organs, and those respective sexes, so as to help generate more power. When they would reunite as male-female, they would have certain qualities that they could develop further, that they could not while being androgynous. That is one level of meaning, but Genesis also talks about how we, whether as a man, we need a wife, and if a woman, a husband, because as above so below. As we talked about the Holy Spirit being male-female, to unite with that we need male-female, both forces. So I will read for you a few excerpts from Genesis, and we will talk about some of the kabbalistic meaning of this, how ז Zayin, Kundalini force, emerges within husband and wife, a matrimony: And יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim said, it is not good that Adam אדם should be without help. ―Genesis 2:18
In order so that he could obtain knowledge of himself. Adam אדם can also represent the brain as I have mentioned previously. חוה Chavah can also represent the sexual organs, Adam-Eve, Brain-Sex. So חוה Eve is the sexual organs whether a man or woman, that is one level to interpret it, because Adam אדם has to control חוה Eve. So those millennia of patriarchal discourse that derides woman as being the inferior in the household is wrong because they interpret literally that Ada אדם has to control חוה Eve, but the meaning is that Adam אדם the mind has to control sex, instinct.
So יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim said that Adam אדם, the brain, should not be without help. I will make חוה Havah, Eve, for him [the female sex], a help mate for him. ―Genesis 2:18
So that he can enliven his brain in order to provide it with the sexual energy.
And יהוה אלהים Iod-Havah-Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon [the androgynous] Adam אדם. ―Genesis 2:21
Or Adam-Iod-Havah, the former human being that was male-female.
And he slept, and he took חוה Havah [Eve] from one of those ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof. ―Genesis 2:21
And the rib which יהוה Iod-Havah had taken from Adam אדם and made into woman, and the Hebrew word for woman is אשה Ishah. And so he brought woman unto Adam אדם.
And Adam אדם said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and shall be called woman, because out of man she was taken from. ―Genesis 2:23
It sounds very derogatory to say, when he is referring to his wife, “this is now bone of my bones.” “This”―that is the literal translation, but there is a deeper meaning to this. The Hebrew word is זאת Zoth, ז Zayin-א Aleph-ת Tav. “זאת This shall be called אשה Ishah.” Better said, if we look at the Hebrew, אדם Adam said, “זאת Zoth is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. זאת Zoth shall be called אשה Ishah, because הזאת Hazoth was taken out of איש Ish.” This is the literal meaning of the Hebrew.
איש Ish is fire, that is a masculine energy. אשה Ishah is feminine fire, because if you look at the Hebrew letters, א Aleph again is the wind, the breath. If you look at איש Ish for man, א Aleph-י Iod-ש Shin, א Aleph is the wind, the breath, the prana, the spirit we talked about in Arcanum 1. י Iod is a dot, representing the ovum or sperm, of a man or woman, in this case it is the sperm itself. ש Shin as I said is fire. With woman it is א Aleph-ש Shin-ה Hei, again the breath, the fire, and ה Hei which is the Yoni, the feminine sexual organs. So man-woman, two fires were developed in that ancient epoch of Lemuria, a masculine fire and a feminine fire. But likewise in our psyche we have a masculine energy and a feminine energy, within the two serpents, ו Vav- ז Zayin, the two channels called Ida-Pingala, the solar and lunar currents of energy. But Adam אדם said, “this is now bone of my bones,” “זאת Zoth is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called הזאת Hazoth, because she was taken from out of man.” Again, what is that power that is taken out of the fire of sexual magic? It is the Kundalini. הזאת Hazoth alchemically speaking is a term we use, or the alchemists have used to describe that Kundalini power. As Samael Aun Weor states: The four elements of alchemy are Salt, Mercury, Sulfur and הזאת Azoth. The Salt is the physical matter of the sperm, the Mercury is the Ens Seminis (the energy that we extract from it) and הזאת Azoth is the mysterious ray of Kundalini. ―Samael Aun Weor, Alchemy and Kabbalah in the Tarot
So the sword is precisely that power that we awaken in a marriage, and that through אשה Ishah, so we have איש Ish and אשה Ishah, man-woman, together they become אישים Ishim.
One of our prayers in the Gnostic tradition is: “אישים Ishim assist me in the name of שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai!” Meaning, “the fires of man and woman, help defend me through the power of שׁדי Shaddai,” and we talked in Arcanum 4 that שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai is the sacred name of god in יסוד Yesod, the sexual energy itself, the power of almighty God itself. 
The Purity of the Sabbath: Sexual Alchemy
So I have other things to talk about. I want to refer you to the Zohar specifically, but the thing to remember is that we have to keep the Sabbath holy, the body holy, the fires of our body, our ב Beth, by practicing the mysteries of Saturn, which when we work with a marriage, ז Zayin, we become initiated into the higher dimensions. As we see that נשמת Neshamah in this image on the right, of a woman knighting the hero, the warrior, the soul. We have here גבורה Geburah and תפארת Tiphereth, גבורה Geburah the divine soul, the feminine soul in the Kabbalah, on the middle trinity of the Tree of Life.
Likewise we have תפארת Tiphereth, the human soul, who really is our willpower, of which we are a fraction at this point, that must develop in order to enter into the path of initiation. So she is the one who knights the hero, who crowns him, who glorifies him for the struggles he faces against lust and temptation. This is represented in the book of Genesis by the temptation of Adam אדם and חוה Eve. So I will not go into too much detail. We will give some courses explicitly about that scripture, but in synthesis we find that חוה Chavah was tempted by the serpent. People think there was a literal man and woman in a garden (in Mesopotamia) that ate an apple from a tree and everything went bad. That type of reading is very superficial and very funny, but the meaning is much more deep. It is profound. חוה Chavah is the sexual organs, the “mother of the living.” Adam אדם is your brain. The serpent that is “the most subtle in the field” (Genesis 3:1) is precisely the sexual energy, because the word for “field” is שדה Shadeh, which is where you get the word שׁדי Shaddai, Almighty Living God, שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai, the Amighty Lving God. The power of life that God creates through any initiate is sex, and the serpent is that power that, between husband and wife, tempts husband and wife, whether to control the serpent, raise it up the spine, or to be bitten by the serpent by eating the forbidden fruit, which is the orgasm, to waste that energy, to expel it, because when you expel the powers of עדן Eden, which in Hebrew means “bliss,” “voluptuousness,” you cast yourself out. So Adam אדם and חוה Eve did not get kicked out of עדן Eden. They kicked themselves out, and we do this everyday when ever someone engages in lust. So that is a very simple way to look at it, but Adam אדם and חוה Eve are precisely brain-sex. Comment: Christ, there again said something like “be as wise as serpents.” Somebody in the lodge that I belong to… Jewish-American man… he said “I have a problem.” He said, “Because Christ spoke in parables to the masses, and to his disciples he spoke in the esoteric way.” More and more people today I think are starting to realize, “Wait, there is something even behind this, what Christ said,” and they want to go into that… Instructor: Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Be wise as the Kundalini power, to raise it up the spine, but be innocent as a dove. Be chaste. Be humble. Do not engage in the sexual act as an animal, because you must sanctify the שבת Sabbath, the body, ש Shin-ב Beth, the “house of fire.” To be innocent as a dove is precisely to not cause harm, and we harm ourselves when we ejaculate the energy. We get burned. That is where we get the word “furnace, fornication.” “Thou shalt not commit fornication,” the Sixth Arcanum of the Tarot. But let us talk about the Zohar. Question: I am sorry. So the original sin… does that exist? Instructor: The original sin that originates all of our defects is lust, because when you eat that, when you consummate the sexual act with expelling the energy, you get kicked out of עדן Eden, because that energy is what gives a husband and wife bliss, beauty, harmony, and so we have to control the serpent. Comment: When it is withheld. Instructor: When it is withheld and transformed, because to be abstinent does not help. You have to learn to circulate the energy, which we do through certain exercises. But husband and wife have that dilemma―whenever they connect sexually, if they know this teaching―is to spill or not to spill, to be chaste, harmless as a dove, and wise as a serpent―or not, because you see that in the myth humanity was expelled, and Adam אדם and חוה Eve represent all of humanity who were expelled from that primordial bliss. So the original sin of course is lust, desire. And so by conquering lust, desire, we are crowned, initiated into a higher way of life, represented by נשמת Neshamah knighting the hero. ז Zayin and Initiation in the Zohar
And to talk about the meaning of ז Zayin more in depth, I would like to read for you in synthesis some teachings from the Zohar, which help to explain these principles very well:
Rabbi Shim’on opened: “I have put my words in your mouth (Isaiah 51:16). How vital it is for a human being to engage in תורה Torah day and night! For the blessed Holy One listens to the voice of those who occupy themselves with תורה Torah, and every word innovated in תורה Torah by one engaged in תורה Torah fashions one heaven.” ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 25)
They explain elsewhere that to work with תורה Torah is to work with water, Genesis, which we find in this section of בראשית Bereshit, an explanation of the opening verse of the book of Genesis, that talks about how to work with the creative waters of sex.
So what does it mean “to engage in תורה Torah day and night”? People literally read and think it means to read from the Old Testament, but to engage in תורה Torah is to practice it its principles. So, such as through certain exercises we practice: runes, meditation, mantras, pranayama, sacred exercises of rejuvenation etc. We occupy ourselves in the day, and at night when we are married, we work as husband and wife in the darkness, because from the darkness emerges light. It is how you create the solar bodies, the solar vehicles, in a marriage. So those who innovate תורה Torah, “every word innovated by one engaged in תורה Torah,” the law, the great Arcanum, sexual magic, “fashions one heaven.” You create the heavens in yourself, precisely through working with that sacred Arcanum. We have learned: The moment a new word of תורה Torah originates from the mouth of a human being, that word ascends and presents herself before the blessed Holy One, who lifts that word, kisses her, and adorns her with seventy crowns–engraved and inscribed. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 25)
So someone who innovates a new word of תורה Torah, meaning: to mantralize, to pray, to speak, to connect with divinity in meditation. That prayer, that mantra is acknowledged by divinity and is empowered. As I said to you previously, we have to empower our Being. We have to work with certain exercises so that we help our divinity manifest in us, inside.
This word ascends and presents herself before the blessed Holy One, and again, the word is sexual, that the lord kisses that word. When husband and wife are united and they are pronouncing sacred mantras in the sexual act, their mantras are empowered, because the sexual energy relates to דעת Da’ath, and דעת Da’ath, as we explained, is sexual magic, alchemy, knowledge. It relates to the throat. The throat is the womb, or the uterus of the verb. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). בראשית Bereshit means, when husband and wife unite, they create the heavens within themselves. So we have to lift that word up in alchemy so that He can “adorn her with seventy crowns, engraved and inscribed.” So seventy crowns relates to initiation, seven initiations of fire mentioned in The Perfect Matrimony. That sword that the woman is knighting this man with is precisely ז Zayin, the seventh letter. We have to face seven initiations of fire, which are engraved and inscribed, and as I mentioned to you in Arcanum 2, we have to inscribe in the stone of יסוד Yesod our energies, this work. We have to perfect them, chisel them, so that perfect stone is the foundation of our temple. But an innovated word of wisdom ascends and settles on the head of Tsaddiq, the Righteous One―Vitality of the Worlds. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 25)
So by working with chastity is how we ascend and become Tsaddiqim, the Righteous Ones, Holy Ones, Holy Beings. And that is the “Vitality of the Worlds.” We are referring to יסוד Yesod, the creative energies.
From there, it flies and soars through 70,000 worlds, ascending to the Ancient of Days. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 25)
70,000 refers to the seven lower sephiroth of the Tree of Life, ascending up to the top Trinity, to the sphere known as כתר Kether, which is the Ancient of Days, our Father who is in heaven.
So our mantras help to ascend and reach influence from that sephirah itself. All the words of the Ancient of Days are words of wisdom, conveying supernal, concealed mysteries. When that secret word of wisdom, innovated here, ascends, it joins those words of the Ancient of Days. Along with them, it ascends and descends, entering eighteen hidden worlds, which no eye has seen, O God, but You (Isaiah 64:3) ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 25-26)
So what are these eighteen hidden worlds? We have nine heavens above מלכות Malkuth, and we also have nine hells below מלכות Malkuth, so these are the eighteen worlds. Nine heavens, nine hells.
Emerging from there, they roam until they arrive, full and complete, presenting themselves before the Ancient of Days. At that moment, the Ancient of Days inhales the aroma of that word and it pleases Him more than anything. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 26)
What is that aroma that divinity is most pleased with? It is chastity, sexual purity. When husband and wife know how to connect but not to waste the energies themselves, the divine inhales that aroma, and of course perfume in the ancient temples was very symbolic of working with chastity itself.
Lifting that word, He adorns her with 370,000 crowns. The word flies, ascending and descending, and is transformed into a heaven (because when husband and wife are mantralizing in alchemy, they give birth to the heavens inside themselves, the virtues of the soul).
What are these earths of the living? It is precisely the solar vehicles we talk about: solar astral body, solar mental body, solar causal body―vehicles that we can give birth to so that God can inhabit our house, our psyche. So that is what it means to be a living being. Adam אדם was made into a נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah, “a living soul,” because the spirit of אלהים Elohim, יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim, entered into him.
People think it refers to just some physical man being created from the dust, but it is a symbol of how we create the soul, perfected, inside. That is what it means to be an earth of the living. Then they descend, crowning themselves upon one earth (one initiation we could say, of fire, depending on the sephiroth) which is renewed and transformed into a new earth through that renewed word of תורה Torah. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 26)
So the earth is a new earth. Your body ceases to become sick, full of diseases, old or with problems, because we regenerate through the power of חיה Chaiah, the Holy Spirit, in order to be healed. And when a husband and wife learn to practice alchemy, they conserve their vitality for decades. They become young, healthy.
Concerning this is written: As the new heavens and the new earth that I am making endure before Me… (Isaiah 66:22). The verse does not read I have made, but rather I am making, for He makes them continually out of those innovations and mysteries of תורה Torah. ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 26-27)
“I have made,” you could say, relates to אהיה Eheieh, “I Am that I Am, אהיה אשר אהיה Eheieh Asher Eheieh”―“I will become who I will become.” “I will be within the soul who learns how to be.” So אהיה אשר אהיה Eheieh Asher Eheieh, “I Am that I Am” is the acrostic there. “I have made or I will make,” that divinity will make the soul within us if we cooperate, if we work with our ז Zayin and our ו Vav, our spine and the sexual power of Kundalini.
Of this is written: I have put My words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of My hand, to plant heavens and establish earth (Isaiah 51:16). The verse does not read the heavens, but rather heavens (plural). ―Zohar (Pritzker Vol. 1, p. 27)
There is an alchemical teaching here that is very profound, because when we work with husband and wife, and work with sacred sounds, we are initiated. We are crowned when we learn to create the soul and eliminate defects.
Conclusion: Battles of the Seventh Arcanum
And to conclude this lecture I will mention to you an experience that I had that helps to clarify some of the principles of Arcanum 7 with the Zohar. I mentioned to you that Arcanum 7 is struggle, ordeals, battles that you have to face against your own desires, but also against the influences of witches and sorcerers.
I remember many years ago I had an experience where I overcame a certain ordeal in the astral plane, and my Spirit showed me an instructional video. He was teaching me about Arcanum 7, and about certain people who enter these type of studies. He said that, “Out of 70% of those who masturbate, 5% of them have gender problems.” Of course it is not a literal statistic. It is something symbolic. Arcanum 7 means people who are learning to strive against their defects. Those who enter these studies but still struggle with the vice of masturbation, out of karma, Arcanum 5, many of them will develop gender problems, meaning: that is how you become homosexual. That is how you lose your sexual attraction for the opposite sex, is by copulating with one’s own sexual organs, copulating with the same sex. Masturbation we strictly speak against. Really, the word is from the Latin “manstuprare,” coming from “manus,” hand, and “stuprare,” meaning “defilement.” And as the Book of Leviticus teaches us, if you have an emission of semen, you must bathe yourself in water and be unclean until even (Leviticus 15:16)―evening, Lailah. You have to face the demon לילית Lilith, your own lust in those infernal dimensions, and until you are clean of that element you will continue to have that desire for masturbation, or lust. “Stuprare” also means, not only defilement, but “dishonor; to be dishonored by ones own hand.” Likewise “stupere” which means “to be stupid.” So we said that the power of the Holy Spirit, intelligence, בינה Binah, gives one divine cognizance. It illuminates the brain. But if we expel the semen then we are impoverishing our brain. The brain languishes for want of that energy. There are many people, many demons with very sharp intellects. They develop the intellect in that way, but it is really, in the spiritual sense, very stupid, because that is intelligence within hell, not in heaven. We have to learn to overcome those habits [See "How to Overcome Masturbation"], and so my Being was teaching me in order to teach other people that, out of 70% of those who are masturbators, 5% become homosexual, become gay. And by this we do not speak with hatred towards gays, but we are pointing out that, if you want to create spiritually, you need husband and wife, both polarities. You need them both (See “Is Gnosis Anti-LGBTQ?”) In this experience, later I was warned. I intuitively knew that I was going to be attacked. So I was walking up to my bedroom, and it was very dark. It was around four in the morning in the astral plane, and I sensed that there were some sorcerers outside my window who wanted to get in, who were about to attack me.
In that moment I grabbed my solar plexus, and I reached out my hand, and started reciting the Conjurations of the Four:
Caput mortum, imperet tibi dominus per vivum et devotum serpentem!
These prayers that we pronounce in Latin to reject negative forces. So this is a big battle that happened in the astral plane, but I was helped. I was conjuring these seven or twelve men that were coming into my home. I do not know how many there were in detail, but there were many. So my Being was giving me power to reject those demons, because I was overcoming certain ordeals. That is why divinity helped me to fight back. And there were bombs and explosions going on as a result of the conjurations that my Being was using through me to reject these entities.
So it was a very violent experience, and afterward I remember, I returned to my bedroom and my Being was there, who kept crowing me with laurels. So going back to the Zohar, “you will be crowned with 370,000 crowns,” so overcoming those ordeals against the black magicians, you get adulated. The Being praises you, but I do not take credit, because only the Being is powerful. So 370,000 crowns, again and again and again and again. So I was being knighted. It is something that you would experience when you learn to first be chaste, and then as you are working in yourself, the demons will come after you, because if you are fornicating then, they say, “Well, you are just one of us, so it does not matter.” So again, referring back to the Zohar, they quoted Isaiah 51:16: “I have put My words in your mouth.” The word of יהוה Jehovah says, “I put My words in your mouth.” So God was speaking through me, and I was, really, fighting these entities, rejecting them. So again, Arcanum 7 relates to the 370,000 crowns. Three relates to the Trinity, the power of the Holy Ghost, the three pointed trident of Neptune, which is the power of the waters. And seven of course relates to the ordeals and battles we have to face against the black lodge. So to conclude this lecture we will give you a few practices that you can use, so that you can develop your potential. We have the seven vowels that we use in our runic exercises, which are the vowels, I E O U A M S. So with the mantras you prolong the vowels so that you awaken the chakras of the seven centers in the spinal column.
The vowel I relates to the chakra of the crown, and the third eye, to give you the names out loud, Chakra Sahasrara in the crown, Chakra Ajna in the third eye.
The vowel E relates to the throat, the Chakra Vishuddha. The vowel O relating to intuition, the heart, relates to the Chakra Anahata. We have the Chakra Manipura in the solar plexus, the vowel U. And the vowel M relating to the prostate or the uterus in a woman, the Chakra Svadhisthana. And the vowel S, the sexual fire, relates to the base of the spine, the Chakra Muladhara. So you can pronounce those seven vowels:
Those are the seven vowels you can pronounce before you meditate, so that you will awaken the powers of the seven chakras themselves, because those mantras help to awaken those centers.
You can also pray the Pater Noster very deeply, and with a lot of cognizance. So this is a prayer that many people recite, and it is a beautiful prayer, but it is more important to do it consciously in meditation. Samael Aun Weor states that we should pronounce these seven petitions of the Our Father, for an hour long, so it should be very deep and prolonged, very concentrated. Seven verses: 1 – Our Father, Who art in heaven
You can also say: “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.”
Or you can even do the Latin, even more powerful, “PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.” Latin as a mantric language is very powerful. You can invoke very divine forces that way. So you can pray that for an hour long if you want. Any questions? Questions and Answers
Question: Just something I might add when you talked before about retaining the semen. Max Heindel again said, “Keep the seed within.” I’ll never forget that. The other thing is, as far as technique to help raise Kundalini, can you pronounce a mantram together with pranayama?
Instructor: Some pranayamas are structured that way, like Christic Egyptian Pranayama in The Yellow Book, that Samael Aun Weor wrote. You pronounce certain mantras mentally when you are inhaling the air through the nostrils. TON, inhaling through the left nostril. You close the right with your thumb, inhale through the left nostril, inhale, mentally pronouncing the mantra TON. Question: Mentally? Instructor: Mentally. Hold both nostrils closed, send the prana down, the energy to your coccyx. Do the mantra SAH. Exhale through the right nostril, and pronounce the mantra HAM. And you can read more about the specifics of that. You inhale again through the right nostril. TON, close your nostrils and pronounce the mantra RAH as you send the energy down to the coccyx, and then exhale through the left nostril, HAM. Question: I thought it was just alternating, going back and forth. You are mentioning now about holding both nostrils? Instructor: Yes, because when you do the pranayama, you inhale the energy. You hold it. The retention is very important, because when you inhale you are sending the energy into your body. You close the nostrils and then you mentally pronounce that mantra, SAH or RAH, depending on which current you are working with. Question: While you are holding it? Instructor: While you are holding it. So TON, inhale. Hold: SAH. Send the energy down to the coccyx while mentally pronouncing the mantra SAH. Exhale through the right nostril, HAM, as you mentally pronounce that. And then inhale, TON, RAH, HAM. Question: This is in The Yellow Book? Instructor: Yes So pranayama is very excellent for transmuting energy, which we will be giving a lecture about that too. Do you have any other questions? Question: Why do you think, symbolic numbers and symbols and allegories used throughout all these ancient texts, instead of just coming out and just saying it? Are we here to just figure this out like a game? Is this what this all is, is to figure this out? Instructor: Well, divinity speaks in the language of parables. Like I gave you that experience, he said “Out of 70% of those who masturbate, 5% have gender problems.” So he was not giving a literal statistic, but symbolic. So the symbolism there, God speaks in symbols because you can get a lot more accomplished that way, rather than talking plain English. In past ages those scriptures that were given in that language for those initiates who already knew the science, who could interpret it correctly, and those who did not know, who were degenerate, would just be lost in the wayside. Like that image of the Viridarium Chymicum. I cannot remember the name of that, but it was the alchemical image I showed you previously of the seven pointed star, in where the man said, Estolsio said “If you do not know what any of this means, it does not even matter,” is what he was saying at that time. But the thing is we are in a different age now. We are in the age of Aquarius, the age of the dissemination of knowledge. So now this teaching has to be made explicit, for people to benefit, because the white lodge is opening the doors and saying, you know, “There really is not much time for humanity, but we want to help.” Comment: Yeah, the word apocalypse actually means the unveiling of truth, in Greek. Instructor: And we face our own inner apocalypse through going through Arcanum 7. So like that experience I gave you, you have to fight against yourself, because in that experience in the dream I had to overcome certain ordeals in the astral plane, and that is why divinity, my Being, my Spirit came to me and said, “Here is an experience to teach you more.” And then you have to fight against the demons who are against you, to try to stop you from changing. Question: So, like these religions that do not teach what you are teaching, do they just not know or?… Instructor: In most cases they do not know. Question: Are people purposely putting that out there, where it is like, it is kind of disinformation? Instructor: Well, there is a lot of ignorance, but there are people who are trying to cause a lot of confusion intentionally. Question: And then as far as symbols, if you noticed like, I learned this in the past, the symbol for the money symbol, are they mocking, you know, because the money symbol is the snake and the pillars, are they mocking it? The same with the number 7 they put in casinos. Are they mocking this? The dark occultists, they know this knowledge. Are they saying, and they use the word ISIS for different factions in the Middle East and all that? 
Instructor: There is a lot of correlation that is going on. Samael Aun Weor says that the number of the black lodge is 777, which if you add those numbers together you get 21, Arcanum 21, which is the Fool of the Tarot. We call it transmutation, but also it is the fool who is walking over an alligator in the card, who is being threatened to be swallowed. So that is his own lust and his own defects threatening to devour him in the abyss.
And the Hebrew letter associated with the fool is ש Shin, fire. So a Fool of the Tarot is one who gets burned by lust, symbolized by the bohemian, or La Bohème by Puccini. So in that opera, Puccini was teaching how, there were these poor artists who were in the cold freezing in winter time in Paris, or wherever they were, and they said “Oh, let’s get a few moments of warmth...” Rodolfo was working on a poem that he composed for many hours, and they said, “Let’s burn it for a few moments so we can stay warm.” So this is the idiot who takes his livelihood and is burning it away, and that is a symbol of how we kill ourselves with lust. Through ש Shin, you get burned. You become a fool, a bohemian. So in the end, if you watch that opera, it does not have a good ending. People love it. It is a beautiful opera but, they do not see the tremendous warning that it has for individuals. And we will watch that opera here too, and talk about it. It is very beautiful. Comment: Most people are not aware of the occult implications of these operas. Instructor: So we will be giving, we will be watching those here and talking about them. Puccini was a Freemason (See The Secret Teachings of Opera). Question: You speak of desire. There are some good desires right? Altruistic, and you wish good for people? But… Instructor: We could say it is a semantic thing really. We say, technically, desire is ego, because desire says, “I want. I crave. I want this. I want to have this,” but many poets like Rumi use the word, when they translate from Arabic, they use desire, or love, مَحَبَّة maḥabba in Arabic, which is where you get the word hubb, or you can get words for water. There are many correlations between love and water specifically. But desire is egotism, in strict technical language, but there are many people who say, “I desire, I long to know divinity.” So longing―we change the words, we say longing, yearning―is a conscious quality. But strictly speaking, desire is when you say that “I really want something. I need this. I want this.” Ego is desire. Comment: But you are talking about, you mentioned there is right and wrong desire… Instructor: Yeah, well the real, you could say, better desire is longing. You long in your soul to change. That is a yearning or aspiration in the heart. It is a very divine quality. We need that. That is how you work with your ז Zayin, face the temptations, and yearn to change, to keep your Sabbath holy. Question: So all of those teachings... “I am that I am”… and then you pronounce what you want to be so that you can get exactly that, that is not true? That is not accurate? Instructor: They can get what they want, for sure, but usually doing what the ego wants. Better said: “What I want… what I desire”―we call egotism. “What I want” is, or “what my ego wants,” is negative, is “I go against my soul.” For Gnostics, we “go against our own defects, our desires.” To say that “I want this, I want that, and then I am going to do this practice to get what I want,” we say is negative. We should instead work for other people. Let us help others with what they want. Let us help “us” instead of “I, me, myself,” because we have a lot of ego in these times. So those teachings that say “I am,” are negative―like Joel Olsteen or a few other people who say: “become a better you.” I am sorry Joel, I have to politely disagree. “I Am” only can be said by divinity. אהיה Eheieh, the Being, says, “I Am that I Am.” We are not the Being. We are just the soul who has to work. So “I am not, because my Being is,” and “I am filled with ego, therefore I am not.” “But when I die to all my desires, it is not what I want, but the Being will be manifest in me.” So I would not say, get lost in the language, but, those teachings that say, “get what you want” is really marketing to our desires, our defects. So “become a better you,” is mistaken, since you cannot get better, meaning: your egotism cannot get any better. You have to eliminate that. So if you as a soul want to be purified, be content with becoming nothing, so that your Being can manifest in you fully. That is the teaching of the Sufis. Sufis teach you that you must fulfill fana, annihilation of the ego, so that you can have baqa, subsistence in God. You cannot be in God if you are filled with ego, if you have desires that say: “I want this, I want that.” Comment: It is interesting you say that because I think Steiner said when you are doing that, emptying yourself of that ego, you are creating a space for divine force to come into you. Instructor: Great, because Samael Aun Weor says, “God searches the nothingness in order to fill it.” So your mind has to be empty so that the plenitude of divinity can manifest, and then there will not be “you” anymore. There will only be “Him,” and that is really the beauty and the bliss that we seek. Question: So you use that in the context of, for example, in meditation saying “I am blessed. I am full. I am content.” Is that also wrong? Instructor: Well, we have certain prayers that we use that are similar to that, except we say “We are strong. We are rich. We are full of luck and harmony.” Because Samael our teacher says, “I” has little force, but “we” has a lot. So you gain more power that way. “We” is a universal consciousness: “We are strong, we are rich, we are full of luck and harmony,” so that principle is the same thing. You are seeking to empower your consciousness, but, one is “I, myself,” but another is “we,” and to consider others is really the highest form of consciousness we can have. So that is an exercise you can look at in a book called Introduction to Gnosis… Question: Should we try not to, in conversation, try not to say “I”… Instructor: No, you do not want to be unnatural. You do not want to be unnatural. Just say, “Yeah, I feel this, I feel that,” but when you need to interact with people, and you are working with your meditations and you are working on your ego, you learn to see other people’s minds very clearly. And you learn to see how you interact with people. More importantly, you see how you interact with other people, and you find that there is a struggle there, because you will find that certain thoughts want to emerge to say something at the time, which you can sense are wrong. Therefore you are working with Arcanum 7. You are struggling against negativity. So you have to observe in yourself, what elements are pushing you to act in certain ways, and when you see them, when you sense that intuitively, “this is right, this is wrong,” then you know how to navigate the labyrinth of other people’s minds so that you can earn your daily bread. Do what you need to do, because we need to learn how to work in this physical plane and with conscience, with the wisdom of a serpent and the innocence of a dove. Comment: A lot of the new age books they say, only focus on happy thoughts, but you know, I think it is only, it is really, do not focus on thoughts at all, because a happy thought is going to come and then go, and then a negative thought is going to come in, and a happy thought. Just erase all thought! Instructor: Well, here is the thing, the Sufis have very interesting ways of analyzing this. They talk about different types of thought. There is some, I do not remember the Arabic that they use, but, khatir is the word for thought. There is thoughts that belong to the ego, and there are types of insights or intuitions that come from God―some that come from your consciousness, some that come from an Angel, some negative influences that come from demons, and you will sense that as you awaken your consciousness. But most of the thoughts we have are ourselves, 97% of what we go through is just our own mind churning garbage in the intellect, but that is why we say in meditation, stop thinking. Do not force your mind to not think, but just observe your mind, and as it is doing its thing, it is going to exhaust itself, like a person talking to a wall. The mind is like that. It just talks and talks and talks and talks. It does not stop. The thing is, do not repress it. Do not push it, but you strive against it by comprehending it. That is the meaning of Jihad, holy war. It does not mean to repress your mind or be violent, but in a state of equanimity and dispassion, you learn to see the root causes of your defects, and look in them, and see them, where it is coming from, and then as you comprehend more and more the mind settles of its own. Comment: Yeah, through my own experience I could say this, if you just take that drive out to nature, you will see your thoughts plummet. It is amazing. I went to a friend’s cottage in Wisconsin and it was like, “Wow, where did all my thoughts go?” Instructor: And when you are out in nature too, learn to do the runic exercises as we teach. So the yogic postures, sacred rites of rejuvenation, mantras in open nature, that is how you assimilate the power of the Undines, the Nereids, the Gnomes, the elementals. And that is how you can learn to empower and strengthen yourself, so when you come back to the city, back to the abyss, you could say, you can face all the chaos again. That is how you wage war with ז Zayin, working with your spine. Single people can work, awaken sparks of that Kundalini power, sparks of ז Zayin you could say. Only a husband and wife can fully develop that. Comment: You mentioned also intuition, like you are in these scenarios, like everyday, someone is saying something negative, and you know, you can rise above it. In other words―and I am going to explain it―you do not have to go into a dialectic. These things happen. If something is going on, an argument, a negative situation, you know, for way too long, you might go into a dialectic or something… Instructor: Well yeah, arguing. Question: Intuition helps, you know right away what to do, what to avoid, when to keep quiet, so we can avoid a negative situation, if you develop that intuition, right? Instructor: Yeah, and that is how you are successful in battle, by not fighting. So a real warrior of a spiritual type is one who has a mind that is fully in equanimity, because when your mind is calm and you are working with your intuition, then you can disarm certain situations very well.
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One can hardly attain to this degree [of vigilance and comprehension of divinity] until one has emptied oneself through muhasabah, self-observation and inner accounting. The person who has taken account of what he has done in the past and improved his state in the present has attached himself to the path of the Truth. In this relationship with God Most High, he has learned how to keep a heedful heart. He has guarded his breaths for God [through pranayama] and turned his attention to God in all his states. So he knows that God is watchful over him―close to his heart, knowing his states, seeing his acts, hearing his words. Whoever is neglectful of all this is far from the beginning of contact―how far, then, from the realities of nearness to Him? ―Al Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
We’re continuing our course on the science of meditation, specifically outlined within the eightfold steps of yoga as described by Patanjali.
So far we have discussed Yama and Niyama, restraint and observances, as well as asana, posture. Yama, known as restraint or ethics, signifies “to yoke, harness, or control” the mind. Niyama means precepts, ethical discipline, trainings or observances by which the consciousness controls the mind and develops serenity. Stability of mind is achieved when we learn to stop performing harmful actions, which produce disturbances in the mind with all its negative consequences. To have a body that is suitable for meditation, we must cease agitating the body, and to have a body that is receptive and pliant, suitable for our meditative discipline, we must cease agitating the mind. Our physicality manifests the conditions and influences of the mind, the psyche. If our mind is filled with desire, with egotism, with negativity, it will be impossible to learn meditation, since the body will be tense along with our intellectual and emotional centers. To engage in fruitless activities, to commit theft, murder, acts of violence and anger within our consciousness, disturbs the mind and body. Hence the need for restraint of mind, to stop harmful mental, emotional, and physical actions. Many people do not believe that they kill, but it is very true that when one is consumed by anger, by malice, one is killing one’s neighbor through the emotional center. Likewise, people may not steal physical things, but energy, attention, to feed one’s vanity. While many devotees believe that the different commandments of religions focus on outward behavior, such instructions more importantly relate to the consciousness, to psychological states of being, which we must work upon to achieve true change. Hence the need for precepts, codes of spiritual conduct that help to develop the virtues and positive qualities of the consciousness. Ethics is developed by comprehending and working with the law of karma: cause and effect. Negative actions from the ego produce suffering, while positive actions from the consciousness produce equanimity. It is impossible to meditate with a chaotic mind, and it is impossible to develop serenity if you are feeding your egos every moment of the day through identification. What does it mean to identify? It means that you, as a free consciousness, give your energy to whatever defect takes over the five centers of your human machine: intellect, emotions, movement, instincts, and sex. When anger emerges, you as a consciousness think and feel that you are that anger. You invest it with energy and power. You fortify and empower it by thinking and saying whatever that sense of “I” wants in a given moment, until another ego emerges in reaction to fluctuating external circumstances. Feeding the ego produces pain, since the “I,” desire, is a condition, a conglomeration of shells, a state of suffering that traps our full conscious potential. To restrain our mind from doing what it wants every second of the day is the work with ethics. It is knowing how to consciously work with the law of cause and effect. As we explained in the previous lecture on “Ethics, Karma, and Interdependence,” how you behave in body, speech, and mind determines the quality of your life. Disciplining the lower self, the ego, desires, or nafs within Sufism, is the definition of the spiritual path: The lower soul (nafs, which etymologically signifies ‘breath’) is always engaged in inspiring your imagination to pursue evil acts or thoughts, every moment striving to cast you down into the abyss of pride, hypocrisy, and egotism. Each moment thus demands that you overcome and repulse such evil thoughts and false conceptions, constantly regaining your faith afresh and reaffirming your belief, and never imagining yourself safe from the lower soul’s deceit even for a second. ―Lāhījī, Mafātīḥ
Nafs in Arabic means “breath, vitality, vigor, or soul.” The egos, nafs, or desires within us have trapped or conditioned our essence, our consciousness. Every ego, defect, or desire, traps the energy of the consciousness within states of suffering. Every naf, like anger, pride, fear, laziness, gluttony, etc., squanders the energies of the psyche in atomic explosions of hatred, lust, and desire.
Meditation begins when we learn how to stop wasting energy: mental, emotional, volitional, sexual. You enact the initial stages of ethical discipline when you, as a consciousness, are observing your mind, heart, and body, your egos, seeing them as something inferior and separate from your consciousness. The deeper part comes through transformation, when you consciously choose not to give your ego what it wants. It is essential to develop the sense of self-observation in a very clear and strong manner, to be able to separate from the “I” in all its tenebrous multiplicity, to see and watch our defects in action, and to not act upon their impulses no matter how strong. Each ego is a false identity, a false sense of self, which has nothing to do with our spiritual nature. The “I” has nothing to do with the Being, as well as the unconditioned, free consciousness. Each ego or false sense of self has trapped our consciousness, and now it is our work to extract the consciousness trapped in those errors by comprehending our defects and eliminating them. The nafs, lower selves, or different “I’s” within us are the infidels mentioned throughout the Qur’an, Islam, and Sufism. 
There are two types of warfare (jihad): outward and inward. The outer battle is against the infidel (kāfar, or black magicians in the astral and mental planes) while the inner war is waged aggressively against the lower soul (nafs). Warriors of the sword are threefold: the slayer who is rewarded, the battle-weary vouchsafed forgiveness of sins, and the martyr who is slain. Likewise, the warriors of the soul are threefold: one who exerts himself who belongs to the just and the pious (abrār), one who excels in struggle who sustains the spiritual hierarchy (awtād), and one who is victorious, who is numbered amongst the apostolic saints (abdāl). One who wages war against the unbelievers (fornicating black magicians, the infidels) obtains wealth, but one who wages war against the soul is enriched with the wealth of the heart… The Prophet called the war against the lower soul (nafs) the “greater war” because, while one may avoid conflict with an external foe, none is exempt from the struggle against, and combat with, the lower soul. Peace can be secured from all enemies through negotiation or conciliation, but if one attempts to negotiate and reconcile the [lower] soul, one is doomed to perdition. ―Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār, IV 60
Samael Aun Weor wrote that we must be compassionate to all beings, even towards the sorcerers and demons of the black lodge, but merciless to our ego. If you ever give what your ego wants, you deepen your suffering. When you do not give your ego what it wants, you experience happiness. This is karma in action.
When you don’t give your anger what it wants by identifying yourself with its thoughts, desires, and impulses, you save energy; you become hermetically sealed. Remember that in any moment, a sense of self, a false identity emerges within your mind, heart, and body that wants to push you to think, feel and act a certain way. If you as a free consciousness are vigilant, watchful, you perceive these false, multifarious identities within you. The more you, as a consciousness, restrain the mind from acting in harmful ways, by learning to see the egos in action, the more psychic energy you save. Likewise, the less you identify with any ego or defect, the more energy you save, and the more serene your mind becomes. Energy is essential for spiritual life. If you are wasting your energy through negative behaviors, thinking, and sentiments, you will never learn to meditate. But when you restrain the mind and follow the precepts of meditative discipline, you enter the doorway into genuine self-knowledge, because you have energy available to empower the consciousness and relax the body and mind. Our asana, meditative posture, is based on how we fulfill Yama and Niyama, restraint of mind or ego, and observances. Swami Sivananda wrote that our asana should be like a mountain, immovable, firm. If your mind is restless and agitated from desire, your body will not be able to sit still. If you are constantly moving during your practice, then you are not practicing at all, because any physical movement agitates the mind and its energies, preventing you from going deep into the consciousness to receive the imagery of the internal worlds. And if you have no energy with which to meditate, you will fall asleep in your posture if you are too comfortable. Your posture should help you relax, but to the point that you maintain conscious remembrance of what you are doing at all times. If your posture is too comfortable but your consciousness not alert enough, then laziness kicks in and you fall asleep, such as when you lie down to practice. This is not meditation, and this is why we recommend that students in the beginning practice sitting up, either in the Western style, in a chair, or on a meditation cushion in a half-lotus or full lotus, if your body is flexible enough. The point is that your posture should be relaxed and firm to the point that you are perfectly at ease and can remember what you are doing consciously, that you maintain your ability to focus and remain attentive. Your asana needs to be comfortable to the point that you can forget the body and work with the subtle energies of the mind and heart. By fulfilling the restraints and observances of meditative discipline, and to aid in the relaxation of body and mind, we work with pranayama. By conserving our energies and transforming them, we harness the power of the soul with our breath, since the Arabic word nafs means “soul” as well as “breath,” and is modified into different types of expression in accordance with Kabbalah. Inspiration, nafas―literally “breath,” also “breathing space” or ample room―is the refreshment of hearts by the subtleties from the Unseen. A person who receives inspiration [from learning to aspire, or inspire, to inhale the vital breath through pranayama] is finer and clearer than a person who is open to mystical states [who is intuitive to a degree, but who does not practice this technique]. The person of the momentary inner experience is the beginning [meaning: the one who practices mindfulness, self-observation, and self-remembering], the inspired person is at the conclusion, and the person of [internal, psychological and spiritual states born from practice] is between the two. The states are means and inspirations are the end of progressive development. Moments belong to those who have hearts, states belong to those who possess spirit (ruh) [or Ruach], and inspirations belong to the people of inner being (sirr) [the Innermost Self / Atman]. The Sufis have said, "The best act of worship is the count the breaths along with God Glorified and Exalted.” ―Al Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
This lecture will explain the purpose of pranayama, how to practice it, and how it is taught within the teachings of Sufism, the writings of Swami Sivananda, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and the doctrine of Samael Aun Weor.
Prana, Transmutation, and Brahmacharya
To control the mind, we work with its energies, which constitute different modifications of prana. Prana, in Sanskrit and hatha yoga, relates to the breath, to breathing, the air. Pranayama etymologically signifies, “to harness the wind” or “yoke” the life forces of the body.
Prana is much more profound than just breath. It is the force of “life, spirit, energy, and vitality” within air and our physical body. Prana is the life-force of divinity that we assimilate through our breathing, and which we find condensed and modified within the different elements of the cosmos and of nature.
Pranayama also is described within the gnostic tradition by the term transmutation, which is “The action of changing or the state of being changed into another form.”
Within our body is the most potent force of the universe, the sexual energy, the capacity to create life, which is found in a germinal state within the physical semen. This physical matter or semen can be used to create a physical child, but in spiritual sadhana, spiritual practice, we conserve the semen and transform this matter into energy, precisely through the exercise of controlling our breath, being fully concentrated, prayerful, and attentive, with the mind restrained. As described in the book of Genesis, the spirit or breath of God hovered over the face of the waters. What spirit? The Ruach Elohim in Hebrew or ruh in Arabic, otherwise known as prana in Sanskrit, the divine forces that generate life. The prana, the energies of divinity, can be directed to yoke the sexual waters in our body, to transform that water into light. For as Genesis teaches us, “God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light.” That light is consciousness and comprehension in meditation. The word trans is a prefix used with the meanings such as “across,” “beyond,” “through,” and “changing thoroughly.” Mutation comes from mutate, “to change or cause to change in form or nature.” Transmutation is the science of changing the sexual water into light, carrying it up within our spine to the brain, mutating that semen into energy. This is accomplished through yoking the vital winds, the energies of our breath, mind, body, heart, and semen. Prana is not only in the air, but in all the elements of nature and our body, within the aerial nature of our thoughts, the fires of our emotions, and solidity of our physical earth or body, and most importantly within the waters of our sexual organs. Prana condenses into multiple forms of matter and energy, most importantly sexual, which we transmute from the physical, brute semen, to feed our consciousness with light. It’s important to remember that it is impossible to develop the consciousness without energy, and that the most important form of energy is sexual. Sexual energy is prana, the “vitality, power, vigour, and life” that can awaken our full potential. The word prana bears similar etymological meaning as the Arabic word for soul, nafs, which can be lower [egotistical] or higher [conscious] depending on our work. How we harness energy is determined by the quality of practicing pranayama. It’s interesting that the term prana can signify the sexual organs, which demonstrates that to work with pranayama is to control the creative energy and use it for our spiritual development. This is why chastity is emphasized by Patanjali, the yogis, and all genuine practitioners of every spiritual tradition. Chasity means restraint and transmutation of the sexual energy, the prana. This science has been known by the term Brahmacharya in the East, which is a Sanskrit word composed from:
Everyone in these times want to know how to meditate, but when instructed to restrain and control the sexual energy, to restrain the lower selves, egos, nafs, or desires, they run away. This is sad, because without harnessing the vital winds, the sexual energy, without going against the grain of one’s habits, one cannot learn meditation. To feed desire, our egos, lust, through identification, produces suffering. By expelling the very energies that can give life, we hinder our spiritual life. Meditation is impossible for individuals who have no prana, no energy, in their body that can empower the consciousness. Brahmacharya literally means Achara or conduct that leads to the realization of Brahman or one’s own Self. It means the control of semen [the sexual matter within both men and women], the study of the Vedas (scriptures, as well as the sexual teachings of any religion) and contemplation on God. The technical meaning of Brahmacharya is self-restraint, particularly mastery of perfect control over the sexual organ or freedom from lust in thought, word and deed. ―Swami Sivananda
The beginning of the path of meditation is to restrain the sexual energy, to not expel it in any form whatsoever. This energy must be conserved and transformed to give us spiritual life. Lustful people who ejaculate the sexual energy have no energy with which to calm the mind and learn meditation.
The scripture Siva Samhita describes seminal retention and transmutation as the basis of all meditative realization: Ejaculation of semen [orgasm] brings death, preserving it within brings life. Therefore, one should make sure to retain the semen within. One is born and dies through semen; in this there is no doubt. Knowing this, the Yogi must always preserve his semen. When the precious jewel of semen is mastered, anything on earth can be mastered. Through the grace of its preservation, one becomes as great as me [Shiva]. The use of semen determines the happiness or pain of all beings living in the world, who are deluded [by desire] and are subject to death and decay. ―Siva Samhita
Feeding desire, lust, only agitates the mind and psyche, for as Padmasambhava explained to Lady Tsogyal:
Lustful people do not enter the path of liberation. ―Padmasambhava to Lady Tsogyal
This is of course the difficult thing, but fundamental to any progress.
Junayd was asked: "What is union with God [religion, religare, Yoga]?" He replied: "To renounce passion [fornication: the animal orgasm]," for of all of the acts of devotion by which God's favor is sought none has greater value than resistance to passion, because it is easier for a man to destroy a mountain with his nails than to resist passion [fornication]. ―Al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub, Revelation of the Mystery
The next steps include controlling lust in the heart and mind, which is of course more difficult. Students must fight against adulterous and lustful tendencies, the desire to look at the opposite sex with desire. As Jesus taught:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. ―Matthew 5:27-28
First we conserve the sexual energy, learn to transform it in our body. With further discipline we no longer entertain lustful thoughts and desires in the heart. Pranayama is especially important for controlling lust, because if the consciousness has no energy, it has no strength by which to work against the monsters of desire. Pranayama will help you to acquire energy by which you can comprehend and annihilate the ego. As described by the ancient teachings of Manu:
Let the defects be burnt up by Pranayama. ―Manu
Students are therefore taught, within ethical discipline, not to fornicate, and why Buddha taught his disciples that one is no longer a disciple if they do not fulfill the observances and restraints of chastity. Pranayama and sexual purity, therefore are essential in the eightfold steps of meditation and yoga, since the subsequent principles of meditation are founded on this. Attempting to perform pranayama without fuel, without sexual energy present, is like trying to pump fuel from a gas station when there is none. No water, no fuel, no light. Yet by practicing sexual purity, one can enter very rapidly into the science of meditation.
With the practice of Pranayama, the mind of the student is prepared for Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. ―Samael Aun Weor 
Energy and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life
The nature of prana must be analyzed, by gnostic students, through the Kabbalah, the Tree of Life. This Tree of Life maps out for us the varying modalities and condensations of matter, consciousness, energy or prana, the Christic force, which is manifest throughout the entire cosmos, as Swami Sivananda and Samael Aun Weor have explained very well.
This map has ten spheres or Sephiroth, translated from Hebrew as “emanations,” which are organized into three trinities with a single sephirah or sphere at the bottom, named Malkuth, the physical body or kingdom. Our body is a kingdom with many elements, forces and principles, that we must harness if we want to ascend this graphic, to perceive more refined and profound levels of consciousness, indicated by the higher spheres of this tree. Don’t think about this glyph as something outside of you, but within. This image maps out states of perception, in more refined or gross levels, from the most subtle above to the most dense below. This has nothing to do with vertical space, in the true application of this graphic. The Tree of Life emerges from the Abstract Absolute Space, the Unknowable Seity or Ain. From within the Ain, the Nothingness of cosmic, abstract space, is our own particular supra-divine star, the Ain Soph, the Limitless. And from the Ain Soph emerges the Ain Soph Aur, the Limitless Light, the Cosmic Khrestos or Christ. This light manifests into the universe as the top trinity of this graphic. This undifferentiated light of the Ain Soph Aur is the Prana in its most rarified state, which, in order to be developed, needs to enter into the universe to create its diverse regions and forms, unfolding into more material states of matter, energy, and experience. The top trinity is known as the Logoic triangle, the Christic forces of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, or Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christian terms. These three spheres are not people, but energies. This trinity is the power of creation, genesis, which are three aspects of one light or force; prana, in other words. Because this power is in a refined state, it is elevated, superior, rarified, yet for that power to develop, it must materialize, condense, descend to the lower regions of this tree, to be worked upon consciously. 
Prana condenses into other forms of matter, energy and perception, represented by the Sephiroth below. To work with prana above, we must work with that energy below, within the lower aspects of our being. We can analyze the nature and modifications of prana in different ways, especially in accordance with the septenary constitution of the human being, which is:
7. Atman: the Innermost Being, our Inner Buddha or God [Chesed]
Atman, Buddhi, and Superior Manas constitute the middle trinity, the Ethical triangle of the Tree of Life, relating to our genuine humanity and the spiritual principles of our inner divinity that guide us in the work. This trinity is the real Being or inner spirit [Chesed], divine soul [Geburah], and human soul [Tiphereth], the latter sometimes referred to superior manas, superior mind in Sanskrit.
Our consciousness is a fraction of the human soul, known as Tiphereth in Kabbalah. This middle sephirah in the very center of the Tree of Life is known by the term superior manas in Theosophy. This term mind can be very vague in esoteric and spiritual circles. Superior manas, Tiphereth, is abstract, not concrete. It is our willpower. We know it’s there, but it is not materialized, visible. We can say that a person has tremendous will, because they have internal drive and a means of working, making a living, being disciplined in a specific type of endeavor, etc. Willpower is very real for us, but hard to pinpoint or concretize. It relates to a type of abstraction of the psyche, one relating to volition or will. Our consciousness emanated from Atman-Buddhi-Manas, Chesed-Geburah-Tiphereth, and has entered the lower sephiroth: mind, heart, vitality, and physicality. This is in order to acquire knowledge and experience. Our inner Being, spirit, Buddha, Atman, gives the consciousness intuitions and hunches, as well as inspiration to practice spirituality through learning to control the lower aspects of ourselves, the lower trinity in this glyph. Tiphereth, superior manas or willpower, must control the lower aspects of the psyche. This is essential in pranayama, because to harness the prana, we must control our thoughts, feelings, and impulses, which are the vehicles of our ego. The Inferior Manas is our mind [Netzach], which is more concrete. People have an easier time acknowledging thoughts than they do with comprehending will. The Kama Rupa or desire / astral body [Hod] is the seat of emotions, which everybody acknowledges to a degree. The Linga-sarira, or vital body [Yesod], is our vital energies that give life to our physicality. This vital body is the body of prana. It is the storehouse of all the prana that descends from the top trinity, descending through the Sephiroth and finally coalescing in our vital body, which exists in the fourth dimension. This vehicle sustains the chemical, biological, catabolic, metabolic, etheric, and vital processes of our physical body: the Sthula-sarira, Malkuth. Without the vital body and its circulation of prana throughout the physical body, we would not be alive. These three lower spheres: Inferior Manas, Kama Rupa, and Linga-sarira, or Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, constitute the triangle of Priesthood. This triangle is the work with magic, from the Indo-European root word mag, meaning “priest” or “magician.” Magic is not pulling rabbits out of hats, or impressing people with clever tricks. Magic is knowing how to consciously manipulate matter and energy, prana, within our tree of life, through willpower and visualization. Pranayama is a form of magic, whereby we manipulate creative forces within our mind, heart, and body. To control the mind, with its racing, uncontrolled thoughts, the heart, with its surging emotions, and the impulses and instincts of the body, constitute the beginning of our meditative discipline. When you experience a calm mind through pranayama, you come to realize how magical this science really is, since it produces the serenity and clarity of the soul. The prerequisites of meditation involve stilling the body, the vital energies, the heart, the mind, and our willpower, the lower five Sephiroth of the Kabbalah. Let us be very clear: stilling the mind is not meditation; it is the beginning. Genuine meditation is about receiving internal information about ourselves and the cosmos, the science of comprehension and understanding. This is an important distinction to make, because pranayama aids the practitioner in calming the psyche so that the waters of the mind can reflect internal principles. See here the lower five spheres of the Tree of Life? These are all different aspects of our psyche, which need to be controlled and calmed through yoking prana. Mind is a form of prana. Emotions are a form of prana. And the sexual energy is condensed prana that serves as the foundation for meditation, since prana, the Linga-sarira or vital body, is the foundation of this graphic. The mind or body of desires are controlled using vital energy, the vital body or Linga-sarira. Notice how this vital body, Linga-sarira or sphere of Yesod is the very center of the Tree of Life, as well as at its base or foundation. Yesod literally means “foundation.” Yesod is the basis of spiritual and physical life. The word Lingam refers to the sexual organs, specifically the phallus, hence the strong correlation between prana or Linga-sarira and the sexual glands. The yoni in Hinduism symbolizes the uterus, and its union with the lingam represents the highest consubstantiation of divine love. Prana literally means “vital organs,” and refers to semen, since in certain rituals like the puja, the Hindus pour milk over the symbol of the Lingam-Yoni as an offering to divinity. That milk is semen, transmuted sexual energy, prana, which are found within the union of the lingam-yoni. Our physical semen is condensed prana. It is vital energy in a material state. Through the science of pranayama, we yoke, transmute, and elevate the energies of sex, so that the body, mind, heart, and will become balanced and prepared for actual meditation. While prana means “life,” yama means “restraint” or “death.” Yama is the deity of death in esoteric Buddhism. This is very interesting linguistically. Samael Aun Weor wrote that if the seed does not die, the plant cannot be born. If you want to experience the entirety of the Tree of Life in meditation, you must give birth to that tree through the sexual seed. When the seed dies and is transmuted, it becomes a Tree of Life. This is well known by initiates in the science of alchemy or Da’ath. Pranayama, therefore, helps to transform the seed, by destroying the matter, to convert it into energy. By this we do not mean that one can give birth to the entirety of the soul through pranayama. The solar bodies can only be created in a marriage. Instead, pranayama aids single practitioners in circulating the energies of sexuality, to a certain degree, to stabilize one’s concentration and mind in preparation for dhyana, meditation The mind must be united with its Divine Triad, together with the psychic extractions of the astral, vital and physical vehicles.
We reinforce the powers of the Being by working with prana. The inferior manas or mind, the emotions or body of desires, and the prana or Linga-sarira, reinforce the middle Triad through the work with sexual fire. Mind, emotions, and sexuality help to support the principles above through pranayama. Atman-Buddhi-Manas are strengthened through yoking the fires of sexuality below, which are contained within the waters of genesis, the sexual matter.
People who do not work with the creative energies have a weak connection with their inner Being. People who fornicate lose their connection with divinity. However, this connection can be re-established the more we work with transmutation. This becomes evident through internal experiences in meditation. While pranayama works with sparks of fire, the sexual fire must be harnessed or yoked in a matrimony to fully develop the creative energies. All this work of transmutation is performed with willpower, our human soul, the superior manas or Tiphereth. Our will must exert itself to control the sexual energy through spiritual inspiration, emanating from Atman-Buddhi. Prana then produces a profound calming effect on the mind, heart, and body below. Pranayama, interchanging nostril breathing, requires a form of effort or will to perform. It also involves imagining the circulation of forces in your body and mind. This is the superior manas or willpower in action, in combination with our capacities for perception and imagination, known as Geburah in Kabbalah, the sphere of Buddhi, the divine consciousness. We must perceive what we are doing in every practice, especially Pranayama and sexual transmutation. As we are going to elaborate upon in our discussion of “Spiritual Insight,” the capacity to perceive is imagination, to see internal, psychic things, the movement of energies. Pranayama involves willpower to control the energies, through our breath, serenity, and composure. We also need perception of those forces inside. These are abilities that the practitioner develops gradually through consistent discipline. Energy, Nadis, and the Nervous Systems
We have an image here of the nervous systems of the body, which become charged with vitality when we learn how to circulate those forces with our willpower and imagination. Hinduism refers to energetic channels in the vital depth, the etheric body of Yesod, as nadis. There exist millions of nadis in our vital body, which are intimately related with the chakras of our ultra-biology, the latter composed of the internal chemistry of forces and energies that interdependently flow through our physicality and internal vehicles.
A nadi is a line or current of vital energy, and when two nadis intersect, you form a vortex, a wheel of energy, a chakra. People believe there are only seven chakras, which is wrong, because wherever two nadis join, you form a vortex or wheel of forces. While there are seven main chakras connected with the spinal medulla, we really possess hundreds of thousands of chakras throughout our body, each with their own purpose, role, and influence. The cerebrospinal, grand sympathetic, and other nervous systems are physical conduits for etheric energies. Therefore, the nadis of the internal bodies, the vital depth, correspond to the physical, vital, and fluidic matter that circulates in our body. The nervous systems function because of the gelatinous and delicate fluids of the nerves, and it is well known in physical science that most of our body is composed of water. When we learn to conserve the vital waters of our body, the seminal matter and its concomitant energies, we can transmute those waters into another substance, into cognizance, conscious energy, and light. Remember that we stated that our sexual waters, our semen, is a gelatinous substance or condensed prana. Prana, in its unmodified form, is light. That light descends the Tree of Life and enters Yesod, materializing to form the entity of semen. Now the work we need to do is to transform or transmute the sexual substance into cognizance, fire, and light with the sacred breath. This light saturates the brain and nervous systems, flowing within and upward to the brain up the different energetic channels. Because the brain and spine are surrounded by nerves, it follows logically that the nadis condense and unite in innumerable spaces throughout the vital body, which penetrates within the material brain, spine, and nervous systems. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the vital body is separate from your physical body, because the vital depth gives life to your physicality, and is a biological vehicle that penetrates and co-penetrates every atom of the physical body, like a mirror image. It is made of etheric matter in the fourth dimension, matter which is pliable, elastic, and fluidic, relating intimately with the health of your brain and nervous systems. Without the vital body, we would not be able to physically exist, since it is the fourth-dimensional aspect of your material, physical, third-dimensional body, since every atom of your etheric body penetrates every atom of your physical body, giving you life. The day your vital depth disconnects from the physical body is the day you die physically, since without ether, prana, we would not have life. Prana and the etheric body have been well documented by the Kirlian camera, a device developed by a Russian scientist that photographs the vital aura of people, plants, and even minerals. All living things have prana, even supposedly inorganic matter like metals and earth. This type of science demonstrates how the vital body of any living thing is inseparable from its material, physical form. The Tree of Life in our physical body is our spine, so while there is a macrocosmic implication to studying the universe, our spine is how we have physical and spiritual life, especially when we learn how to circulate prana in our secondary or sexual system, as described by Master Morya in his Dayspring of Youth. The two main energetic channels we focus on with pranayama are Ida and Pingala, or the lunar and solar currents. By the term “lunar,” what we mean are feminine, negative, or receptive forces in the body, whether we are male or female, and by “solar,” we mean the masculine, positive, or projective forces of the body, whether we are male or female. These forces originate within our gonads, the testicles or ovaries. In the same manner that an electrical current has a positive, negative, and neutral current, our sexual system likewise has masculine, feminine, and neutral forces and nadis. Through controlling and directing prana, we circulate vital force through the nadis Ida and Pingala up the spine in the form of an eight, the caduceus of mercury with its two entwining serpents, a representation of the solar and lunar energetic currents. While Ida is feminine and Pingala is masculine, the spinal column is the neutral, grounding current by which masculine and feminine cohabit, unify, and reconcile. The energetic nadi of the spine is known as Sushumna nadi. When we learn to harness the energies contained within our waters with our breathing, with pranayama, we can raise and circulate such vital forces from the gonads up the spine, through Ida and Pingala, to awaken sparks of a third force in the base of the spine through the Sushumna nadi. This third force is known in the East as Kundalini and the West as the fire of Pentecost. As Samael Aun Weor indicated in his writings: The yogi/yogini works with the Great Breath or Cosmic Chrestos that is deposited within the Christonic semen when they are practicing Pranayama. Pranayama (a practice that consists of making profound inhalations of air, and retaining the inhaled air as much as possible, and afterwards exhaling the air until emptying the lungs), also teaches about the poles of the energy: one masculine pole located in the brain (cerebrospinal nervous system) and the feminine pole in the heart (grand sympathetic nervous system). Thus, as when we form two poles in the space through a magneto, we create new energies and these forcedly are giving birth to a third pole; likewise, we affirm that the third pole is Devi Kundalini, which, from the union of the solar and lunar atoms, is born within the Triveni, situated in the coccyx. These two polarities, masculine and feminine―from the Great Breath―prove the sexuality of Prana and Kundalini. Kundalini is absolutely sexual. ―Samael Aun Weor, Kundalini Yoga: The Mysteries of the Fire 
Kundalini and Pranayama
Pranayama is absolutely sexual, in the same manner that Kundalini is the sexual potency. By working with pranayama, single persons yoke their creative energies to a certain, limited degree, while prana is fully activated throughout the spine and nervous systems through sexual magic between man and woman, husband and wife, who are simultaneously working to eliminate their defects through profound comprehension in meditation.
The Kundalini is the sacred sexual fire of the Holy Spirit. Individuals can awaken sparks of Kundalini within the base of the coccyx up the spine through the exercise of pranayama. To fully awaken Kundalini, one needs to be working in a matrimony. Let us be clear about the nature of the Kundalini. Kundalini is the power of the Divine Mother, the enlightenment of God. Many people believe that the Divine Mother, the Kundalini, is a mechanical force, one that can awaken randomly and cause numerous psychological and spiritual problems, such as rising in the wrong way, causing delusions or mental imbalances, etc. People who attribute these phenomena with Kundalini awakening ignore their own destructive habits, ignore the law of karma, cause and effect, because Devi Kundalini harms no one. What is sad is that such people ignore that the Divine Mother is the wisdom of the universe, the cosmos, which is structured and maintained by divine intelligence. The Divine Mother does not harm Her child. People hurt themselves, not because of the Divine Mother Kundalini. Our inner goddess only rewards virtues, chastity, purity, and ethical discipline. People develop imbalances and psychological problems due to fornication, which the Divine Mother does not reward. She can only awaken within a couple that is meditating and comprehending the ego daily, working on their defects and praying for their elimination; She emerges within people who develop virtue. She awakens within a couple that not only conserves and transmutes the sexual energy, but who are following the precepts (Niyama) and ethical restraints (Yama) of religion. The Kundalini is very demanding, since She only rises within the spine of the couple in accordance with the merits and qualities of the heart. As Paul of Tarsus stated in Corinthians: Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. ―1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Observe your mind. Are you not filled with desire, with fornication, the lustful eye that craves sexual satisfaction with many women, with many men? Are you truly free from the adulterous eye that wants to copulate with others constantly, even if it is just in your imagination or fantasies? Are you sure that your mind is pure and filled with virtues, rather than vices? Do you abstain from alcohol, thievery of stealing of other people’s ideas, energy, belongings, money? Are you sure that you do not extort others to do what you want, even under the guise of sanctity, kindness, and generosity? Are you positive that you have never betrayed anyone, including your inner divinity?
Be sure that if you are filled with these qualities, and even when you practice sexual magic, the Divine Mother will not reward you. She only rises within the spine of the couple who are meditating every day on the ego, those who are working to eliminate the “I” first through discovery of defects in self-observation, then their judgment in meditation, followed by their execution through prayer. This is the fundamental law of action and consequence. People have a lot of theories about the Kundalini, but none of it is factual or based on evidence, observed facts in one’s daily life. We mention this because in relation to the teachings of pranayama, ethical discipline is the same: if you want to transmute your energies through pranayama, you must be ethical, practicing restraint (Yama) and following specific observances (Niyama). While many religions have a lot of explanations about virtues and vices, the best of it all is synthesized in one simple principle: do not give the ego what it wants. Deny thyself, bear up your alchemical cross of sacrifice, and follow the example of your Intimate Christ, your real Being within you. You learn to control prana by controlling your mind, by not feeding your egos from moment to moment. By controlling prana in its diverse modifications, we control the mind and the vital flow of energies in our etheric body. Kundalini is intimately related with the Prana that circulates throughout the 72,000 nadis or Astral conduits that nourish the chakras. The chakras are connected with the mind. Yogi and yogini have to christify their mind. Prana is life, and it circulates throughout all of our organs. Prana circulates throughout all of our nadis and vital canals. All the 72,000 nadis of our organism have their fundamental base in the nadi Kanda. The nadi Kanda is situated between the sexual organs and the anus. The Kanda collects all of the sexual energy that circulates throughout the 72,000 canals of our organism. The sexual energy is Prana, life. […] …The nadis Ida and Pingala are found side to side of the spinal medulla. These nadis entwine around the spinal medulla in similar shape to the number eight. The heavenly path is inside the nadi Sushumna. The Kundalini ascends throughout the Brahmanadi. The Brahmanadi is found situated inside another very subtle canal that runs throughout the length of the spinal medulla and is known with the name of Chitra. The seven chakras known with the names of Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishudda, Ajna, and Sahasrara are over this nadi Chitra. ―Samael Aun Weor, Kundalini Yoga: The Mysteries of the Fire
When the Kundalini awakens, it rises within the Sushumna canal within the spinal column and awakens the main chakras of the spine. Likewise, the 72,000 nadis or circuits of the astral body, as well as the vital body, circulate. 72,000 is a symbolic number, because there exist many more nadis. 72 reminds us of the 72 sacred names of God in Kabbalah. Likewise, making the kabbalistic addition of 7+2 makes 9, the number of Yesod of Kabbalah. The ninth sephirah from the top to the bottom of the Tree of Life relates to the vital / etheric body, the linga-sarira.
Given the sexual nature of prana, it is logical that single disciples possess limited capacities for elevating the creative energies, prana, or fires of sex. A single person can awaken sparks of Kundalini through pranayama, producing certain mystical experiences, whereas married couples can awaken their full potential. It’s important to reflect on these things and to clarify some misconceptions regarding this subject. Swami Sivananda once wrote: No Samadhi is possible unless Kundalini is awakened. ―Swami Sivananda, The Science of Pranayama
Samadhi is conscious experience, in meditation, devoid of the “me,” “myself,” the ego. Many students have misinterpreted this statement of Sivananda to indicate that one cannot have any spiritual experiences without working in the perfect matrimony, which is not true. What Sivananda explained is that whether single or married, the fire of Kundalini produces ecstasy in different degrees.
Many practitioners of yoga have also mistakenly attributed their work with pranayama to the full awakening of the Kundalini, because such disciples have many intense, spiritual, conscious experiences resulting from their practice, which they do not know how to explain except that their Kundalini has fully awakened. Having such experiences is valuable and necessary, but it is not the end goal, nor is it an indicator that one is finished in the work. Single persons can awaken sparks of that fire, but the full manifestation of the Divine Mother is only developed amongst couples working in chastity, meditation, and selfless service for humanity. Remember that a man has one sexual polarity dominant and a woman has the other sexual polarity dominant. If an individual wants to awaken the full potential forces of their respective sex, he or she needs a sexual compliment, the opposite sex, to awaken the reconciliating force. Man and woman, husband and wife, when sexually united and harnessing the creative energy, awaken a third power, the serpent Kundalini, which typically lies dormant in the base of the spine, in the Chakra Muladhara, coiled three and a half times and awaiting the moment of its awakening through the science of love. This does not undervalue the work of pranayama, but puts it in context. Single disciples can work with pranayama, can maintain their chastity, through these breathing exercises. When disciples are married they can take their practice further, applying the same principles of Yama, Niyama, and Pranayama but with the tremendously added force of sexual union, which is known in the East as tantrism. Single people can light a candle up their spine, but husband and wife can awaken the power of millions of suns. This is the literal difference. Single disciples must learn to prepare for a matrimony through pranayama, which is why in ancient schools of yoga, many masters would train their disciples in Brahmacharya before giving them the ultimate secret of sexual alchemy, tantrism, marital union. This was obviously done in secret to avoid scandals and the fears of sexually degenerate people. Once disciples have demonstrated their sincerity, prudence, and dedication to their spiritual exercises, to pranayama, then the master would unveil the higher mysteries. 
Breath, Mind, Chakras, and the Circulation of Prana
So why all this explanation about the creative energies in the context of this course of meditation? If you want to still the mind, naturally and without force, you must practice pranayama and transmutation. Your mind or mental states are determined by how you use energy. If you use energy to feed desire, then the mind becomes provoked, stimulated, and distracted. Harnessing prana helps to calm the mind, and prana is intimately related with your virya or virility. Virya simply means sexual potency, which is the root word for virile (to possess sexual potency and strength) and well as virtue, since the virtues of the soul are born through the intentional use and practice of pranayama.
Prana, mind, and virya (sexual energy) are under one sambhanda [connection]. If you can control prana, then mind and virya and controlled by themselves. If you control the virya by remaining as an akhanda bramachari without emission of even a single drop of semen (sexual energy, whether male or female) for twelve years, then mind and prana are controlled by themselves. ―Swami Sivananda, The Science of Pranayama
By controlling the breath with willpower, by consciously visualizing the circulation of energies, the prana circulates throughout our nervous systems, stimulating the chakras, in the same manner that electricity flows through a circuit. These energies stabilize the lake of the mind in preparation for meditation. As Swami Sivananda explains in The Science of Pranayama:
Breath is external manifestation of Prana, the vital force. Breath like electricity, is gross Prana. Breath is Sthula, gross. Prana is Sukshma, subtle. By exercising control over this breathing you can control the subtle Prana inside. Control of Prana means control of mind. Mind cannot operate without the help of Prana. The vibrations of Prana only produce thoughts in the mind. It is Prana that moves the mind. It is Prana that sets the mind in motion. It is the Sukshma Prana or Psychic Prana that is intimately connected with the mind. This breath represents the important fly-wheel of an engine. Just as the other wheels stop when the driver stops the fly-wheel, so also other organs cease working, when the Yogi stops the breath. If you can control the fly-wheel, you can easily control the other wheels. Likewise, if you can control the external breath, you can easily control the inner vital force, Prana. The process by which the Prana is controlled by regulation of external breath, is termed Pranayama. Just as a goldsmith removes the impurities of gold by heating it in the hot furnace, by strongly blowing the blow-pipe, so also the Yogic student removes the impurities of the body and the Indriyas by blowing his lungs, i.e., by practising Pranayama. The chief aim of Pranayama is to unite the Prana with the Apana and take the united Pranapana slowly towards the head. The effect or fruit of Pranayama is Udghata or awakening of the sleeping Kundalini. ―Swami Sivananda, The Science of Pranayama
The energetic channels or nadis are typically filthy, blocked and closed in us, which is the source of many illnesses and conditions that make us suffer physically, sexually, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The circuitry of our vital body tends to be clogged with many negative psychic elements and riddled with impurities caused by unhealthy food, negative environmental influences, and most importantly, degenerated habits in the mind, heart, and body. Many students experience problems in controlling the sexual energy because the nadis are blocked and polluted. Such blockages stimulate the creative energies in a way that force them to flow from inside out, from within to outside the body, problems exemplified as nocturnal pollutions and unwilled seminal ejaculation during the sexual act. Many practitioners, when beginning sexual magic, have difficulty controlling the creative force. This is due to the poor circulation of vital energies.
As Swami Sivananda indicated: Just as a goldsmith removes the impurities of gold by heating it in the hot furnace, by strongly blowing the blow-pipe, so also the Yogic student removes the impurities of the body and the Indriyas [the energetic roots of sensation] by blowing his lungs, i.e., by practising Pranayama. ―Sivananda, The Science of Pranayama
As we explained, many practitioners in the ancient traditions of yoga would work with Pranayama for many years before working in a matrimony, precisely because to work with sexual magic, the practitioners should be firmly grounded and knowledgeable about how to transmute their energies as bachelors. It would be absurd for people who know nothing of transmuting their energies, practicing daily meditation, and working on the ego to begin sexual magic all at once. It is best if such persons learn pranayama in preparation for the greater mysteries of the fire, because pranayama helps to cleanse the impurities of the body and help the energy circulate properly. When the nadis are clean through the exercise of pranayama, the vital forces flow and rejuvenate the body and mind. In this manner, the sexual act is easier to take advantage of without risk of spilling the semen.
The word for wind in Sanskrit is Vayu. Vayu is a term for the element air in the body. Vayu apana relates to the bodily winds that help with the processes of excretion, urination, and menstruation, associated with the functions of the lower pelvis, the intestines, and the anus. Apana also relates to this part of the body, the energy associated with the abdomen, as well as the elimination of waste products from the body. Sivananda explained that with pranayama, we are uniting the prana from without with the apana within, mixing the vital energies in our breath with the vital energies of our coccyx and lower abdomen to slowly raise it to the mind. This process awakens sparks of the sleeping Kundalini. We’ve included in this graphic an image of the main chakras of the body. Chakra literally means “wheel,” and the fly-wheels that Swami Sivananda references are the chakras. The chakras are vortexes of forces that flow by the power of prana, the vital breath or seminal energies. Chakras literally spin, like a water mill, when there is energy available, which is why Rumi, the great Sufi poet, stated: From the heart of the lovers, blood flows like a vast river. Our body is the windmill, and love, the water. Without water the mill cannot turn. ―Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Hidden Music
What waters make it possible for the chakras to spin? The sexual waters, the seminal energy. When yoked through pranayama, the chakras turn like a water mill, but if the seminal waters are ejaculated through lust, then the chakras remain dormant, asleep, incapacitated, without energy to circulate within them.
Prana, Christic energy, modifies into the tattvas, which are different condensations of this energy in the form of the main elements composing physical and spiritual nature. Through alternated breathing of our nostrils, we assimilate these modifications of energy in order to awaken consciousness. The respiration through the right nasal cavity is called Suria or Pingala. We cause through this respiration the ascension of the solar atoms from our seminal system.
These tattvas relate to the seven chakras in the following manner:
There is also the chakra of the lungs as well, but the seven main chakras of the spine are the ones I just listed. The four elements relate to our mind, heart, vitality, and body, or air, fire, water, and earth, respectively. Pranayama aids us in controlling the aerial nature of thought, the igneous powers of the heart, the aqueous nature of our vital energies, and the materiality of our earth, our physicality. While the four elements relate to our three brains and body in this way, the chakras have slightly different correlations as you see in this graphic. Akasha is the primordial fire hidden within the cosmic space. Akasha is a force in nature that is divine, and can be designated by sound, light, and cognition. The power of the Akasha manifests in the throat, the Verb, through the alchemical knowledge of Da’ath. Adi means light, relating to the prana, the Christic energy, which condenses and accumulates in the third eye chakra, Ajna, to develop spiritual insight, the subject of a future lecture. Samadhi tattva also relates to prana, since this is the power that grants omniscience and cosmic consciousness at the top of the head. Conscious breathing, within Sufi schools, is synonymous with light, with illuminating the mind, the creation of the true human being. Regarding the intrinsic relationship of breath with light, Al-Qushayri wrote the following in his Risalah: Principles of Sufism: 
Abu-l-Hasan al-Nuri was asked, “What is the origin of spiritual insight in the one who has it?” He answered, “It comes from the saying of the Most High, ‘And I breathed into him (Adam) of My Spirit’ (15:29).
The sexual energy creates insight, spiritual life. We create the soul through the sexual energy, a power that can produce experiences of astral projection, awakening within dreams, feats of jinn science, clarified perception, developed intuition and comprehension of problems, detachment from egotistical desires and worldliness, egotism, hatred, lightness of body and mind, health, vigor, etc. These are the different “lights” implied within Sufi language.
Pranayama and Sexual Magic in the Upanishads
The sacred Hindu scriptures, the Upanishads, also teach all this in synthesis. We are going to provide a commentary for the chapter 2, verses 6 and 8-17 from the Śvetāśvataropaniṣad, to emphasize the points we’ve previously made and to show some of the traditional basis for which this practice is elaborated.
We’ve included an image of Christ’s crucifixion in relation to this topic, because the cross is the sexual union of husband and wife through the vertical, phallic beam and the horizontal, uterine beam. Through union of masculine and feminine forces, the ego dies through the fire of the Kundalini and gives birth to the resurrected soul. Where the fire is rubbed, where the wind is checked, where the soma flows over, there the mind is born. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
When husband and wife sexually unite, their private parts rub and produce erotic fire. When their breathing is in check, controlled, when the prana is harnessed consciously, the seminal energies are transmuted.
The word soma means many things, such as body or plant juice, the latter being traditionally used as Vedic offerings during rituals. Soma is sometimes referred to as the drink or nectar of immortality, an ambrosia or milk of the gods. This is none other than the prana, the seminal energies. The bodies of the soul are created through the alchemical cross, when the soma is flowing within the nadis or Sushumna canal. Soma literally means body in Greek and can refer to the solar bodies of tantrism. If a wise man holds his body steady with its three parts (chest, neck, and head) even, turns his senses with the mind inward to enter the heart, he will then in the boat of brahman [om] cross all the fearful torrents. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
Rubbing the fire of sexuality applies more so to a matrimony, but can refer to how individual yogis, who practice pranayama, awaken sparks of that fire in their spine through profound concentration and deep, unwavering prayer. In the same manner that a couple controls the breath and transmutes the soma, the prana, a bachelor or bachelorette performs transmutation on their own.
Pranayama must be performed with the chest, neck, and head steady, in a good posture. You cannot circulate the prana appropriately if your body is not firm, stable, and relaxed, with your head even with your torso and your spine straight. What are the fearful torrents we must cross through pranayama? The assaults of lust, which have polluted our nadis and sexual waters. The boat of brahman is the ark of the covenant, the ark of Noah that carries us above the waters of degeneration in the mind. Compressing his breathings let him, who has subdued all motions, breathe forth through the nose with gentle breath. Let the wise man successfully restrain his mind, that chariot yoked with vicious horses [senses]. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
The Upanishads refer to the mind, emotions, vitality, and physical body as horses which the real Self, Atman, the Inner Buddha or charioteer, must control. He does this through the reins, his divine and human souls, through willpower. The senses also relate to the lower Sephiroth as well as how our sensual, material consciousness apprehends life.
Let him perform his exercises in a place which is level, pure, free from pebbles, fire, and filth, delightful by its sounds, its water, and bowers, not painful to the eye, and is full of shelters and caves. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
I have known people who want to begin meditation while living in a filthy and dirty home. This is very difficult. The tidiness of our home reflects what we psychologically carry within. Your home should be your temple where you sit to practice, to devote yourself to God, your Being. Our practices are amplified when we dedicate a special room for our exercises of pranayama and meditation, since the energies we attract help to produce serenity and peace in our home. Pranayama cleans the mind and nadis, so to live in squalor will hinder our spiritual work, because the environment affects our practice, and vice versa.
When yoga is being performed, the forms which come first, producing apparitions in brahman, are those of misty smoke, sun, fire, wind, fire-flies, lightnings, and a crystal moon. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
Students go through many experiences when pranayama is consistently practiced, frequently, every day, for prolonged periods of time. Remember the Sufi scripture I just read, that breathing is synonymous with lights? Smoke can refer to the cloudiness of the mind, which students apprehend when they initiate pranayama. They receive experiences from the internal planes that their skies, the mind, is filled with darkness. This is a crucial step to make, because it shows us what work must be done, and that we must persist in our discipline.
Sun, fire, wind, fire-flies, lightnings, and crystal moons represent different forms of light or insights we achieve through working with the creative energy. When, as earth, water, light, heat, and space arise, the fivefold quality of yoga takes place, then there is no longer illness, old age, or pain for him who has obtained a body, produced by the fire of yoga. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
Remember the chakras, the four elements, and the tattvas? These become amplified through pranayama, which produce longevity, health, youth, and life. The fire of yoga can relate to Tummo Yoga or inner heat yoga in Tibetan, representative of the work with the Kundalini.
The first results of yoga they call lightness, healthiness, steadiness, good complexion, an easy pronunciations, sweet odor, and slight excretions. As a metal disc [mirror], tarnished by dust, shines bright again after it has been cleaned, so is the one incarnate person fulfilled and free from grief, after he has seen the real nature of the self [Atman]. ―Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
Is your mind dull, torpid, dark, hard to control or perceive? Work with pranayama. The mind and heart are a mirror that need to be polished and cleansed through prana. In the words of Prophet Muhammad:
There is an organ in the body that, if it is righteous, ensures that the whole system will be righteous; and if it is corrupt, the whole body will become corrupt. This organ is the heart.
“Guard your breaths against God Most High,” state the Sufis. When the mirror is clean, it reflects the genuine image of Atman, the Self, our Innermost God, so that we are free from pain and sorrow. Pranayama will help you with this.
Practical Applications and Benefits
Learning to control our breath aids in the yoking of the vital forces, but while I mentioned to you that prana is in the air and in our semen, our physical breath is only a vehicle for the forces we seek to manipulate.
Pranayama is not, as many think, concerned solely with the breath; breath indeed has very little to do with it. Breathing is only one of the many exercises through which we get to the real pranayama. ―Vivekananda, Raja Yoga
Circulating prana occurs through our willpower and imagination. Breathing is the vehicle through which we obtain the transmutation of our energies. While breath is a powerful and necessary component for our moment to moment existence, even more so are the faculties of perception, concentration, consciousness, attention, and prayer.
If you are performing pranayama but are not mindful of what you are doing, then you will not be successful. Pranayama involves working with each of the three brains of gnostic psychology, directing the energies consciously. “Wherever we direct attention, we expend creative energy” stated Samael Aun Weor. This is essential, since no practice is useful if we are not attentive of what we are doing. Your mind, heart, and body must be relaxed and in control, which is not a state of rigidity, but calmness, composure, flexibility, and firmness. You must resolve to yourself to not needlessly move your body around during pranayama, nor let the mind wander to other things. You also must resolve to not let your heart distract you, but to devote yourself to profound prayer during your exercise. If you are thinking of other things while you are practicing, then you are not practicing. Likewise, if your heart is not at peace, if you are not praying to divinity to aid you, if your emotional center is filled with wrath, anger, or sentiment, ignoring the presence of divinity, you will find it very difficult to focus and have a good practice. Lastly, if your body can’t sit still, if it is agitated and nervous like an animal, constantly moving about, then you will not obtain stillness and the circulation of prana in your system, because the circulation of forces occurs when the waters of the body, heart, and mind are still. Notice that when you cease throwing stones in a lake, the water gradually achieves stability and equilibrium; the surface becomes calm, whereby it can reflect the heavens above in a limpid, calm, and tranquil way. The same with pranayama and the mind. Your mind achieves stillness when you cease agitating it, by not feeding your desires. Pranayama also works to calm the mind when there is enough concentration and cognizance of what you are doing. And they have said, "God created the hearts and made them mines of understanding of Him. After that He created the secret inner awarenesses and made them a place for declaring the Unity [which occurs once the multiplicity of egos are dead and the consciousness is unified in the Beloved, the Innermost]. Every breath that occurs without the guide of knowledge of God and the sign of Unity emerges from blind compulsion, and is a dead thing. The one to whom it belongs is accountable for it.” ―Al Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Here is how to perform a simple pranayama. Seated comfortably with your spine straight and neck and head relaxed, close your eyes and pray to your Divine Mother. Pray that she may help you transmute your energies to your mind and heart, to help you visualize and concentrate.
Imagine in your spine the two nadis Ida (Eve) and Pingala (Adam), connecting your gonads, testicles, or ovaries with your nostrils.
These nadis are polarized differently in men and women, as you can see in the following graphic. In men: • The lunar current, Ida (represented by Eve in the Bible), connects to the left nostril, characterized by lunar or silver atoms. • The solar current, Pingala (represented by Adam in the Bible), connects to the right nostril, characterized by solar or bright, fiery yellow or golden atoms In women this is reversed: • The lunar current, Ida, Eve, connects to the right nostril • The solar current, Pingala, Adam, connects to the left nostril These polarities are switched in the different sexes because husband and wife, like positive and negative electrical currents, compliment and compensate for each other. 
With your right hand, extend your forefinger and thumb while closing your other fingers into your palm. Close your right nostril with your thumb and inhale air through your left nostril. Take in as much air as you can without forcing your lungs or straining yourself. Breath naturally and relaxed.
Now close your left nostril with your forefinger, still holding the right nostril closed with your thumb. Retain the air as long as possible, again without straining your breath. Imagine the energy or prana of the air ascending to the brain through the respective nadi you are breathing through, which connects your nostril with the coccyx and gonads. After retaining the air as long as possible, remove your thumb from your right nostril and exhale slowly, imagining the prana descending through the nadis connecting your head to your heart, with one nadi on each side of your face leading down to your chest. Close your left nostril with your forefinger and inhale through your right nostril. Repeat the process of raising the prana to the brain through your inhalation, raising the energies of that nostril and nadi to the head. Retain the breath as long as possible by closing both nostrils with thumb and forefinger. Finally, lift your forefinger from your left nostril and exhale, imagining the prana descending against to your heart through the two nadis connecting your head to your heart, which descend from the face, down the throat, to your chest. This process constitutes one pranayama. Perform seven pranayamas total. You can do more in accordance with your needs. Here is some more practical advice for performing pranayama at home by the Master Sivananda: Pranayama can also be performed as soon as you get up from bed and just before Japa [mantra recitation] and meditation. It will make your body light and you will enjoy the meditation. You must have a routine according to your convenience and time.
When you perform pranayama, the important aspect of your breathing is retention. With inhalation, you want your lungs to take in a profound amount of air, in a relaxed and calm way, without forcing the lungs to expand beyond its limits. Your breathing should not be forced and loud, but silent and peaceful. I’ve known many people who make a lot of noise when performing pranayama, as if they were some kind of hydraulic engine. But nowhere in the teachings of yoga do we find any support for this tendency.
Pranayama is meant to relax the mind, heart, and body. Straining oneself is counterproductive and inhibits the free circulation of energy. With exhalation, your breathing should flow through your nostrils without noise. I know some people like to perform pranayama in a loud way, which is wrong. Breathing should be calm and natural, without force. There is more strength in relaxation than there is in bodily and mental exertion. This might seem counterintuitive for people in a culture that believe that one must conquer things with force. The opposite is most true for this practice: if you want to be effective in transmutation, tranquility and control is the key.
After your inhalations, you must retain the air as long as possible, again without forcing your lungs. Retention is the most important part of Pranayama, since this is how we internalize and accumulate energy within our etheric-physical laboratory in combination with willpower and imagination, visualization. Your life is measured by how you control your breath, and breathing relates to how we modify and use sexual energy, the source of life. Regulation of breath is the stoppage of inhalation and exhalation. ―Patanjali
To conclude, we will end with comments by Swami Sivananda, who expressed some of the benefits of pranayama. After having explained the technique, which we will practice together today at the end of this lecture, I will conclude with some explanations for why this is beneficial, since many students often write to us asking about some tangible, concrete results for working daily in this exercise.
This body becomes lean, strong and healthy. Too much fat is reduced. There is lustre in the face. Eyes sparkle like diamonds. The practitioner becomes very handsome. Voice becomes sweet and melodious. The inner Anahata sounds are distinctly heard. The student is free from all sorts of diseases. He gets established in Brahmacharya. Semen gets firm and steady. The Jatharagni (gastric fire) is augmented. The student becomes so perfected in Brahmacharya that his mind will not be shaken even if a fairy tries to embrace him. Appetite becomes keen. Nadis are purified. Vikshepa is removed and the mind becomes one-pointed. Rajas and Tamas are destroyed. The mind is prepared for Dharana and Dhyana. The excretions become scanty. Steady practice arouses the inner spiritual force and brings in spiritual light, happiness and peace of mind. It makes him an Oordhvareto-Yogi. All psychic powers are obtained. Advanced students only will get all the benefits. ―Swami Sivananda, Kundalini Yoga 
"Know the truth and the truth shall set you free," stated Jesus of Nazareth, the Patriarch of the Gnostic Church, the great Master Aberamentho, according to his sacred name.
This is the final lecture in a course we initiated a few weeks past, discussing the nature of Sufism and Gnostic doctrine, how to know ourselves, how to know that which is within us that is divine. We seek to comprehend through practical works the very essence of our divinity within us, within our consciousness, and which we denominate the Being. Many names have been given to that truth, that source, that origin from which the soul emanates. No matter what name we denominate that truth, whether it is Allah, Buddha, Christ, Tao, INRI, etc., that divinity is within us, and which specifically in the Gnostic teachings we call the Being. To be, to know as a conscious quality. So we've been explaining the gradual steps that lead to that realization of the Being, of the truth. It is by practical works, learning to understand ourselves, our mind, and the obstacles within us that prevent our illumination, that we seek to comprehend how to change. We seek to comprehend the causes of our suffering and the obscurations to that light of that divinity within us. In the spirit of universality, we've been explaining the teachings according to Islam, which in Arabic is submission to God's will, and the Sufi doctrine, especially the mystics of Islam. Sufis are as much the mystics of Islam as the Kabbalists are the mystics of Judaism. In this lecture, we'll explain many aspects of this path in association with the Tree of Life of Kabbalah, the map of the consciousness. Likewise, we will examine many elements pertaining to the mystical teachings of Islam, the esoteric doctrine. We state that we seek to know the divinity and the Muslims speak of witnessing the divine as the Shahada, the famous declaration of faith, which states, "La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadun rasul-ul-llah." Meaning, "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet." The word witnessing is Shahada, to bear testimony, to verify what one has known or experienced. Now, the Muslim teachings of Shahada, which is followed by many millions of people today, is merely the public doctrine; to say that where there is no God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet, is easy to vocalize, to affirm. The word Shahada in Arabic relates to the word Mushahada, which means contemplation, meditation, insight, comprehension of the truth. It is precisely by learning to meditate, go deep within our mind, our psyche, in which we know the truth for ourselves. We witness the divine through very concrete living experiences, known as gnosis. This word gnosis is Greek, meaning knowledge, signifying conscious experience. It is not associated with theory or belief, or scriptural knowledge, although those are useful in their place. Instead, gnosis, or the Arabic equivalent, marifah, is the direct knowledge of the divine, the truth. It is not by believing in anything that we will know that divinity. Instead, know truth and the truth shall set you free. The founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, stated that, "The truth is the unknowable from moment to moment." When Jesus was asked, "What is the truth?" before Pilate, he remained silent. When asking the Buddha, "What is the truth?" he simply walked away. Many people have spoken about the truth, whether through scripture, books, lectures, etc. In these studies, however, we seek to be practical. We seek to know that truth for ourselves, to know the divine within us moment by moment, the unknowable presence which is within our consciousness, within our psyche. For our purposes, we'll talk about scriptures pertaining to Islam, especially in relation to knowledge of God, knowledge of that truth, that source, which cannot be labeled, but can be verified. There is a famous commentator, Abd al-Karim al-Jili, who commented on a scripture or a writing by a Sufi master by the name of Ibn Arabi: his book Journey to the Lord of Power. He stated that “The journey to God is short; the journey in God is infinite.” There are levels of being, levels of knowing, levels of cognizance, which we want to access here and now. Previously, we discussed the nature or the doctrine of momentariness, to be aware of our psyche moment by moment, and to be aware of the divine as a presence, as a force, and an intelligence, which we accomplish through observing our psyche, observing our mind, observing our heart, observing our body. That active observation is attention, an act of directed consciousness or directed will, directed attention within us. By learning to develop that alert novelty, alert perception, that awareness of ourselves, instant to instant, moment by moment, we in turn gain access to the truth, that direct knowledge. 
Of course there are infinite levels of consciousness. The 14th Dalai Lama stated that really the consciousness has the capacity to expand to an infinite degree. This is very well is illustrated in many religious paintings where you see the heavens or the angels circling the throne of divinity and taking their pilgrimage towards that light, that source. That's the famous meaning of Hajj in Islam, the pilgrimage which we're going to discuss in brief in this lecture.
God is the unknowable, the truth. As it says on the Quran surah 6, verse 91, “God the Most High said, ‘They honor not God with the honor due Him,’” according to the scripture of Al-Risalah, the Sufi teaching by the famous master Qushayri who lived in Persia or Iran. He stated the following: “According to the commentary, this means they do not know God as He deserves to be known.” Likewise, Surah Ta Ha, verse 110, "He knows that which is before them and that which is behind them, and they encompass Him not in knowledge," which is similar to Surah 2. This is Al-Baqarah, the Surah, The Cow, verse 285: "He knows that which is before them and that which is behind them, and they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills." The truth can only come to us when the divine expresses of His will, of Her will within us, and we must learn to access that state by cooperating as a psyche, as a soul, as a consciousness. In order to attain that state, we must learn to be humble psychologically. Previously, we discussed in our lecture on the code of ethics, spiritual discipline, the need to train the mind, to not behave in negative ways, to not indulge in negative habits, and to destroy and comprehend those psychological causes within us that create conflict. Because, as the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, stated, "Be humble in order to attain enlightenment. Thus after attaining it, be more humble still." Humility is not an attitude. It is a psychological way of being in which we comprehend how our own sense of self, we can say egotism, egos, qualities, defects, vices, errors, whatever name we want to give them—these in themselves are obscuring the full manifestation of our divine potential, and we want to remove those shadows within our psyche, those causes of suffering such as anger, pride, fear, et cetera. By removing those conditions, those cages of the mind, we liberate soul. We liberate consciousness and then we can truly ascend to the heights of the divine. As the Book of Isaiah states, "Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and the hill made low. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain." Meaning, it is a psychological work. Our own sense of egotism, our own negative sense of self must be conquered in order for the divine self, the Being, the truth to manifest. Now, there is some interesting commentary just to elaborate on this point about asceticism or spiritual poverty given by, again this writer, Ibn Arabi, from his Futuhat Makkiyyah, which is The Meccan Revelations, a very extensive scripture. He commented that the first caliph, Abu Bakr, was reported to have said, "The inability to comprehend God is comprehension itself." Then, this point is that if we feel that we have a certain level of knowledge, we must understand there's always something higher, something beyond that which we must access. As the Sufis state, the greatest position to follow is poverty, not physical poverty or austerities, but, psychologically speaking, we fast to our habits. We cease to feed our negative elements, our desires. Instead, we develop conscious qualities. We seek to overcome the conditions of our mind. There was one Sufi, I believe, who stated that a third of the stomach should be filled with food, while the other two thirds be filled with fasting and the Qur’an. While some people may take the symbolic language of the Sufis literally, symbolically-speaking, we must be in remembrance of divinity through meditation, scriptural study, profound comprehension… There's a very famous teaching given in the Surah Ta Ha, verse 114, where Prophet Muhammad was taught by his inner Being, his divinity. He said, "Be not in haste with the Qur’an before its revelation is completed for thee, but say, ‘My Lord, increase me in knowledge!’" We must increase that knowledge, seek to understand what in us prevents us for accessing that, and to thereby deny our own selves, conditions, desires, through the art or path of consciousness, self-awareness, mindfulness. The Three Levels of Religion
In next graphic, we have the three levels of religion. We find the three levels of religion in any doctrine, any teaching, since religious instruction or esoteric instruction is always given in three tiers. We have what is known as the introductory level, the intermediate level, and the esoteric level. All religions have a gradation of instruction, of teaching, and of discipline, in which we train ourselves to be more open and receptive to the influence of the divine.
In Islam, they call the first introductory level Shariah, which of course has a lot of negative connotation today. In esoteric studies, Shariah does not refer to the punitive or harsh laws of Muslim countries. Shariah is really in its heart is the practical conduct we engaged with to train ourselves—to not be angry people, to not have fear, to not have pride, to not have desire or lust, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not take intoxicants, to not cause harm, to not lie. These are basic laws given in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and whatever religion we study, since each has this code according to the idiosyncrasy of the culture it was delivered. Beyond that, after we've established ourselves with mind training, we can enter into the mesoteric level, the intermediate steps, which is Tariqah. The last lecture we gave was on divine love, which is the path of Tariqah. It is the path of selfless service in which our spirituality is not based on ourselves, but for others. Meaning: we work on our own sense of egotism so that we can develop compassion for those who suffer and those who are ignorant. In this selfless path, we overcome the conditioning of the mind. We train ourselves so that we do not cause harm to others with our speech, our thoughts, our words, etc. Instead, we want to overcome the conditioning of our psyche so that our divinity can really help us to create religion, which is in Latin, religare, in one sense to reunite such as in a congregation or group, to unite people through divine law. In Islam, the word “religion” is often called din in Arabic. Din more specifically refers to “judgment,” which is etymologically related with “custom, way, or affair.” Din refers to our conduct, our behavior, in how we curtail negative psychological states and eliminate them through inner judgment and comprehension in meditation. Din also has a strong relationship to the word dayn, which means “debt.” Truly, all of us are in debt before the divine law and must learn to pay our debts through conscious works, good deeds. Lastly, we have Marifah and Haqiqah which is knowledge and truth. This is the highest teachings of any religion and is the topic of today's lecture. Now, with Marifah (knowledge) and Haqiqah (truth), these have been associated with the highest teachings of any tradition—the secret doctrine, whether in theosophy or the Fourth Way schools, and in Gnosticism. The secret of the divine path, Marifah and Haqiqah, knowledge and truth, pertains to the practices of what is known in Arabic as Allah-kimiya', alchemy. Alchemy was associated traditionally with the transformation or transmutations of metals, a base substance into a pure substance, which many people in Europe were foolishly seeking to literally perform, to transform physical lead into gold, but that is not the meaning. The meaning is transforming the lead or the personality into the gold of the spirit, into the spirit of the divine, the truth. Alchemy is known as Tantra in the East, but the word alchemy also, Al-Kimiya, signifies chemistry (we have the similar origins or the root word). Kimiya also means to fuse or cast to metal. With the practices of a perfect matrimony or the perfect matrimony, the exercises of tantrism, man and woman in a marriage can unite to create spiritually and therefor fuse with the divine through the chemistry of God. I will talk about the specifics of this, but something important to remember with these three stages is that, according to Ibn Arabi, the law of Shariah can be summarized with the following maxim: "What is yours is yours and what is mine is mine." There's a sense of separation. Meaning, we work individually as practitioners for ourselves, for our benefit, to serve God within us. In a path of Tariqah, "What is yours is mine and what is mine is yours," referring to selfless love, a state of compassion. In the level of Marifah, “Nothing belongs to you or me,” according to Ibn Arabi. Then with the knowledge of Haqiqah, the truth, "There is no you or me. There is only Him, the divine." These are stages of discipline we train ourselves in and, of course, in the beginning we work with Shariah. In Buddhism, this is known as Shravakayana, the Shravaka path. Shravaka in Sanskrit means “to listen, to hear,” and Yana means “the way or path.” Anyone who learns for the first time how to change is a Shravaka, is a listener, to hear the truth and to practice it, and we will give more examples of this in relation to the intricate science of certainty according to the Quran. With the middle path, the mesoteric path, we find in Tariqah, its equivalent is Mahayana, the greater vehicle: Maha, meaning great, in which our work is for others. We are not concerned with our own personal well-being, but we work to help others develop spiritually, and we overcome our own egos, our own senses of self, which create conflict. In the highest path, Marifah and Haqiqah, is known as Tantrayana in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism. In this Tibetan Buddhist teaching, Tantra is the vehicle of a matrimony where a man and woman, in the pure sentiment and inspiration of the divine, can cultivate their marriage as a means of experiencing the truth and working with the most potent forces we carry within our physiology, and also our psychology, as we will elaborate upon. Now, an important thing to remember is that with these steps, these are not something separate. Neither are they something that will go from one step up, a plateau, so to speak. Really Shariah, Tariqah, Marifah, Haqiqah unite; they are integral, meaning: one cannot know the truth without fulfilling the basic conduct of spirituality, meaning: to be good person, to be decent, to be humble and to help others. Likewise, we cannot know divine love if we are selfish, egotistically, psychologically speaking. All of us who begin any type of spiritual studies have to work on or become aware of what particular issues we have and change them so that we can really develop compassion for humanity and for its suffering. Now, there has been a teaching, and there have been some people who have wanted to associate with higher stages of teaching, such as people who proclaim to have spiritual knowledge or to know the truth, but they fail to fulfill the basic conduct of being a decent human being. There is a very famous teaching and I believe it's given by Ibn Arabi as well. In his scripture Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, he explains that there were people who saw a man flying in the air, and they were overcome by this phenomenon. They were very fascinated, obviously. Ibn Arabi asked, "Does that man follow the Qur’an?" Meaning, does he follow the scripture? Does he know how to be a decent person, to be kind, to not be lustful, to not be angry, to not have fear, because if he does not fulfill those laws, then ignore him. Because there are people who can have powers and abilities, but through desire, egotism, which is a different path than we teach. Here, we seek to give all of our aspirations to God who has power, who has capability and we as the human vehicle can be of service to that, not for our own will. Dhikr, Remembrance of the Divine Self
So, what is the path we need to follow? Really, it is mindfulness, it is awareness and it cannot be emphasized enough. You need to be perceptive psychologically. In the doctrine of Islam, they refer to remembrance of God as dhikr. We talk about in these studies in relation to self-knowledge, the studies or the practice of Self-remembering, self-observation. What is the self we seek to remember? It is the divine Self. In Hinduism, they refer to it as Atman, the inner divinity, but we also want to become aware of our own egotistical self through the act of observing our mind, our heart and our body, our impulses, our desires, our instincts. Truly, to know the truth, we have to begin at this level and to be aware of our body, aware of our mind, aware of our sentiments.
For as Dhul-Nun al-Misri, the Egyptian, very famous Sufi master stated the following: The key to success and worship lies in meditative reflection (fikrat). Whoever persists in such reflection in the heart will behold the invisible realm and the spirit. Whoever contemplates God for keeping watch over the thoughts which pass through his heart will be exalted by God in all of his outward deeds. ―Dhū’l-Nūn Miṣrī in ‘Attār: Tadhkirat, 154-155
Again, we can refer to the three stages of religion even in this very brief quote which compacts a lot, meaning that whosoever contemplates God, who practices mushahida, witnesses God, understanding and knowing that God keeps watch over the thoughts that pass through his heart. This is the exercises of Shariah, to discipline our mind, to be aware of ourselves, to not act in inappropriate way according to the moment. Likewise, by doing so, one will be exalted by God, which is Haqq, the truth, Haqiqah. One of the sacred names of Allah in Islam is Al-Haqq, the Truth, which is where we get Haqiqah. It is in controlling our mind in which we will be exalted by the truth in all of our outward deeds, according to the path of Tariqah, one's actions.
“The Reminder” is another name for the Qur’an, the Recitation, the teaching.
So, there is no God but God. The Muslims make a very strict observance of worshipping only the divine, and they call worship of idols shirk, or to worship God as something multiple. This has a very interesting psychological application to us, because in a given moment, if we are mindful, we will perceive elements that seek to grab our energy, our attention. In a moment of anger, we want to speak harm, and if we give in to that element, if we give in to those words and we express that negative emotion, we are worshiping an idol. We are worshiping a psychological quality that is other than God. That condition of anger is a shell that has trapped the light of God within us and we need to learn to extirpate that from our psyche, to liberate the free consciousness, the free essence, the soul. Anytime we give into fear, other egos, other qualities, conditions of mind, and we identify ourselves with those elements, we are practicing shirk. That is a form of worship, because our love of being is how we worship God or how we turn away from him. The unity of God is very famous in Islam, the doctrine is called Tawhid, the unity of the Truth, because that light is universal, it is cosmic, whatever name we give to that. Within us, we have sadly, unfortunately, due to mistaken habits and will, wrong action, we have taken the light of the divine within us and caged it in what we call our pride, our fear, our anger, vanity, etc. These are conditions that we created that trap that light, and by breaking those shells, we free the genie from Aladdin's lamp as we were discussing previously. Truly, we need to remember the presence of the divine. That presence in Arabic is hudur which is where we get the word muhadara which means awareness of God. So self-observation, self-awareness, remembrance of God is the act of controlling our mind and remembering the qualities of the divine which is virtue, compassion, peace, etc. This psychological quality is beyond the intellect. Knowledge of the truth is beyond conceptualization, rationalization, etc. While we can gain knowledge or we can study this teaching and study any religion in an intellectual sense, it does not equate with the actual experience of that divinity. For as the Sufi Lāhījī stated: One cannot behold God by the eye of ratiocination derived from reason for only through the eye of the heart which is known as the faculty of inner vision can one behold God. ―Lāhījī: Mafātīh, 66
Likewise, he emphasizes the path of Shariah, the discipline, the conduct we need to know the truth.
As long as you do not focus this eye (meaning this perception, this self-awareness, self-observation) so as to sharpen its vision with the collyrium of asceticism, spiritual conduct, purgation of the soul, purification of the heart, illumination of the spirit, you will be unable to witness the Friend's beauty and contemplation. ―Lāhījī: Mafātīh, 66
People associate that term ‘asceticism’ with monks in sackcloth whipping themselves in a form of self-flagellation and very morbid behavior, and that is not something we encourage. Instead, we teach to discipline our mind. Asceticism can be practiced in an esoteric sense, not physical austerities, but mental psychological training in our daily life and our daily occupation. It does not mean we have to go to a monastery or Sufi lodge to learn to meditate. Instead, we learn to meditate in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in and that is our discipline, our conduct.
“The Friend” is the divine. The Sufis used this term for God, for the Being and contemplation again is mushahida, to witness God, whether through meditative experience or in the dream state, when one awakens in dreams to know that which is the truth, directly, with cognizance. 
The Perfect Human BeingAll the masters of the Path are in accordance that this reality can be realized only through the guidance of a perfect man who knows and contemplates God. ―Lāhījī: Mafātīh, 66
There have been many perfect men and women, many great masters and prophets and really, when we study ourselves and study esotericism, we should always rely on the prophets, beings like Jesus, like Buddha, like Muhammad, Krishna, those beings who fully exemplify the light of the divine and whose conduct has been tested and verified as true. We should not rely on theories or uncertain sources but our own experience and the scripture or the scriptures.
So what is an example of a perfect man? We find Muhammad, who of course, sadly, today is terribly denigrated and misunderstood. It is the effort of these lectures to help elucidate the spiritual roots and esoteric meaning behind his teaching, his doctrine. So we are going to talk about what he symbolizes for us, what he represents, because the perfect men and women, the prophets who came previously, in their very daily acts of kindness and expression and their discipline, came to symbolize a path we need to follow. There are many interesting things we can learn from the life of Prophet Muhammad which are symbolic for us and which he purposely played out, taking on a role to teach us something profound about ourselves. The Sufis emphasize that really, he is a great master, a very radical teacher and of course, all radical masters are very controversial, but if we look at the Hadith and examine the scriptures of the Quran from our own experience, we can verify the beauty of that teaching. The outer law (Shariah) is my word,
Whether in Islam or Buddhism, any master exemplifies and manifest those three paths simultaneously, in every action. The Buddha manifested Shravakayana, Mahayana, Tantrayana. Moses fulfilled the body, soul and spirit of his doctrine. Moses wrote the Torah but other scriptures associated with the higher teaching such as the Talmud related to the middle path, and then the Zohar is the esoteric doctrine of Israel. The Freemasons followed the paths of the Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master. So again, these levels of religion are levels of being but also levels of instruction as we mentioned. Certain scriptures pertain to each degree.
As we discuss previously, these three paths have a correlation to our three centers of activity. We have mind, we have emotion, we have movement. We can say we have three focal points, we call them “brains,” and a brain in esoteric psychology does not refer to the physical matter in the cerebrum. Instead, it pertains to a center of activity, physiological and psychological, which manages energies. Thought is a form of energy. Emotion is a form of energy, and will, desire, instinct, impulse, movement is another form. We must learn to comprehend these levels in ourselves, our own psychology, as a whole. Really, our heart relates to our words. How we feel, we express through our language. Likewise, our actions refer to the center of movement, and our inner reality is experienced when our mind is enlightened, when our consciousness is illuminated by harnessing those energies of Tantra which we will discuss.
The Sufis really emphasize the integral nature of this master and something we should follow in our own practice. The following was given by the book Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri: If someone requires of himself the conduct prescribed by the divine command (Shariah), God will illuminate his heart with the light of realization (Haqiqah). There is no station nobler than the station of following the beloved (or in Arabic it is al-Mustafa, the beloved of God who is Prophet Muhammad) in the orders he gave (Shariah), the actions he took (Tariqah), and the character he possessed (Haqiqah). ―Ibn Ata in Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri
Let us examine what he represents for us because his life is something symbolic and any figure in the Bible or the Quran who physically lived came to demonstrate something psychological for us, which is evident by looking at some of the etymology of Arabic and Hebrew.
Kabbalah and Sufi Mysticism
This is an image of the Kabbalah, the famous mystical Tree of Life, symbol of the highest levels of consciousness, which descend through different levels of dimensionality down to the physical plane and into more dense regions of matter, energy and perception. In discussing psychology, we use this glyph. It is a map of consciousness. It is also map of the universe and the different dimensions we can experience in a meditation or in the dream state. In Islam, heaven is known Jannat or Jannah, and Buddhism talks about Nirvana. Likewise, we have different terms for heaven in different cultures and that is really referring to this Tree of Life. These are higher levels of being that we can access if we learn to meditate.
A very important sphere in this glyph is at the very center; we have included the title, Tiphereth, with the Hebrew letters included. Tiphereth means beauty. It is the very center of this Tree of Life, and to explain Tiphereth, we will elaborate on this glyph in its entirety. Notice that there are three trinities included here. The top trinity is referring to the highest forces in nature which the Gnostics called Christ, Chrestos, the anointed one. These three spheres refer to Father, Son, Holy Spirit in Christianity. Kether, Chokmah, Binah in Kabbalah, or Crown, Wisdom, Understanding. These are forces; these are not people. This is why in Islam, they strictly reject the trinity, because the Christians at that time were literally worshipping the trinity as three people, and that is wrong. The truth is that these are energies. It is one force, one light, one intelligence which can manifest in diverse ways. We call it Christ or the First, Second and Third Logos in Gnostic terms, in Greek terms. Below that, we have on the right, the Spirit, known as Chesed in Hebrew meaning Mercy. In the Qur’an, when it says, Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim, “In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” it is referring to that spiritual quality known as Chesed, which is Mercy. The word Rahman relates to Hebrew Ruach, which means wind, breath, spirit, which is within us. To the left of that we have Geburah which is the Divine Soul, divine consciousness, which is not stained with impurity, and does not enter conditionality. Now, below that is Tiphereth, human will, Human Soul, that is really where we originate from. Our soul, our essence, our consciousness emanates from this middle sphere and really, when the soul is fully developed, it is beauty. It is pure and Tiphereth can also mean splendor, radiance, light. When we work with self-observation, we are working with this willpower to be controlling the lower aspects of our psychology. This unconditioned will, Tiphereth must conquer and control the lower spheres. You see here Netzach, which is the mind, intellect, thought. To the left of that, we have Hod, emotions, the heart. Below that, we have the Yesod, which is energy, vitality, sexual power which is used in tantric practice in a marriage in order to illuminate the other spheres ascending upward. Below that, we have Malkuth which is the physical body. It means “Kingdom.” Our willpower has to control mind, feeling, body, movement. That is the nature of Tiphereth and in us, it is undeveloped, but when we learn to observe ourselves and break the conditioning of the mind, we liberate more willpower. We free it. What is interesting about Tiphereth is that if you take this image and put it on a human being, the Kether at the top trinity relates to the head, the middle trinity relates to the heart and the lower trinity or quaternary including Malkuth related to the sexual organs and feet. Now, Tiphereth of course is associated with the heart especially in Islamic mysticism. As we find in the Hadith, the Muslim oral tradition, a very famous saying by Prophet Muhammad which emphasizes this point, the importance of developing Tiphereth. We will highlight for you the examples of how he is associated with that sphere of being, that he represents, Tiphereth: There is an organ in the body that if it is righteous ensures that the whole system will be righteous and if it is corrupt, the whole body will become corrupt. This organ is the heart. There is a polish for everything that takes away rust, and the polish for the heart is the Dhikr, the remembrance of Allah. ―Prophet Muhammad, Hadith 
Arabic Kabbalah, the Abjad System, and the Sacred Kaaba
The word for heart in Arabic is Qalb, and what is interesting about Arabic and Hebrew is that each letter represents a number. Kabbalah is the science of numbers, mathematics, which are divine. The universe is governed by math, and God is a mathematician. He works with the laws of nature and manifests them and operates them. Each Arabic letter, each Hebrew letter, has a symbol associated with a certain psychological and spiritual archetype, a blueprint for a soul that we need to develop. In the abjad system which is the Arabic Kabbalah, how you add numbers together produces very interesting associations. The same with Hebrew.
The word قلب Qalb is made up of ق Qaf, ل Lam, ب Ba, respectively, with numerical values of 100, 30 and 2, respectively. In Hebrew, this is ק Quf, ל Lamed, ב Beth. When you add those numbers together, you get 132. If you take number the 1, add it to 32, 32 + 1, you get 33, a very interesting number in relation to the science of masonry in Europe. Also, likewise, you look at the name Muhammad, you break it down, م Mim, ح Ha, م Mim, م Mim, د Dal, respectively is 40 + 8 + 40 + 40 + 4 which is 132. Again, add 1 + 32 is 33. Masonry speaks often of the symbol of the 33 degrees of a master, which symbolizes the 33 degrees or vertebrae of our spine, our spinal column. Our spinal column is where the light of the divine can manifest. We talked previously about how, through the exercises of Tantra, a couple can raise the creative energies of sex up the spine to the brain in order to illuminate it, so the images of the prophets having halos is a symbol of having raised the creative energies of God from sex to the brain, up the spine. Someone who has successfully raised that Kundalini serpent force to the mind and is filled with fire in their intellect is a master of the 33rd degree, having fulfilled each step of that terrain, that path up the spinal medulla. Now, Muhammad represents this as we will examine in the story of his ascension and we will talk about that next. But what is interesting is that the word תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth hides and implies a lot, and a very interesting symbolism. Each letter as we said is a representation of a quality. The letter ת Tav, the final letter of the Hebraic alphabet, this 22nd letter, can mean “seal, truth, cross, path, covenant.” Notice that the word תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth begins and ends with ת Tav. Muhammad is often cited as the Seal of the Prophets, the Seal of the Truth, as given in the Quran, Surah 33, verse 40, Al-Ahzab. Muhammad is not the father of any of your men but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets and Allah has full knowledge of all things. ―Qur'an 33:40
Seal of the Prophets is khatim an-nabiyyin, and most Muslims associate this as meaning that he is the last of the major prophets to come teach humanity. But really, in a strict esoteric sense, seal of the truth, seal of the prophets is Tiphereth, because it begins with ת Tav and ends with ת Tav, “truth, seal.” If you are familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, we have Dzogchen, which is the great perfection or Mahamudra, the “Great Seal.” It is the same meaning. Buddhism is implicit within that name תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth.
Notice also in the middle of this word if going from right to left because Hebrew's right to left: ת Tav, פ Peh, א Aleph, ר Resh and ת Tav. ת Tav begins and ends this word, and at the center of this phrase is the word אר Or: א Aleph, ר Resh. Or if you add the letter ו Vav in the center, it is אוֹר Aur, א Aleph, ו Vav, ר Resh, signifying light as the book of Genesis states, “Let there be light and there was light,” Yehi va aur vayehi aur. אוֹר Aur means light, and it is at the center of this word. If you add the letter ו Vav, the sixth letter of Hebrew alphabet, it spells “light” in the center. ו Vav is direct representation of the spine. You take the letter ו Vav as a straight line; it represents the spinal column. That is how the light emerges from our creative forces to the brain and illuminates us and gives us genuine beauty, spiritually speaking. תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth is beautiful, meaning splendor, light, radiance. If you add ו Vav in the center, you can see that it has light within it, and then the heart is enlivened, is saturated with those cosmic forces when a couple practices alchemy. Now, again, תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth is truth seal, seal of truth, the heart, قلب Qalb, or the heart in Arabic. Many interesting parallels that really point with great emphasis that Muhammad is Tiphereth and represents for us, our willpower, the beauty of the soul we need to cultivate. In Islam, in relation to this topic, Muslims pray to the east, towards Mecca, the sacred stone Kaaba. To discuss Marifah, the highest knowledge of esotericism, the Muslims symbolize the secret teachings of alchemy, of a marriage, within the stone. The Kaaba in Mecca relates to the Kabbalah, if you relate to the Hebrew. Kaaba in Spanish is La Kaaba, take La and put it at the end, and you spell Kabbalah. Likewise, you spell “the cow” in Spanish, la vaca, which is the same root word for the word Baqarah, the longest Surah of the Quran, “The Cow,” emphasizing that there is really a great profound mystery there. So Muslims pray to the east towards the Kaaba, the sacred stone that was established originally by Adam and Eve in Islamic myth, and became impure or blackened as a result of the impurity of the psyche. All of this deserves analysis, since the wisdom of the middle east bears profound symbolism. The stone, this energy, this foundation of our temple, our Kaaba, spiritually speaking, has become impure and refers to our energies. It is the forces upon which we exist physically, but also spiritually. These energies have been corrupted by desire, by lust. The Kaaba is prayed towards five times a day. Muslims pray toward the Kaaba daily and the direction in which one prays is called قِـبْـلَـة Qibla. Again, you hear the word قلب Qalb, heart, implied there, and also, قِـبْـلَـة Qibla, Kabbalah. Kabbalah in Hebrew simply means “to receive.” It is knowledge that we receive consciously from God. It is not limited to what we read, but something we verify for ourselves. The Kaaba, the stone, is a symbol of the energies we carry in our body, which if we use for spirituality, can elevate us to the divine, to enliven our heart and awaken our consciousness. In Arabic Kabbalah, ق Qaf can signify the powers of the head, ل Lam the powers of speech, and ب Ba the House of God, Bayṫ Allāh, the Kaaba or stone of Yesod, whereby divine forces coagulate. Through controlling our mind, our ق Qaf, through mantras, sacred sounds through the power of ل Lam, the tongue, we invoke divinity into our house of God, our heart, ب Ba. Even the Arabic letter ب Ba appears, in its calligraphy, like a cup, chalice, or receptacle that receives the solar, divine forces. All of this signifies how divinity descends through prayer and recitation into the temple of the spirit, our heart. This is why the Sufi master Bayazid Bastami stated the following: When you are separate from the Kaaba, it is all right to turn toward it, but those who are in it can turn toward any direction they wish. ―Bayazid Bastami
This is a very radical statement from a Muslim, considering that this is very important to perform the canonical prayer Salat. The meaning of that is that if you know the symbolic meaning of the Kaaba and if you work with your stone, the creative sexual energy, the creative power, it does not matter what direction you pray. Instead, you learn to direct those forces from the base of the spine to the brain and into the heart. That is how you receive knowledge, Kabbalah within your emotional center, within قلب Qalb, the heart in Arabic. Likewise, as I mentioned, it does not matter what direction you pray but when you know the قِـبْـلَـة Qibla, you know how to redirect those forces within you, you are praying to the east symbolically, since in the Tree of Life, the east is Tiphereth, astrologically related to the sun when it rises. Your قِـبْـلَـة Qibla, your direction to which you pray is within you. Through alchemy, you raise the powers of Yesod to the east, up to the mind and then to the heart. This is very well-explained in Kabbalah.
We mentioned in the previous lecture on divine love how the symbol of Islam, the crescent moon and the star, is a symbol of how we transform the moon of our psyche into the sun of the Spirit. The star Venus, the star of love, Venus-Aphrodite, is “beauty” in Greek, and she is the divine feminine within us, the serpentine power called Kundalini, which is asleep in us in the base of our spine, according to Hinduism, Hindu anatomy, Hindu occult anatomy.
The sexual stone hides within it the energy of Kundalini in the base of the spine, and the stone is called the Yesod in Kabbalah, the foundation of our temple, because how we use our energy determines our spiritual life. If we waste our energy, we cannot function, but if we conserve our forces and become hermetically sealed, psychologically speaking, we do not identify with life so much and do not waste our mental, physical or emotional energy, we will become much happier and elevated. How we use this energy of the creative power in us, the sexual power is that serpentine force that can raise us spiritually. Another interesting thing about this stone of Kaaba, is reported in pre-Islamic myth that there was a serpent sleeping at the base of this temple, of the stone, within the Kaaba itself in the earth. It is representing for us that creative power of the Divine Mother is in that stone. Many people are familiar with tantric yoga, raising the Kundalini force through sexual union up the spine to the brain. The stone is a very symbolic thing which we are going to elaborate with the myth or the teachings of Muhammad's ascension. 
The Ascension of the Prophet
The very famous teaching of Muhammad is that he was meditating at Mecca, meaning, he was asleep and reflecting on his inner divinity while near the Kaaba itself. He became drowsy (emphasizing for us that in meditation, we become sleepy physically but consciously, we are alert, we are aware, we are vigilant). At that point, he encountered a mystical creature called Al-Buraq. It is an animal with the body of a mule, the tail of a peacock and the face of a woman, which he rode upon towards Jerusalem in a few moments and afterward, he ascended the seven heavens mentioned in Islam. The Tree of Life of Kabbalah represents nine heavens but you can also say seven dimensions, so the Muslims and the mystics of Israel are in agreement.
But how did he ascend towards those higher levels of being up those different steps of the Tree of Life? Precisely through working with the stone in Mecca. If you look at the Arabic root of the name البراق Al-Buraq, it means “the lightning,” lightning bolt, and if you translate that into Sanskrit, it is Vajra. Vajra is a lightning bolt that the gods or the Buddhas wield, or Zeus wields to destroy the impure. That lightning is the creative Kundalini force of the spine that can help you to ascend up the heavens, the seven heavens or seven chakras of the spinal medulla up to the crown in order to connect you with the divine. The name البراق Al-Buraq contains the word Ur, the Arabic نور Nur, or “light” of chastity. Remove Ur from Buraq, and you are left with Baq, the root of the term Baqarah, the sacred Heifer or Cow within the Qur’an, a symbol of the Divine Mother. You find the name Buraq of course of our current president, but it also is a Muslim name and it relates to the Hebrew Barak in the book of Judges chapter 5, verse 12, which explains the exploits of the prophetess Debora or Deborah who was a judge of Israel fighting against the Philistines. Again, she represents something psychological, how our own consciousness needs to wage war against the infidels, which are not outside of us, but in us, our own fear, pride, worries, anxieties, hate, lust. These are infidels. These are something we need to be strict and to fight against consciously. It does not mean to go to war against someone else for their religion. Now, it says in the book of Judges: Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake. Utter a song. Arise Barak and lead thy captivity captive, the son of Abinoam. ―Judges 5:12
They were persecuted by Sisera and his armies, the Philistine armies, in which Deborah led a great war in the Bible against her enemies and the enemies of Israel.
Again, Israel is not, in the Bible, representing the people of the Middle East, neither the Philistines. These are just symbolic representations. The names hide a lot of meaning. Israel is from Isis, the Egyptian goddess, the Divine Mother, Ra, Osiris-Ra and El in Hebrew which means God. The people of Israel are all the parts of our soul that are trapped in all the discursive psychological elements we carry within, which produces our suffering, and that which we call ego, negativity, self, infidels, defects which we have to fight against, those qualities that trap the divine light. Deborah is the judge of Israel, meaning she judges herself in meditation, that quality in us that helps to judge ourselves in which we combat those enemies to God, those unbelievers, so to speak. It says, “Arise Barak.” Barak, Buraq, “the lightning, arise from the base of my spine to my brain and then to my heart up that mountain range to illuminate my psyche,” in which Barak is that sword, that fire that emerges when we work with sacred sound, with mantras. The word Deborah in Hebrew comes from Dabar, which means “word, to speak, to pronounce.” The letter ה Hei which is the H sound at the end. You put it to the front of her name, it is Ha-dabar, the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was of God and the Word was God.” When a couple unite sexually, they can pronounce sacred mantras and awaken that fire that we will send up the spinal column to the brain and is that sword that will help us fight against the evil ones within us. Again, the word sword is the letter S, the vowel S (we say it is a vowel in an esoteric studies).
The letter S, if you pronounce it as a mantra, ssssssssssssssss, is the power to awaken that creative power. It is a fire, it is the sound of a serpent, serpentine fire of Kundalini that rises within the spine. That is the sword, S + Word, which we can awaken within us.
It says, “Awake, awake Deborah, awake. Utter a song,” meaning: pronounce mantras when you are with your wife or your husband in order to awaken that fire and to fight against the enemies of God which are within us. So, Prophet Muhammad represents that, the qualities of the heart that help to raise those forces and to wage difficult wars against the lower selves, the nafs, egos. One thing I will mention about again is the people of the Philistines. Literal people, of course, associate the scriptures as a history book, which is not the case. It is a symbolic text. You look at the word Philistine and it has many interesting relationships to the Greek language. You can say that the term Philistine sounds like Phila, Philadelphia, which is a Greek work meaning from Philos, “to love,” or Phileo, “to love,” and Adelphos, which means “brother.” Likewise, Philistine, if you break it down into Greek can mean Phile-Hestia, which means “tribe of the hearth” or “lover of the hearth,” someone who loves the fireplace. This is an interesting symbol. It really refers to those egos, demonic qualities within the psyche which love evil, love to do harmful things, who love the fires of lust, to use our creative energies in the negative way. Yesod is the stone where the fire of life emerges physically and spiritually. Those who love the hearth, the Philistines, signifies any person who loves that energy but in the wrong way. They like to abuse that power through lust, through fornication specifically, or adultery. They like to get burned by that energy, to not conserve it and use it for God. So, these are the Philistines, those who love those egos, those devil qualities within the psyche, the conditioning of the mind. Likewise, the people of Israel must really liberate all the parts of God, all the qualities and particles of the soul that are trapped in suffering. What we will mention is that to raise those energies, we must specifically work with meditation, which is allegorized in the Ascension of the Prophet. Muhammad's ascension represents at once how work with that power but also how to meditate, because he was contemplating God at the stone of Mecca. Then, in a sleepy state, he accessed that Samadhi, ecstasy, Satori, whatever word you want to give to it: a profound mystical state devoid of any subjectivity or limitation. Sufis explained what we need to do to acquire that in Al-Qushayri’s Principles of Sufism. He states the following: In general, it is to the measure of one’s alienation from one’s own ego that one attains direct knowledge of one’s Lord… I heard Abu Ali al-Daqqaq say, "One of the tokens of the gnosis of God is the achievement of deep awe and reverence for God. If someone’s realization increases, his awe increases." And I heard him say, "Gnosis requires stillness of heart, just as learning requires outward quiet. If someone’s gnosis increases, his tranquility increases.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
We emphasize meditation as the science in which we learn to understand the root causes of our suffering by using those energies for our spirituality.
Selflessness and the Unity of God
In this graphic, we also include the Tree of Life. I want to emphasize the need to change. This Tree of Life is God, we could say, in His totality, the Being in all the levels of consciousness, from the highest to the lowest. We, of course, are in Malkuth, the bottom, this physical sphere, but we are still part of God, that needs to obey and to submit in Islam or to bow to the will of divinity. We do so by comprehending and striving against our own defects.
To understand mystical experience, the truth, we must overcome our conditioned mind, because, it is that sense of self which blocks us from accessing that mystical experience. As Abu Sa'id stated the following, “Wherever the delusion of your selfhood appears—there’s hell. Wherever ‘you’ aren't—that's heaven.” Sense of self, selfhood, is ego. That's really our hell, our suffering. That is the opposite of the bliss, selflessness, virtue, and ecstasy of God. Bayazid Bistami also stated the following, in relation to this quote: “I came out of Bayazid-ness as a snake from its skin. Then I looked. I saw that lover, Beloved, and love are one, because in that state of unification all can be one.” This Tree of Life, we represent as different modalities of consciousness, of being, but they are one tree. Just as we look at a physical tree, it has many branches. It is really one integral living being. Likewise, this Tree of Life and its many parts is really one whole. There's no demarcation between this teaching and the doctrine of Tawhid in Islam, because within God, all is one, but He manifests in different ways so that we can access him and gain knowledge. Of course, when Bayazid says, “I came out of my skin like a snake,” he is talking about the shell of our terrestrial personality to express that creative divine potential, the kundalini serpent, shedding the impurities of the mind in order to elevate those forces within us. What do we need to do? We need to seek. As the book of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 7-8 states: Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, recieveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. ―Matthew 7:7-8
Sufis have a very similar parallel about this quest for self-knowledge, of knowing the divine. This quote goes towards the explanation of the three levels of religion that we discussed.
Search for what you are asked about in the sanctuary of knowledge (Shariah)... ―Ahmad bin Ata in Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri
...meaning, the books and audio lectures or whatever scripture you have an affinity toward to study, let that be your sanctuary where you study divine wisdom. It is also the conduct we need to develop in order to experience the divine.
If you do not find it there, then in the battlefield of wisdom. ―Ahmad bin Ata in Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri
This is the path of Tariqah which, again, in Arabic, is the path of Mujahida, which is striving, or the path of jihad, path of war against the enemies of Israel, the ego, our negative sense of self.
If you still do not find it, weigh it with the unity. ―Ahmad bin Ata in Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri
Haqiqah, the truth, which you find when the body is in silence, in which the soul escapes from its material conditioning, its material shell, and ascends that Tree of Life that we are viewing. If it is not to be found in any of these places; if you're searching for the knowledge of the truth in yourself and if you don't find it in the books; if you don't find it in your daily life and your actions; if you don't find it in the highest levels of spirituality, in the unity, it says:
If you haven't found it in any of these places, strike Satan in the face with it. ―Ahmad bin Ata in Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri
This has to do with verification of teaching. We may read about a doctrine, study it, be very devout Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, etc., but it doesn't mean that we've experienced God, the truth. We need to learn how to experiment, to test our knowledge of ourselves with scripture, and if we don't find it there, within our daily actions, then we must reject our methods. Then, seek the knowledge in the truth and the experience of the divine. If we are very attached to, maybe, a certain quality of ours or a belief, if we don't find that verified in anything we have read, experienced, whether in our daily life or in meditation, then strike Satan in the face with it. Meaning, you got to be very strict with your analysis. Meaning, do not believe or disbelieve anything, but experiment, verify. Buddha said, "Do not take my word or face value or because you have respect for me. Instead, test my words like gold."
O bhikshus and wise men, just as a goldsmith would test his gold by burning, cutting, and rubbing it, so you must examine my words and accept them, but not merely out of reverence for me. ―Buddha, Ghanavyuha Sutra (Sutra of Dense Array)
Scratch it. Burn it. Do what you will with it in order to verify that it is what it is. Likewise, anything we seek to verify, we should test it in accordance with these three levels of religion: Shariah or conduct, religious scripture; Tariqah, our actions, our daily life; and Haqiqah, the Samadhi experience, where we are united with the truth. We don't need to really conceptualize so much. We simply know, have the experience. If it is not found in any of those places, well, discard it. It is not true. That which is true is what you have verified, not what you believe, since it never leaves your heart. It is eternal. Now, to experience that, again, we emphasize mindfulness.
Self-Remembrance, Spiritual Practice, and the Present Moment
In this image, we have a man performing adhan, the call to prayer in Islam, in which they pray five times a day, which is a beautiful discipline, if done consciously, with awareness, representing the need to be vigilant psychologically, moment by moment. In Gnosis, we seek to pray more than five times a day. We seek to pray every moment. For this, Sufis also teach the same thing. "The greatest form of prayer is watchfulness of the moments," is what one of the Sufis we quoted, stated. We need to awaken consciousness to be aware of ourselves, to remember the presence of the divine, hudur.
There are steps and grades to how we contemplate the divine. Probably, one of the most important quotes from this Scripture we've been citing, Al-Risalah, is the following, "Al-Jurayri said that, whoever does not establish awe of duty and vigilance in his relationship to God will not arrive at disclosure of the unseen or contemplation, mushahida, of the divine." Awe of duty means, to have reverence for one's practices, one's discipline. To meditate 10 minutes a day, 20 minutes, an hour, to mantralize, to pronounce sacred sounds or mantras, etc. daily. Whatever discipline we engage with, we must feel that awe in reverence of the divine in that act and make it consistent. Because if we don't practice one day, we practice every other day, we are not establishing awe of duty, which is a responsibility of the soul to work for God, for the Being. In that way, if one does not establish that, one cannot arrive at disclosure, meaning, the tearing of the veil, the experience, to perceive God directly, to witness the divine. That is in essence of contemplation, mushahida. Again, when we have experienced that, when we have tasted that, we in turn can orient ourselves in our daily life and guide ourselves to know how to live appropriately. Whatever problems we face, whatever difficulties or challenges we experience, the Being can solve that, will arrange the means for us to comprehend what in us produces our suffering and how can we eliminate that, and also, how we can resolve difficulties in life. It is by accessing this witnessing of God or practicing the shahida or mushahida, contemplation and meditation, in which we truly realize that there is no “I,” there is no me, there is no self, there is only Him. Ibn Karbala'i stated the following: When the seeker realizes the station of contemplation (mushāhida), which is witnessing God’s Essence comprehending and encompassing all phenomena (meaning, this whole Tree of Life. He is really in all aspects of this graphic, whether from the highest or the lowest. We are part of him but we are in the densest sphere. We have to learn how to ascend, to go up)―“Does not your Lord suffice, since He is witness over all things?” (41:53) ―Ibn Karbalā’ī, Rawdāt al-janān, II 164
When someone fulfills this precept, meaning, remembering God in our mind, our heart, our body, we then witness Him and He through us.
He continually witnesses lights from the mundus invisibilis. ―Ibn Karbalā’ī, Rawdāt al-janān, II 164
This is a reference to how in meditation, people who are remembering God may experience lights, clairvoyant images, experiences, whether in the dream state or when the physical body is at rest, when we are concentrating on God.
From such a mystic’s perspective, this world and the hereafter are one and the same. This can only be realized by a vision that is all heart and spirit, not a view bound by mere mud and mire. ―Ibn Karbalā’ī, Rawdāt al-janān, II 164
What is this mud and mire? These are our own afflictions which we need to conquer.
The vision of the heart and spirit is the work of Tiphereth, the Human Soul, that unconditioned will that can free the rest of the consciousness. It is the symbol of the knight saving the maiden from the dragon, which is in us. That maiden is our divine consciousness, Geburah. The Human Soul is the warrior, the spiritual fighter, the human soul that must work to be married with his Guinevere, so Lancelot with Guinevere, the marriage of the two souls. Arthur of course, is the king, the Spirit whom we have to work with. The Science of Certainty in Meditation
Now, we discuss in the Qur’an, the nature of developing certainty of the truth and knowing the truth. Many asked Prophet Muhammad and complained to him that they cannot experience the divine, that they do not know the divine. They do not know the unknowable. This is emphasized in Al-Baqarah, surah 2, verse 118:
Those who have no knowledge (Marifah, or you could say ilm in Arabic as well, "Why does not Allah speak to us or come to us a sign?’ So said those who are before them, [words] similar to what they say. Alike are their hearts. We have certainly made the signs clear for people who have certainty. ―Qur'an 2:118
What does it mean to be certain? To verify. To know. That is the essence of Gnosis, of Marifah, spiritual knowledge.
You could say that there are three degrees of knowledge as well, or three degrees of certainty in Arabic. You have ilm al-yaqin. Yaqin means “certainty.” Ilm al-yaqin means, the “certainty of knowledge.” You have ayn al-yaqin, the “perception of knowledge.” You have haqq al-yaqin, the “truth of knowledge.” Now, with the knowledge of certainty or certainty of knowledge, you could say, one receives that by studying scripture, by receiving a lecture, from hearing a talk or reading a book. We gain a certain level of certainty, intellectually speaking, where we feel, “This sounds right. I can verify this. I feel confident with this.” The next step is ayn al-yaqin. Ayn in Arabic or in Hebrew means eyes to perceive. It is what we consciously verify, what we consciously experience. Meaning, our soul is free of conditioning; we perceive beyond the mind, the intellect, and whether through an astral projection, out of body experience, or meditative experience, we come to verify something spiritual. Then, haqq al-yaqin is the truth of knowledge, or truth of certainty. That is when the soul fully unites with God and is one with the truth in which there is no “I,” there is only Him. The famous Sufi, Mansur Al-Hallaj, was executed by the Orthodox Muslims for saying, “Ana al-Haqq, I am the Truth,” which of course is blasphemous to them, considering that he was saying, "I am God." A way to remember it, it was not Mansur who was saying that. It was God in him. Of course, the orthodoxy had him executed, tortured. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I Am.” Meaning, Christ, through him, was speaking. God, through him, was speaking. When we have that level of certainty, it is because the soul is fully one with God. One perceives as God, temporarily liberated from the conditions of the mind. Of course, one thing is to temporarily experience that, another thing is to make that permanent. In order to permanently be in that state, we have to remove all conditions, and that is a long process, a path we have to follow. These three levels of certainty are emphasized in the Quran, Surah 102, “The Rivalry.” Rivalry in vainglory distracted you until you visited the even graves. No indeed! Soon you will know! Again, no indeed! Soon you will know. No indeed! Were you to have knowledge of certainty, you would surely see hell. ―At-Takathur 1-6
Again, hell is, we mentioned, not just a place. It is a psychological quality. It is not a place of brimstone and fire. Those are symbols of how, in a moment of anger, we are consumed by hate, by fear, by pride. These qualities make us vibrate at a very low level of being, and make us suffer, make others suffer. That is what it means to be consumed by hellfire, the ego, you could say, our negative psyche.
Again, you will surely see it with the eye of certainty. Then that day you will surely be questioned concerning the blessing. ―At-Takathur 7-8
Then, the truth of certainty is represented in Waqi'ah, “The Inevitable.” Again, Waqi'ah, that which is “inevitable,” is Haqiqah, the Truth. This etymology signifies that we will inevitably have to come to speak to our inner Being and make account of our actions.
Indeed, it is a reminder for the God-weary. Indeed, we know that there are some among you who deny it, and indeed, it will be a matter of regret for the faithless (It does not mean people who just believe in a doctrine, but people who do not want to change, psychologically speaking, who do not know the divine). It is indeed certain truth, so celebrate the name of your Lord, All Supreme. ―Al-Waqi'ah
The Sufis emphasized this doctrine of certainty with the following quote:
Knowledge does not come about except by the prior fulfillment of its conditions. That is, one must examine things in a pertinent and relevant way. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Meaning, to meditate, to experiment and verify, to test it, to not either believe it or disbelieve it, but to be neutral and to work with these exercises and to see the results and to know for ourselves what is true, what is not.
Then, when hints of the divine become continuous and clear, demonstrative evidence has been obtained, the perceiver, through the succession of lights and his deep reflection upon them, becomes seemingly independent of the consideration of proof. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Again, these lights are experiences we can have in meditation, or when the body is at rest, the soul enters the dream world. In that state, we can awaken our consciousness and speak face-to-face with the heavenly beings. In that way, there is no intercessor, we simply know, from that state on that Tree of Life, those heavens; we verify the nature of heaven, those qualities, those levels of being.
“It becomes seemingly independent of the consideration of proof," meaning, the more we verify, the less we need to read. Then, we simply know that the truth of the matter and from our conscious experience, or conscious work. Of course, we are Shravakas. We have to study and learn the teachings and the techniques so that we can ascend up those levels of path. What is a real Gnostic, an arif in Arabic? It is somebody who fully manifests God. People in these studies, we could say, are aspirants. We aspire to know the truth and to fulfill it. The Sufis emphasized these qualities in relation to the constitution of someone who really knows God, someone who has fulfilled Ma'rifah and has manifested Haqiqah, the truth. 
The Gnostic is purified of base characteristics and the disasters of his nature. He stands patiently at the door of God and remains secluded in his heart. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
To stand at the door, as we see in this image, is the definition of a dervish, so the Sufi, the whirling dervishes, darvish, are those who stand at the door. In Arabic, it starts with the letter د Dal, or you could say ד Daleth in Hebrew: those who stand at the doorway of knowledge. The mystics of Judaism refer to Ma'rifah as Da'ath, the mystical creative knowledge of Tantra.
He enjoys the good graces of God and corroborates him in all of his states. He has cut off the whims of his own self. He does not permit a thought in his heart that would summon to other than God. He becomes a stranger to the creation and is liberated from the catastrophes of his ego. He is cleansed of attachments and distractions and, in his secret being, is always conversing with God Most High. His every glance returns to God Most High. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
This reminds me of a Sufi poem by Mansur Al-Hallaj. He says, “O, my eyes, O, my blinks, my stares,” referring to God, that God sees through him and guides him in his actions. Which is why, I believe it is in the Hadith, the Muslim oral tradition, where prophet Muhammad stated that, “The one who loves Him,” or his God speaking through him, “For the one who loves me, I become his eyes, his ears, his sight, his taste,” and the soul is immersed within that being, beingness.
Therefore, the truth inspires him with the intuition of his secrets, the secrets of the course of His omnipotence. This is why such a person is called Arif, a Gnostic, and his state is called Ma'rifah, direct knowledge. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism Conclusion and Practice
We always conclude these lectures with a practice you can engage with to help you to experiment and to verify what we are teaching, and to test it, to know it. In this exercise, continue to practice mindfulness, self-observation. Be aware of your mind, your heart, your body, your three brains: thought, feeling and movement, impulse, instinct, desire. At the end of each day, simply take a comfortable posture. You can sit in the full lotus or half-lotus or in a chair, Western-style, whatever is comfortable to relax the body and to silence the mind. Therefore, go into your consciousness and observe yourself. Do not identify with thought, feeling, impulse, desire, etc.
There is a mantra you can utilize from both the Sufi and even the Chinese tradition, Chinese Buddhist, or Chan tradition (the Japanese equivalent is Zen), a mantra that is called simply W-U, Wu. Amongst the Chan Buddhists or even the Zen Buddhists, they refer to this mantra as a negation of self. It literally means “no.” When you are examining your mind, you could do this mantra, the mantra Wu. It pronounced like a long exhalation of a breath: wwuuuuuuu. The Sufis pronounce this mantra as هُوَ Hu, within the name اللّٰهُ Allahu. هُوَ Hu is spirit, the wind, pronounced as an exhalation or breath. It simply means "He," a reference to our innermost divinity. It's also interesting that etymologically, اللّٰهُ Allah means, "The No," or negation of all existent and created things, being the supreme being, since اللّٰهُ Allahu has the same meaning as the mantra Wu, or "No." The Master Samael Aun Weor explains, it is a hurricane, a breath. Again, it reminds us of the Ruach, the spirit, the wind. You pronounce that mantra. Relax your body. You can do this for 30 minutes, an hour. Let your body relax. Then, eventually, let your body fall asleep. You can pronounce the mantra silently and then mentally. When you examine your mind, look at the different qualities that emerge, memories, preoccupations, fears, etc., and simply negate them. Meaning, “Well, this is not my God. This is not my Being. This is not my true Self. Therefore, I am going to tranquilly ignore it.” Let it pass with the mind of intellect. Observe it. Let it go. Continue in the mantra: wwuuuuu.
In the writings of Samuel Aun Weor, he talks about this mantra in more detail, but a very simple way that you can silence the mind. When the mind is completely in silence and serenity, the soul escapes from the bottle and you temporarily experience the Truth, Haqq, your Being. Then, He can give you the guidance that you need for whatever issues or struggles you have.
Questions and Answers
Question: You were saying that we always need to be pretty much aware of what we are aware of.
Instructor: Yes. Question: Meditation is a big step in that focus? Instructor: We say that meditation is the daily bread of the Gnostic. “Give us this day, our daily bread.” That bread of knowledge is what we receive in meditation. That knowledge that we receive from the divinity within us is Kabel, Kabbalah. We will receive it within our qalb, our heart. This practice of this mantra, Wu, is a preliminary step. We do mantras and sacred sounds to work with positive energy, to accumulate those forces in our interior in order to develop serenity. When the mind is perfectly in serenity, we forget our body, forget our mind, forget our sentiment. Then, the soul can reflect the divine qualities from above, in much the same way that a lake, when it is undisturbed, can reflect the stars of heaven, far away from any city. Meditation is how we cultivate that knowledge. It begins first, observing ourselves. In daily life, we observe our mind, our heart, et cetera. Then, in that way, as the Sufis mentioned and we have mentioned in this lecture, "It is by developing awareness that God can exalt us in our daily life, in our daily deeds." Of course, meditation deepens that awareness. Question: I always think of praying is we are talking to God, and meditation is we are listening. Instructor: Meditation is listening. Also, when we pray, too, we do not need any formula. We can use many formulas such as the Ave Maria or Pater Noster, the Fatihah, the Opening of the Qur’an, which are very excellent for lifting our mood. I recommend that when you begin any meditation session, pray. You do not need to follow any specific formula. Just as a child approaches his mother, “Mother of mine, father of mine, help me.” God will respond if your mind is silent. Pray in the beginning and then silence your mind and then receive that knowledge. To pray is to strive, to conquer ourselves. Question: It is just talking to God. It is just talking, right? Instructor: When the mind is perfectly silent, then we can talk to God even in a deeper level. When the physical body is asleep, the soul escapes its shell and we can enter into the higher dimensions. Then, we can talk face-to-face. Then, we can conversate just as we are conversating here. Very vivid and real experience, God will make a form or image to teach us something. Question: What is the context you used ‘hermetically sealed’? Instructor: From the hermetic tradition. Question: I only know the everyday meaning of that. Instructor: Well, the science of hermeticism is the science of Hermes, which relates to the God Mercury. Hermes is associated with how we use our energy. We say Mercury to refer to, not just the physical element, but to our creative energy. The power of Yesod, the moon, that sexual force is Mercury. How we use it is how we illuminate our mind. Mercury relates to the mind as well. When we work with that power, we can illuminate our mind. Hermetically sealed means we do not lose any energy. We discussed previously, in Tantrism, the couple should not reach the orgasm, specifically, that it is forbidden for those students to have any emission. The Dalai Lama states that the creative energy must never be let out. Likewise, with our heart. Likewise, with our mind. It is the renunciation of that habit, in which we conserve energy and transmute it, transform it. Where, we continually are filled with that water of life, which is the seminal matter, specifically. Hermetically sealed means, do not waste your sexual energy, but also, do not waste your emotional energy and your mental energy. Your quality of the mind is determined by how we use that creative power. You look at people in the world today in relation to pornography or sexual addiction; that is all they think about, because, they are driven by that energy. We need to learn how to sublimate it, to direct it to more creative and spiritual purposes, which again, elevates our level of being, as we are discussing. Question: Is there any Quranic interpretation that you would trust? I tried three of them years ago. You do not know which one to trust, because you cannot read Arabic, and you are reading somebody else's thought form. Do you know of any that are good? Instructor: I know some English translations which are commended. Saudi Arabia commends the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation. There is also a newer one, from more Western academia, which I believe is called “The Study Quran.” It is an English translation of course, but the good thing is that they explain some of the original Arabic, transliterated. That is very useful for people who only speak English and do not read Arabic to interpret certain words, such as some of the words we were using, refer to some of those resources. Very useful. Question: Getting back to as you think, feel, and act, what is, as far as being in unison with all of it, does that have anything to do with it? I mean, how do you help others with that, with people? It seems there seems to be, what I have researched, is the cremation of care which is, no one really cares, hence skull and bones. Another Speaker / Comment: Think of it like when you put two pianos together. You play a note on one piano that's side-by-side, the other one will pick up that note, will respond. Question: It is like the 99 monkey syndrome, or the hundred monkey syndrome? Instructor: I'm not sure. Question: That just by being yourself, you just rub that off on others. Instructor: If you have a higher level of being, it can help another person to rise to a higher level of being. Because, if you are vibrating with negative qualities, such as anger, you speak angry words, you are going to provoke anger in that person. Someone who has no training, they are just going to react. Question: Isn't anger part of our dynamic though, the sadness, happiness, anger? Instructor: Wrath or anger is an ego, a defect. Question: No. No. Are we supposed to get, with all the atrocities and slavery, war, etc.? Another Speaker / Comment: Yeah. Well, there is indignation. Yeah. That is the soul that says, "This is terrible." That is a justified sentiment. Remember in the book of Judges, judgment, in which God judges humanity, not out of hate but out of realization that people are corrupt. Question: Jesus was angry at the bankers. Instructor: He was very radical. People think of him as this very emasculated, sexless figure with no will. He is the whip of willpower to drive out those moneychangers, which is the symbol of all the egos we have who have taken the temple of God in us and prostituted it. He comes in with the whip. Christ, our inner Christ, rejects them. Just as Muhammad said, “Kill the unbelievers.” Kill your ego, but it does not mean kill anyone outside your religion. The thing is, when Muhammad came to Mecca, after taking over the city, he went inside the Kaaba and took all the idols that were there and knocked them over and destroyed them, as a symbol. He is representing how in our own physiology, our energies, our mind, our psyche, we have to take all of those egotistical elements and remove them. Question: From the Gnostic teachings, are you familiar with John Lash? Instructor: No. Question: Okay. He says that Jesus was a demigod. Instructor: Well, in Gnostic and Buddhist terms, a demigod is a Bodhisattva, a master who is the essence of Bodhi. Sattva means essence or incarnation. Bodhi means wisdom or light. Wisdom in Hebraic Kabbalah is Christ. He was the incarnation of the Lord. Just as Muhammad was an incarnation of the truth, the Lord. Moses, Buddha, they all incarnated that light which the Christians called Christ. The human person, Jesus of Nazareth was a Bodhisattva, a great master. He is very diligent and he is helping humanity today, although, anonymously, because, you see what they did to him. But he is very active. Any Bodhisattva is someone who works selflessly. He is a being with divinity fully illuminated within him, like Mansur Al-Hallaj. He said, “Ana al-haqq. I am the Truth.” Those beings are very hard to comprehend at our level. If you awaken in the internal planes, in the dream world, the heavens, you can talk to him face-to-face. Personally, I know Jesus. I talk with him. I invoked him in the astral plane, and he has given me certain teachings that have helped me. He is a being that is very hard to comprehend. We say he is the head of the Gnostic Church. He governs countless trillions of souls. He has omnipotence, omniscience. He can help many people in many places at once without any confusion. That is the symbol in Buddhist doctrine of Avalokitesvara, the god with the thousand hands: that is Christ. All that light is everywhere and nowhere, or you could say, is not limited to any place. A Bodhisattva is a being that incarnated that. He is a demigod, part God, because he has incarnated the God but still, he is human soul. He is Tiphereth, the physical person. Question: Personally, how are you gauging what is going on right now in this third dimensional reality that we're living in? In terms of what is going on in the world. Instructor: Well, humanity has precipitated itself on the path of destruction. It is very bleak. We are giving these lectures and teachings to help save the hat from the drowning man. Because, as the Qur’an teaches, humanity is going to be judged, has already been judged in 1950, I believe. Samael Aun Weor says that the Elohim, the gods, judged humanity and said humanity is worthless. It is really devoid of value. Therefore, since people no longer want to change individually, then the rest of humanity has to get cleansed. There is a big cleansing that is going to happen. When religion talks about hell, it is really just taking those souls that do not want to change, and nature does that for them, purifies them in the center of the earth, in the internal dimensions. When they physically die, the soul goes to those regions to be purified of those ailments, those shells. That is like a recycling plant. They will be cleaned at the end, but it is a very painful process. I do not recommend it. Question: What about the Elohim, the lowercase gods? Instructor: Well, we say Elohim, are masters, or any being that has fully perfected him or herself, is an angel. That is an Elohim. Question: Really? Even Lucifer? Instructor: Lucifer is a symbol of a quality or an aspect of our divinity, a very controversial one too. Luci Ferros, the bearer of light. Again, that light is Bodhi, Christ, but it is the shadow. It is that element of Christ that enters into imperfection in order to tempt us. He is the tempter. He gives us ordeals in life for us to conquer them, not to fail, but to conquer them. Therefore, he gives us hardships so that we can psychologically train ourselves. Of course, since the writing of Paradise Lost by John Milton, people took this term, Lucifer, and totally misconstrued it. Question: Well, there is Lucifer and there is darkness, just like light in Catholicism. Instructor: Well, yeah. We say that, that energy, when it is impure is the blackened Kaaba: impure soul, impure energy. When it is purified, that Lucifer shines as light. He is a ladder to ascend or descend. He is that creative energy itself, the sexual power. He is the power of the Holy Ghost, you could say, the sexual energy we have been discussing, Kundalini. That energy can either liberate you or, if it is channeled through the ego, destroy you. People who use that energy in a negative way, obviously, create harm. You see humanity today, people are perpetuating their suffering because they are addicted to negative habits. Question: Getting back to the negative habits, whether it is the sexual thing or drinking or whatever your past karma is, what is the best way to get rid of that karma? Instructor: We have three steps in terms of psychological work: discovery, judgment, execution. The book Revolutionary Psychology explains that very well. You can also read The Great Rebellion. It builds off of that. First, we have to discover our defects. Then, we have the judge them in the meditation after. Question: All 2,000 of them? Instructor: Well, there are a lot of egos obviously. You look at the Bible, how Saul destroyed his thousand, and then David killed his 10,000. Levels of a master that, first, in the beginning, kill a thousand egos, this is a symbol of a lot of egos, not a literal number. Obviously, if you have annihilated that many, you would be pretty pure. To be at a higher level, of course, eliminate 10,000. Ten refers to those 10 spheres of the Tree of Life. Meaning, you are purified in all those levels. Of course, we have to start where we are at. Of course, the thing is not to get discouraged, because the reason why we have this teaching or any esoteric scripture is that there is a lot of hope. For those who want to change will change. For those who do not, they will not. You look at how the Qur’an talks about how people, when they are presented with the truth and the knowledge, they just rejected it, like Jesus, Buddha, etc. Christ was assassinated. Buddha was supposedly poisoned. Socrates was given hemlock. He did not want to be exiled from Athens. Many masters were persecuted. It does not surprise me that people do not like this knowledge. Obviously, we do not have many crowds. Those who want to change will change and will be benefited by the divine. God really helps those who help themselves. First, work on your ego. Eliminate fear, anger, pride, all those conditions of mind. You will see, little by little; you will have experiences in the internal planes, where they are guiding you and they talk to you face-to-face about your work. They can help you. I have had that for a long time. 
(The awakening of Psyche, the soul, by Cupid / Eros: the creative sexual power of divine love)
It is good, for the purpose of our studies, to discuss the nature of divine love and its practicality, its need, its importance. Simply look at the world today, at the news, and you find acts of destruction that are unprecedented, crimes that are beyond comprehension. The world is in a state of calamity that precedes a much greater state of global crisis, of which the prophets of all religions have warned against.
It is through the recognition of suffering that the student of genuine religion seeks to understand how to change oneself. If we do not change our negative interior psychological states, we cannot hope to produce the changes that we seek among other sentient beings. It is precisely through overcoming the afflictions of our own mind, its conditioning, that we can learn to transmit the light of the divine, which is within us. The thing to remember and comprehend is the nature of the self. The real self, the Being, does not pertain to any individual, any person. The Being, the self, is not our fears, our anxieties that cause so much distress and confusion; neither is the Being our self-esteem, our pride and vanities that fluctuate and change like the wind. Our education, titles, diplomas, which we wield as intellectual arsenal to substantiate and defend our pride, does not constitute our true self either; our book knowledge really accounts for nothing when confronting the fundamental problem of psychological and spiritual transformation. The Being is universal, cosmic. There is no individuality there, in the sense of “me,” “myself,” “I.” Within the Being is the supraconscious understanding of all things in the eternal present, beyond the projections of our worries, fears, preoccupations, ambitions, and terrestrial baggage. By learning to access the divine potential and presence of divinity, known in Arabic as hudur, we awaken to our genuine self-awareness, muhadarah. By learning to pay attention, here and now, we discover the very obstacles to our own development. Through recognizing the conditions and faults of our mind, we learn to become truly transformative in a very practical sense. In this awareness, we do not simply wish for a better state of humanity, but actualize it, here and now, for the betterment of others. This is something we can practically manage, and see its results. Therefore, this work is not something ambiguous, not vague; it is not suppositional. It is concrete, factual. For as Samael Aun Weor wrote: Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
Through this work, we can see the clear effect of our actions upon others within our daily life, either to our benefit or detriment. There is no need to believe in spirituality, some vain utopia that someday things will get better. Instead, we learn to produce positive results for the happiness of others, serving divinity in every thought, word, and deed.
As we are going to explain in this lecture on divine love, faith is conscious knowledge. It is experience born from energy and action. It is what we know. To believe in something is really useless. To not believe in something is also useless. To invest our mental or emotional energy into a concept does not change the daily reality of our suffering; it does not help us to acquire cognizance of the purpose of life. We may really believe in Jesus, Buddha, or Muhammad with our hearts, yet we continue to feed anger, resentment, and all the degenerate qualities of the psyche that cause harm. We use the very energy that can give birth to the soul for our defects. To believe or not believe in a tradition, guru, or sheikh, is mistaken, because it does not address how to consciously control the energies that can awaken our perception, so that we do not need to believe, but can seriously know. We must learn not to wash our hands in justification, as Pilate allowed Jesus to be crucified, whereby he stated, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” All of us have Pilate inside, washing our hands clean of culpability, while in truth we allow our most destructive habits to crucify divinity within our hearts. It is also not in believing in some prophet or deity that we will be saved. As the Apostle James taught, “Faith without works is dead.” Believing in Prophet Muhammad, with our intellect or heart, as a concept or emotional quality, will not redeem the soul, the consciousness. To have genuine faith in a tradition is to know from experience the principles it contains. So, if we have consciousness of what Muhammad taught, what the prophets taught, and if we practice their teachings, we will develop the consciousness thoroughly. But belief is another thing; to think something is true or not is irrelevant. Attending a church, mosque, or synagogue does not make one spiritual. Having direct experience of divinity does. Being part of a physical group is insufficient for objective self-knowledge. We need practical and transformative knowledge applied to daily living. But not only that, we need to apply what we learn. Therefore, the tradition we study here is filled with innumerable practices geared to awaken the consciousness. But if we just read the knowledge and don’t apply it, we won’t have real faith. We will be stuck in belief. 
The Definition of Divine Love
Many people toss the term “divine love” around in so-called spiritual circles, and have many concepts about it. All of this is very sentimental, like hallmark cards. Many people have a lot of ideas about what love is, and can write very beautifully and convincingly about it. Yet if we go very deep within meditation and awaken our consciousness within the superior worlds of nature, which we access when we dream, we will find that people write about love in accordance with their psychological conditioning, self-esteem, fears, and insecurities.
Genuine love is selfless. There is no ego, no “I” present. Love only gives of itself for others, without any concern for how one appears, one’s self-image. This is essential in our study of self-knowledge, as especially presented within Sufism, because it is the universal sense of Being, wujud, that connects us with all beings. This is most important within the perfect matrimony, the sexual union of two beings, one who loves more and the other who loves better; sexuality is the full manifestation, inspiration, and expression of Allah, divinity. Sexual union is the science of Alchemy: Allah-Khemia, the chemistry of God. In love, there is no concept or reasoning. Love simply is. A true marriage, before divinity, therefore, is between husband and wife, when man and woman sexually unite. Paperwork means nothing. In most cases marriage papers constitute legalized prostitution and have nothing to do with love. Marriage exists when a man unites with a woman in sex; this is a literal, psychic, and spiritual communion of souls. The Sufis poets have always utilized sexual and erotic language to describe the soul’s unification with the divine. Yet few people realize that this language is also literal; that when husband and wife connect sexually, they become a terrifically divine being, capable of creating life. If the couple knows how to conserve that sexual energy and not expel it, they remain in Eden, a Hebrew word for bliss. Their love remains intact, pure, and chaste. If the couple is sensual, carnal, and animalistic, they will be kicked out of paradise. As Christ spoke through the mouth of Jesus, “Before Abraham was, I Am.” Only divinity can say this word, “I Am.” But when a married couple unites out of selflessness, compassion, and true remembrance of divinity, then the Being, Allah, is fully manifested there. Mansur Al-Hallaj, the great Sufi master, once stated, “An al-Haqq!” or “I am the truth!” in Arabic. This got him in trouble with the orthodox authorities, who were scandalized that a terrestrial person would refer to himself with one of the sacred names of Allah. It is the equivalent of saying, “I am God!” Jesus said the same thing and was thereafter crucified. What occurred in both cases was that divinity, whether named Jehovah, Christ or Allah, manifested within those initiates. Both Jesus and Al-Hallaj became vehicles of divine love and being, and had reached the heights of mastery through working in the perfect matrimony, in the science of Alchemy. Through sexual union, Jesus and Mansur could develop their complete divine potential. Sadly, Mansur was tortured and executed. However, like Jesus, he was completely free of ego and conditioning before his physical death, which is why his poetry and light were intense during his final hours. Only the Being can say, “I Am.” The Being is divine love, the intelligence of all creation, of all the cosmos. But we can become vehicles of Allah when working in Alchemy, the chemistry of God, which is the perfect matrimony. This is how we can fortify compassion and eliminate many defects from our nature, so that our consciousness irradiates with selflessness and abundance. The Sufi-Christian mystic poet known as Kahlil Gibran spoke beautifully about the sexual nature of divine love in his book The Prophet. Even the name of this poet deserves reflection, since Hillel in Hebrew means “Praised or Glorified One,” a reference to the star of dawn, Lucifer, the sexual potency. Gibran reminds us of the Rune Gibur, the swastika or cross in motion, emblem of sexual alchemy, whereby the energies of sex inflame and illuminate the chakras of the body, causing them to spin as the swastika in movement. The cross is also a sexual symbol representing the vertical phallus and the horizontal uterus. This forms Gibur, the strength and chastity of God, known as Aun in Hebrew: Gibur-Aun, Gibran. The following quotation is from the chapter “On Love.” I will provide some comments in between the lines to provide understanding, since this poet is a great Kabbalist and psychologist of the Sufi tradition. Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of (Conscious) Love."
To obtain the supreme heights of initiation, we must work in a matrimony, which is the path of sacrifice, the cross. This is how our inner spirit, Gedulah, the Innermost, receives powers, and riches, and glories, through the work of His human soul or bodhisattva.
A true matrimony is one born of selflessness. There is no desire that says, “I want,” “I crave,” “I need.” Love does not demand ultimatums of the other. Conscious love only knows how to provide for the beloved, and is willing to provide even the last drop of his or her blood for one’s partner. This is the type of consciousness between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, Rama and Krishna, Muhammad and A’isha, and other sacred matrimonies. So if we’re married, we aspire to those heights of spirituality, because most of us are selfish. Yet through training this can change. It is easily obtainable when there is some degree of love and comprehension between the couple, since love grows the more it is nourished and fed, and the more our animal ego, desires, and conditions are annihilated. The Trainings of Sufism
So, we previously discussed the demarcations of instruction as given within religious traditions, specifically within Sufism. Religion can be divided into three classes or categories of instruction and practice, whether introductory, intermediate, or advanced, otherwise classified as exoteric, mesoteric, and esoteric.
The Sufis denominate the first level of teaching as Shariah, which in spiritual studies does not pertain to the punitive or repressive laws of Muslim countries, but pertains to our conscious psychological discipline that we engage with to curtail negative thinking, negative feeling, and negative action. Likewise we talked about Tariqah, the intermediate or mesoteric aspect of religion. Tariqah simply means “path.” It is the way that follow and practice, a path that winds from oasis to oasis within the desert of our life, the wasteland of initiation. It is our practical work that we fulfill day by day, moment by moment, for the benefit of others. Marifah means knowledge, and is the Arabic word for gnosis. We also have Haqiqah, which is the truth. Marifah and Haqiqah can be described as two aspects of the same dynamic, since for the truth to be realized, we must have knowledge, expedient methods for transforming the psyche, and to have knowledge, we must comprehend and realize. Buddhism divides these three categories as the Shravakayana, Mahayana, and Tantrayana, the introductory, greater, and supreme vehicles. Shravakas are those who listen to the spiritual teachings for the first time. Such persons practice spirituality for their own well-being. But with the Mahayana, or greater vehicle, one works less for oneself and more for others. In Tantrayana, one works solely for all sentient beings. The same in the Sufi model. In Shariah, the practitioners work to stop their own suffering and to cease causing harm because such actions produce harm within them. In the path of Tariqah, that of divine love, we work on ourselves for the benefit of others. We can then say that the last two degrees or trainings of Sufism, Marifah (knowledge) and Haqiqah (Truth) are combined as one and constitute the highest aspect of any teaching, the most expedient methods of transformation, and also the highest levels of understanding and knowledge. So these trainings entail their own forms of discipline, in varying degrees. Shariah is ethical discipline, mind training, whereby we comprehend and eliminate defects so that we don’t harm ourselves. We are taught to not lie, to not steal, to not commit fornication and adultery, to not ingest intoxicants or drugs, alcohol, etc. We avoid taking in elements that are contrary to our spiritual work. We clean the temple of our body, heart, and mind so that the Being can officiate. We learn not to kill, not only physically, but with speech. When we speak sarcastically and humiliate our neighbor, we make blood rush to his face. This is a form of bloodshed and killing, whereby we are killing a person’s self-image. This is wrong. All religions teach us against negative behaviors of this type. As Prophet Muhammad taught: The strongest among you is he who controls his anger. ―Hadith
Each religion has its own set of commandments that it gives. Again, these laws are not punitive: “Do this or be punished!” That is something very superficial and does not produce real development in the soul. Following external laws is one thing, but being a law unto oneself is another.
This does not indicate that we can do whatever we want, but that we follow the internal law of divinity, which is harmony, peace, and health. We simply depend on no one to do this work, only the Being. This training is known as ethics. Ethics is different from morality. What is moral in one country is immoral in another. Simply look at the differences between North America and the Middle East. Ethics is knowing how to act appropriately for the benefit of others in any circumstance. Compassion is within all religions, all ethical disciplines, especially Islam. The punishments for adulterers and fornicators in Surah Al-Nur, “Surah of the Light” within the Qur’an, for example, is a symbol of how to work against the ego. Flagellation and the removal of thieves’ hands is a representation of what we must do to our ego, for as Jesus taught, “If your left eye offend you, pluck it out, lest your whole body be dragged into hell.” By denying our ego, by waging a holy war against our desires, defects, vices, etc., we generate light. Scripture is written in symbolic language for the consciousness. If people take these punishments literally and physically harm others, this is something else and different. The Qur’an has many allegorical verses which we need Kabbalah, alchemy, and intuition to understand, as indicated in the following Surah al-Imran, verse 7: It is He who has sent down to you, [O Muhammad], the Book; in it are verses [that are] literal―they are the foundation of the Book―and others allegorical. As for those in whose hearts is deviation [from truth], they will follow that of it which is literal, seeking discord and seeking an interpretation [suitable to them]. And no one knows its [true] interpretation except Allah. But those firm in knowledge (Marifah, alchemy and Kabbalah) say, "We believe in it. All [of it] is from our Lord." And no one will be reminded except those of understanding (Binah, Intelligence in Kabbalah). ―Qur'an 3:7
The other two degrees of these trainings are based on Shariah, the law, and mutually support each other. If one has no ethical discipline, one cannot follow the path, Tariqah, and achieve understanding and knowledge (Marifah) of the truth (Haqiqah). All three trainings integrate and constitute three aspects of one whole. However, the path is presented in these degrees due to the capabilities, dispositions, and needs of their practitioners.
Marifah is sexual knowledge, alchemy, known as Tantra in the east, the principle of Tantrayana. A matrimony is not only the basis of physical life, but spiritual life as well. When we work in a marriage we can harness the most potent energies of the universe for the development and awakening of the consciousness. The Sufis use erotic language to describe union with God, whereby the soul is lost in the ocean of love. When a couple is sexually united, husband and wife lose their identities and become lost within the ocean of the creative sexual energy. There is no “me,” “myself,” within two practitioners of sexual magic who deny their egos, who learn to annihilate egotistical desire (through fana in Arabic) to be, to subsist (through baqa in Arabic) within the creator (Al-Khaaliq). Who is it that creates in us? The sexual energy, the power of divinity. But how we create depends upon whether we follow divine love and will or our own egotism and desires. While the Sufis used clear, erotic language to describe the path of alchemy, many people do not realize that this love is also physical, literal. Divine love is manifested through husband and wife in sexual cooperation, in sexual magic or Alchemy. This is the power of Baqarah, the sacred cow, a symbol of the Divine Mother in Hinduism. She is the serpentine power of Kundalini that the tantric practitioners work with. Therefore, with great respect and veneration, Muhammad became the vehicle for transmitting the second surah of the Qur’an, “The Cow,” or “Heifer,” the longest Surah of the Qur’an. The Qur’an means “The Recitation,” the mantralization of the sacred verb. The power of speech esoterically refers to the power of the bull or cow. When couples pronounce mantras in sexual union, they are learning to unite with divinity completely, to remove the conditioning of the psyche and the mind to liberate soul from conditioning, through the power of love. To understand the trainings of Sufism, we can refer to the Sufi master Ibn ‘Arabi. He explained that in the path of Shariah, “Yours is yours and mine is mine.” That which belongs to you is yours. That which belongs to me is mine. There is a sense of separation whereby we are working individually for our own spiritual benefit and goals. In the path of Tariqah, “Mine is yours and yours is mine.” There is a shift of perspective, whereby we focus on the spiritual community and the benefit of others. There is a degree of selflessness and compassion present whereby we can help one another in a genuine sense, without major interferences from our egos, nafs, or defects. Regarding Marifah, knowledge, Ibn ‘Arabi states that “Nothing belongs to you or me.” In truth, we don’t own anything. All abundance belongs to divinity. Regarding Haqiqah, the truth, Ibn ‘Arabi stated, “There is no you or me.” Meaning: there is only God, divinity, the Being, Allah. Remember when we said earlier that “Wherever your sense of self is, that is hell. Wherever you aren’t, that is heaven.” There is no egotism, self, or sense of “I” within the Being, as we presently know in ourselves. The Being is as different and incompatible to the mind as oil is to water. Divinity, the real Being, is the Absolute Abstract Space, the emptiness of enlightened cognizance, the pure light of Adi-Buddha, Ain Soph Aur in Kabbalah, which to our present sight is darkness, but for the self-realized masters is the uncreated light of the unknowable divine. This divinity is selfless, but constitutes the true universal individuality, or better said, supra-individuality of any master who learns to incarnate and develop that force in themselves, so that there is no self, only the truth, al-Haqq, as proclaimed through Mansur Al-Hallaj. Divinity is one and absolute, as proclaimed through the Muslim Shahidah or testimony of faith: “There is no god but God.” Anyone who wants to comprehend divinity must fulfill the three trainings. Again, these are not something rigid and dogmatic. These are practical steps. We must begin where we are at, with Shariah, ethical discipline, since we have a lot of selfishness and desires that keep us from knowing divinity. As we develop light, we can then provide that light of compassion for others in the path of Tariqah. By serving others completely, we follow Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Muhammad, on the path of Marifah and Haqiqah, knowledge and truth. In Shariah, we serve divinity in ourselves. In Tariqah, we serve divinity in others. In Marifah and Haqiqah, there is only divinity everywhere and within ourselves. There is no “I,” but only the awakened state of consciousness free of conditions. 
The Three Brains
In the path of self-knowledge, we deeply study what in gnosticism is called the three brains. These are three centers of psychological, energetic, spiritual, and physiological activity. The term brain in gnostic studies does not simply pertain to the physical matter within our skull. But a brain, esoterically speaking, is a machine that process certain psychological states, or qualities. It’s a type of mechanism.
We have an intellectual brain, which is where we process thought, mind, concepts, reasoning, ideas, theses and antitheses, and hopefully synthesis. With the emotional brain we process sentiment, like, dislike, feeling, hope, longing, fear, etc. It pertains not only to just those psychological states, but to our heart and its nervous systems. The heart is a very sensitive organ and has intuitive capacities that are unlocked through the science of alchemy. We have a third brain all throughout our spinal column, the brain of action, and which is divided into three principles, dynamics, or qualities. We have the center of movement at the top of the spine, whereby we process all our movements in our body. We have the instinctual center relating to the base of the spine, relating to our impulses, will, actions, desires. The most potent center pertaining to the spinal column is sexual, the sexual center or sexual organs. The sexual energy is the most potent force we carry within our body. The third brain can be therefore synthesized as the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Why discuss the three brains in relation to Sufism and divine love? Because to love the divine, we must become fully conscious of all these aspects of ourselves, and to give everything to God through renouncing negative habits and psychological states, whether through thought, feeling, or impulse. We can only learn to transform our psyche when we become conscious of our three brains. We become conscious of divinity likewise through the management of these parts of our body and psyche. The three brains are a machine, a car that we must learn to handle and drive, if we want to safely arrive at our spiritual destination. Dreams of driving a car can symbolize how we use the mind, heart, and body appropriately or inappropriately. See how you drive in your dreams to know how you are doing! Jesus taught us about the three brains in the gospels when a Jewish Pharisee tried to discredit the master before the public: And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
The heart is the emotional brain. The soul is willpower, the human consciousness beyond thought, feeling, and bodily sensation. This will must dominate our thinking, feeling, and action. Our human consciousness or willpower is mostly conditioned by nafs, egos. But there remains a free portion of this consciousness, which we call the Essence, that must liberate the conditioned consciousness, as we explained previously.
We also must love God with all our strength, meaning: all our vitality or sexual energy. When we wake in the morning, we are rejuvenated by our vital energies, renewed through the process of physical sleep. This depends upon how we use the sexual force, because if we squander this energy, we will become weak, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Sexual energy gives us life. This is easy to see physically. The physical birth of a child is contingent upon the union of man and woman. By using the virile force, the sexual energy, husband and wife can create a human being. Likewise, the spiritual human being can be created in us through that same energy. We would not be here if it weren’t for the creative force, the power of the Holy Spirit as denominated by the Christians. It’s interesting that the root word for virility is virya, warrior, someone who is spiritually and physically strong. Likewise, virtue is born from virility. How we use our sexual, emotional, mental, volitional, and conscious energy can grant us union with divinity, if we know how. Therefore the gospel states, “Love thy God with all thy strength.” By conquering the sexual force, we become virya, warriors, mujahidin, strivers in spiritual warfare as taught within the Muslim tradition. This is a war against the ego and desire, against our nafs, defects. Through transforming the sexual energy within us and giving it to divinity, we acquire divine virtues and develop self-knowledge.
Faith and the Solar Force
By working with the sexual energy, we develop genuine faith, since this energy awakens consciousness and gives us direct knowledge of the mysteries of life and death. This is the science of transmutation, from the prefix trans, “to carry over, transport,” and mutation, mutate, “to change dense material forms into energy,” into spiritual force. Transmutation is the alchemical science of transforming our conditioned psyche into liberated consciousness, by transmuting the seminal matter or waters into cognizance and light.
We’ve included in this image the famous symbol of Islam, which is the crescent moon and the star of Venus, the star of love. We have juxtaposed with this image the Assumption of Mary, who is standing on a moon with her head crowned with twelve stars. The power of the warrior, the virya, born from one’s virility, is in itself symbolized by the crescent moon. In Kabbalah, the moon relates to the sphere of Yesod, the second sphere from the bottom of the Tree of Life. Yesod means “Foundation” and is constituted by our sexual energy. It is the foundation of spiritual life. The Tree of Life is literally our spine, and Yesod is the sexual organs, since without our spine we would be invalids, incapable of functioning in life in a complete sense and not without special assistance. We can likewise transpose the image of the Tree of Life on a human being, where the first trinity relates to the head, the second trinity to the heart, and the lower trinity to the sexual organs and thighs of the human being. This diagram relates to the three brains in many interesting ways. With the moon, we think of lunar cycles, mechanicity, and forces in nature, as well as repetition. The moon is also a symbol of the mechanicity of the mind, the ego, the nafs. Our psyche is a moon, meaning: our habits are very ingrained. Whether we like to smoke or drink, to engage with specific types of conversations or discussions, we are habituated and fixed on certain behaviors due to the sleep of our consciousness. These habits and ways of being, some harmful, some not, constitute the conditioning of our psyche. They are mechanical and lunar, not belonging to the physical moon, but to our egotistical psychology. The mind is a moon; it only knows how to engage with its own conditions and desires. But of course, in this image we have something very beautiful. The star of Venus above the crescent moon relates to love. Venus is the goddess Freia amongst the Nordics, which is where we get the word “Friday,” the holiest day of the week for Muslims. Likewise. sundown for Jews who celebrate the Sabbath, or Saturn-Day, Saturday. This Freia, this Venus-Aphrodite, this goddess of love is the Hindu goddess Kundalini. She is the Divine Mother, the feminine aspect of our inner divinity. As we mentioned the Hebrew word Elohim, El is masculine, God; Eloah is feminine, Goddess; and Elohim, with Iod and Mem added to the end of Eloah, is Gods and Goddesses: Jehovah, or Jah-Chavah. Jah is the Divine Father. Chavah is the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother is essential for our spiritual work, whom we must comprehend and experience very deeply to achieve self-knowledge. She is the power that can help free us from our defects. She destroys our defects after we have comprehended them completely in meditation. She liberates the soul from conditioning through wielding the powers of the moon, the sexual energy. She is the sacred heifer, the Cow, Al-Baqarah, immortalized through the longest Surah of the Qur’an. Surah Al-Baqarah relates how the leg of the heifer has the power of resuscitating the dead to bring them to life. This is highly symbolic, of course. She also transforms the moon of our mind into the sun of understanding. She is Mary, Miriam in Hebrew, which literally means “to raise.” She raises us from spiritual death into the heights of spirituality. She is the energies that rise from the moon of our body, the sexual organs of Yesod, up the spine to the brain to produce the halo of the saints. In sacred art, we often see the prophets and saints with halos like the sun, because they’ve transformed the lunar energies of sex into the solar energies of the Christ force, to saturate their minds completely with that power. This is the Kundalini of Hindustan. The illumination of the mind relates to the mysteries of Halloween, Hallowed Evening. For this holiday, we take the pumpkin gourd mentioned in the Book of Jonah, clean out the muck, the guts and filthiness of the gourd itself. This represents how we must purify the filthiness of the mind. This is to place a candle, the light of understanding, inside that mind to illuminate it. This is how our evening, our darkness, is hallowed and enlightened. But first you must go through all the visitors at the doorstep, dressed as ghouls and goblins, our own defects or nafs, who ask us, “Trick or treat?” In reality, you don’t want to be tricked by your own mind, but to treat yourself to the divine mysteries. Miriam is the one who cleans our mind, our gourd. She is the one who gives us faith, and faith is a solar force. This solar force is born from our seminal waters, the waters of sex, the sexual matter, from which the energies rise within the spine to our mind. The Hebrew word for water is מַיִם Mayim, relating to מרים Miriam, since if you add the letter R, ר Rosh in Hebrew, to Mayim, you spell Miriam. The word believer in Islam is al-mumin. The plural form is al-muminin. The resemblance of this term to מַיִם mayim, water, is striking, since a true believer works with the power of Yesod, the seminal waters. This is how we generate faith. Faith is a force that guides us when we work with Miriam, our Divine Mother, to transform the moon into a sun. To be a true Muslim or believer is to be through the power of love, to be through lieve, love, the libido. You see this hidden in the symbol on top of every mosque. Very cryptic, but clear when you know alchemy and kabbalah. We must be through the power of love, to be conscious to transform all our mechanicity into love, into consciousness. All conditionality must be transmuted into liberated consciousness; everything must be performed and given to divinity. This is how we awaken and know divinity for ourselves, developing conscious knowledge, real faith. The term belief, as it is used now, has no meaning or purpose in esoterism. To think or feel something is true does not signify consciousness of that given thing. Therefore, we like to use the term faith in this tradition to be clear about our meaning, which is energy and will applied to action. Here we think a note upon faith should be of interest. Initiates say that its meaning has been misunderstood. Faith, as the world uses it, possesses no spiritual nature; though in the secondary system [the work with sexual energy] it means power and energy applied to action. All success in Yoga [religion] comes from this application; for the true quality of faith is a Solar force that illumines the mind and attracts to it atoms of power and energy. More human wrecks have resulted from the misconception of this quality than man realizes. ―M. The Dayspring of Youth
People just sit on their couch and think that by believing in divinity, everything will be fine. One must learn to be conscious through the libido, the creative power of Yesod, and to apply it consciously. This is how we submit to God (perform Islam, submission).
Jesus provided the parable of the mustard seed, which is small, but has the potential to become a great tree. All that is possible for the fruition or development of a giant tree, a tree of life, is within the seed. Also, we are in a potential state within our sexual seed, the sperm or ovum, to become complete spiritual beings who are not influenced by the moon, by mechanicity. That seed can only develop when masculine and feminine matter are united, when the virile force of man and woman are combined; this will help to generate consciousness and solar faith. The moon can therefore become a sun, a solar entity. 
When Jesus used this word in the sentence, 'If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed,' He meant that one could work miracles if one possessed the atomic energy contained within a mustard seed. But in this world of illusion this is reversed, and the weak man sits still and believes that all will be applied to him if he has faith. It is not a force that should only be applied to religious belief. It is the power of the Innermost [the divine, Allah] working through the densities of our bodies, and the more we respond to it the greater will be our powers. ―M. The Dayspring of Youth
All our psychological, emotional, psychic, spiritual, and physical action is generated by the seed, the seminal matter. If we learn to take that force and transform the seed into Christic energy, we can give birth to the purified soul. Sex is the power of religion and divine life. Therefore Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Perfect Matrimony:
It so happens that people think that by belonging to this or that faith, to such and such religion, or to one or another sect, that they are already saved. Naturally, this is false. A seed never germinates because of what a person believes or stops believing. An insect is never born because of what a human being thinks or stops thinking. A man is never born from the parchment of theory. This subject matter is sexual and in this, the Angel is no exception. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
This is the meaning of the second birth, to be born again as Jesus taught to Nicodemus. We must be born again of water and spirit. People think that one simply gets baptized by physical water and then believes in Jesus and then one is done. He said that “That which is born of flesh,” through the common sexual act, “is flesh.” A physical child is born from the animal orgasm, the sexual act culminating with seminal emission. “But that which is born of spirit,” through the sexual act with seminal retention of the waters, “is spirit.” If the couple knows how to conserve that water, that energy and redirect it, they can give birth to awakened consciousness and eliminate defects. This is how the moon is transformed into a sun.
This is the path of the cross, the vertical phallus joined to the horizontal uterus. It is upon this cross or within this crucible that we can die to our defects, that we can be cleansed by the fire of Christ, the fire of sex, ignited through divine love. When the couple unites, the fire ignites, inflames the mind, the heart, the psyche, and provides the capacity to unite with divinity, to create spiritual life. The Muslims of course use different symbols for their religion, the crescent moon and star of Venus, but the same alchemical meaning is there. Ritual cleansing with water (wudu) is a common preparatory act before performing salaat, (daily prayer). This signifies that the initiate is transmuting their sexual energies to awaken the capacities of the heart. The Symbolism of Water
Water is a prominent symbol in many world cosmogonies, particularly the Book of Genesis, the Bible, and the Qur’an. The creation of the earth and its emergence from the seas of creation, as told in Genesis, is allegorical. It represents the birth of the soul, new vehicles that the soul can inhabit as it rises upon the Tree of Life. Each Sephirah represents a new land that we must conquer, that we must create within ourselves, through alchemy.
The waters symbolize the power to generate, to create. Within us, our capacity to create physical and spiritual life resides in our waters. It is the source of pleasure, redemption, and the elevation of the soul to paradise. As the Qur’an teaches us in Surah al-Waqi'ah, the Inevitable, about the fate of those who transmute their waters: In the Gardens of Pleasure,
Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi was a famous Sufi poet and mystic, a profound kabbalist and alchemist, who taught in his writings the path of yoking the waters through tantra, or Marifah. An example of his initiatic work is the following cryptic postulation:
From the heart of the lovers, blood flows like a vast river. Our body is the windmill, and love, the water. Without water the mill cannot turn. ―Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Hidden Music 
Marifah or tantrism teaches that when a couple is engaged in sexual union, the different energies or seminal waters of the divine are active in the body. The sexual force then circulates throughout the physicality and psyche as well. There is a profound movement of forces through the chakras or energetic centers of the spinal medulla. The chakras rotate positively like the swastika when the couple is chaste and pure, avoiding animality in the sexual act.
The body has seven main mills, seven main chakras, which are well documented in Hinduism and within Sufism as al-Laṭaʾif as-Sitta, the seven vortexes or centers of spiritual and psychic power. These are the seven churches of the Book of Revelation. These centers of power spin as the couple controls their breathing, their ruh, so that the sexual energy rises within the spine. When breathing is erratic and impassioned during the sexual act, the sexual energy flows outward and results in the orgasm. Remember that if there is no water, the mill cannot turn. If you ejaculate the waters, those chakras or mills cannot spin, but will remain still. Those chakras grant powers and spiritual abilities, such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, omniscience, etc., so if they are inactive, then the consciousness lacks force and energy to be awakened. But when the breath is harnessed through sacred mantras and vocal remembrance of Allah in sexual magic, that energy rises inward and upward to the brain and then to the heart. Again, we emphasize that the chakras can only spin when there is water, transmuted sexual energy, within them, to circulate and provide energetic movement. Hence the importance of sexual purity within every religion, especially Sufism. Al-Qushayri also provides an interesting explanation of the esoteric symbolism of water in the path of love in his Risalah: Principles of Sufism: Some say that hub, love, is a name for purity of affection, because the bedouins when speaking of the pure whiteness and regularity of someone’s teeth use the expression habab al-asnan. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Why the purity of teeth? In Kabbalah the mouth signifies Da’ath, Marifah, sexual knowledge. To be pure in speech is to handle the sexual energy wisely, since sex and the throat connect through the spine. Everyone knows that adolescent boys acquire deep voices due to puberty, and likewise adolescent girls develop their voice further due to the maturation of the sexual organs and the development of hormones.
Al-Qushayri continues to explain the nature of divine eroticism and water: Others say that since hubab is a word for the excess water that results from a heavy rain, mahabbah came to mean the heart’s boiling and stirring with the thirst and excitement of meeting the Beloved. Still others say the word is derived from habab al-ma, the greater part of a body of water, because love is the object of most of the heart’s concerns. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism 
Who is the Beloved? It is the Being. Yet a husband finds the Being present in his wife, and vice versa. In Christian terms, every man views his wife as the Divine Mother, Miriam, while every woman views her husband as the Divine Father, Joseph.
Here the waters overflow and saturate the heart when the couple knows how to conserve those forces, raising them from sex to the brain and then to the heart. You can see that the Sufis use a sexual and erotic language for describing union with God, precisely because union with God occurs in the sexual act. Sadly, many people ignore this fact and come up with many superficial interpretations of the Sufi writings that ignore the necessity of sexual magic. And sadly, people only see sexuality as something filthy and disgusting, to be indulged in or repressed, even though sexual magic serves a much more profound function than animal pleasure. As Rumi explained to his disciples regarding alchemy: If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see Allah in it. Those who are not in love with Allah will see only their own faces in it. ―Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
The cup is the holy grail, the feminine sexual organs, within which is filled the waters or manna of the desert, the creative energies that will arouse and satisfy our spiritual thirst.
In relation to this topic, Iranian mythology speaks of the cup of Jamshid, a holy grail filled with a divine elixir that grants the soul the capacity to perceive the seven heavens (the superior dimensions of the Tree of Life, as well as the seven chakras of the spinal medulla). The word Jamshid is an interesting acrostic: Jam signifies a gathering together, which is sexual. For husband and wife to be close to each other signifies intimacy, closeness, a gathering together. The cup or yoni is also the sacred emblem of Christianity in which the solar initiates gather around.
In the past, solar initiates would gather within the temples or mosques to celebrate the path of the Lord through prayer and ritual, which is the general etymological significance of the word "gathering." The word "church" in Greek, Εκκλησία Ekklisía, refers to a gathering place that belongs to divinity, kyriakos, the Lord. A church in esoterism is where the creative energies congregate within the spine, as with the seven churches or fully-developed chakras of the Book of Revelations. There are alchemical meanings hidden within the Arabic language. Shid, pronounced “Sheed” reminds us of Shahid, “witness.” Therefore, Jamshid is the cup of gathering and witnessing, since none can witness or experience divinity without the sacred yoni, without working with the creative waters of life to awaken the powers of the spine and the mind. As Al-Qushayri explains: The expression ‘jam and tafriqah [or farq] is often used by the Sufis. Abu Ali al-Daqqaq used to say, "Separation (farq) is what you are given a share in. Gathering (jam) is what is removed from your power." ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
All of us are separated from our Being because of the original sin: lust. All of us fornicated and expelled ourselves from Eden, bliss. This occurred precisely because in the past, we did not respect sexuality or transmutation. Due to our own will, we separated ourselves from divinity.
Gathering is a term used to signify how one approaches divinity through the will of divinity. The disparate parts of the soul, once fractured and conditioned by ego, nafs, become unified and integrated by divine decree. Through comprehending, judging, and annihilating the shells or defects that condition consciousness, the Being achieves tawhid, unity within our psyche. And what higher way exists to reach divinity, according to the Sufis, than the sacrament of sexuality, a marriage, whereby the Being descends and helps us to tame the fires of love? Through the fires of love the egos are annihilated completely. Al-Qushayri explains the alchemical meanings given by his teacher, Al-Daqqaq: His meaning was that whatever pertains to servanthood [submission to divinity in sexual magic] and is attributed to the servant [the alchemist], whatever is linked to the conditions of being human [as a fornicator], is a form of farq, the separation between worshiper and Worshipped [because through the orgasm, we separate ourselves from the Worshipped, the divine]. Whatever proceeds from the Truth [al-Haqq, Haqiqah, the realizations born from Marifah, transmutation]—the generation of spiritual meaning and experience [since every true spiritual experience is born of the Genesiatic waters], the gifts of grace—is a form of gathering [jam], the coming together of worshiper and Worshipped. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Therefore, people who are filled with a lot of sexual passion and animal desire will obviously look at the sexual act, the waters, as something carnal, bestial, as Rumi indicated. They see their own faces in it; they separate themselves more and more from divinity through fornication. Yet if the couple works to eliminate desire, egotism, nafs, from the psyche, to deny, comprehend, and annihilate lust, then the sexual act becomes something pure and holy, through which the Being, the divine, is present. Through scientific chastity, Marifah, the Being gathers us in worship of his presence, hudur, within the flames of love. This is the meaning of the Sufi technical terms awe and intimacy. We will speak about awe now but come back to intimacy in a short while.
The true nature of awe is absence [ghaybah], absence, being carried beyond oneself. [In sexual magic, one is no longer an separate individual, but united in the Being, for man and woman form one terrifically divine Elohim]. Everyone in awe is lost to himself [his animal ego, lusts, and desires]. ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Remember the teachings of Proverbs, chapter 1 verse 7:
The fear [awe, Pechad] of Iod-Chavah is the beginning of knowledge [Da’ath, Marifah], but fools [fornicators] despise wisdom and instruction. ―Proverbs 1:7
Awe and fear have the same meaning, to respect the creative sexual energy and never waste it, because to fornicate is to be a fool, to waste the sacred oil of the temple.
There is treasure to be desired and oil [שֶׁמֶן shemen, semen] in the dwelling [body or temple] of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up. ―Proverbs 20 :21 
All of this is represented by the lance of Longinus and the holy grail in Christianity. The lance is a symbol of the phallus, the masculine force that pierces our egos and annihilates them in the sexual act after we have achieved profound comprehension of such defects in meditation. Here we see the path of redemption for the soul: the union of husband and wife in the perfect matrimony.
Jesus taught alchemy very clearly in other verses, especially in his teaching the Samaritan woman at the well (a symbol of Yesod: the waters in our earth, Malkuth): 
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this (physical) water shall thirst again:
The waters become a wellspring of eternal life when we conserve them. The water regenerates and provides life continually and therefore helps us to remain young, virile, and strong.
Many people think Jesus was dismissing the woman to go get her husband, as if he was ignoring her, but the answer to her question is clear: call thy husband if you want to learn how to use the waters that will give you eternal spiritual life. Beautiful, no? But cryptic. The Sufis, along with the gospels, explain the bliss of a marriage, although in a Middle Eastern way, through a heightened alchemical, kabbalistic sexual language. Ali ibn Ubayd said, 'Yahya ibn Muadh wrote to Abu Yazid, "I am intoxicated with how much I have drunk from the cup of love." Abu Yazid wrote back to him, "Someone else has drunk the oceans of the heavens and the earth and his thirst is not yet quenched. His tongue is hanging out and he is asking, 'Is there any more?'” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
It is one thing to have an insatiable sexual desire or lust, animal passion, carnal attachments, it is a completely different thing to develop the genuine bliss and ecstasy of the soul during the same sexual act. Remember that in Hebrew, Eden means “pleasure” or “bliss.” It was the bliss humanity, symbolized by Adam and Eve, once enjoyed. Sex was once practiced in observance and remembrance of Allah, the Being, but when humanity indulged in the orgasm, in sexual desire, they expelled themselves from Eden, that blissful state.
Those who practice alchemy transform the seminal matter, the sexual waters, into conscious love, chastity, purity, light. When practicing alchemy once per day, no more, the couple rejuvenates the body, heart, and mind. In this sense, the soul’s thirst for divinity is not quenched no matter how much one transmutes from the cup of alchemy, the feminine yoni in sexual magic, because these waters constantly generate within our sexual organs. Because we receive the sexual energy anew every day, it is necessary to sublimate it daily. 
Christ’s first miracle was the transmutation of water into wine. This again is symbolic, of how the couple transforms the seminal energies into the wine of the spirit. Such a wine inebriates the soul, as described within Sufism and Christianity.
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there (again referring back to Miriam, the Divine Mother, who is going to be present at this miracle): And both Jesus (the Inner, Intimate Christ) was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come (the Lord has not fully manifested within the spinal medullae of the married couple yet, since they are learning to transmute for the first time). His mother [Miriam] saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. ―John 2:1-11
Even though it is forbidden in Islam to drink alcohol, the Sufis use the language of intoxication and drinking to talk about experiences with God in alchemy. It signifies being drunk on God, being intoxicated with love. These initiates always treated sex with respect, as something sacred, unlike our humanity today. The Sufis treated sex with balance, neither something to repress or indulge in as something filthy, but through a comprehensive, middle way, by utilizing sex in its true purpose and function: to generate the soul.
Many of these Sufi masters were, of course, married, since every man needs a wife, and every wife needs a husband. These masters did not make alchemy public, but practiced Marifah in secrecy, since this teaching was not explained openly until recently, in the 1950’s with the publication of The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. Intoxication and Sobriety
In gnosis, we seek to become drunk on the love of the divine. We previously spoke about gnostic and Sufi psychology, how the consciousness must become inebriated by divine energy, so as to awaken from its slumber. Now we are delving into the physiological and alchemical aspects of this knowledge, the secret path of Marifah, some practical components for sexual magic.
In Revelation of the Mystery by Al-Hujwiri, a Persian Sufi master, he explains that there are two kinds of intoxication. His teaching is in relation to Persian and Arabic kabbalah, the symbolic mystical language of the consciousness within Middle Eastern discourse. There are two kinds of intoxication: (1) with the wine of affection (mawaddat) and (2) with the cup of love (muhabbat). The former is “caused” (ma’lul), since it arises from regarding the benefit (ni’mat); but the latter has no cause, since it arises from regarding the benefactor (mun’im). ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
The “wine of affection” is caused, brought about by the couple’s individual desires, lust, animality, nafs or egos. They provoke the sexual act because they are filled with lust or passion. They do not unite out of dhikr, remembrance of divinity, to remember the presence, hudur, of divinity, as they sexually connect. These types of people do not comprehend what the cup of love signifies, because they are fornicators.
To drink from the cup of love is to practice chastity. Chastity does not signify abstention from sex, but purity in sex―to not reach the animal spasm or orgasm; to not fornicate, to not be burned by the fornix, furnace of the body through the emission of the sexual energy. It also signifies restraining lustful thoughts, feelings, and impulses in the three brains. This is difficult for beginners, but something gnostic matrimonies learn through practice and discipline. The cup of love, sexual magic, is not caused by one’s own will, but by the will of the Innermost Beings within husband and wife. This signifies consciousness of divinity within the sexual act, the Benefactor, mun'im, which etymologically relates to the Arabic word for believer, al-mumin, a term for an alchemist. He who regards the benefit sees through himself and therefore sees himself (meaning his desires, egotism, lust), but he who regards the benefactor sees through Him (the Being) and therefore does not see himself (as ego), so that, although he is intoxicated (drunk on that pleasure of sexual union), his intoxication is sobriety (there is control and transmutation of the sexual energy; one is sober-headed and rational because the couple are not slaves of desire). ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery 
To be sober in Sufi terms is to be in control of one’s energies in the sexual act. One dominates sex with the consciousness, redirecting the animal impulse of desire and transmuting it up the spine. Those people who let themselves be carried away by the pleasures of sex culminate in the orgasm. Thereafter their sexuality governs their mind and they fall downward into the abyss, forming the inverted pentagram.
We are five-pointed stars, with two hands, two legs, and one head. When we control sex, we stand upright, made into the psychological image of the divine. If sex governs our head, we precipitate downwards towards the atomic infernos, the hell realms of Islam, so as to eat the bitter leaves of the Tree of Zaqqum as mentioned in the Qur’an, a symbol of spiritual death and suffering of the consciousness. This is the left-hand path of sorcery and black magic, the path of demons. The right-hand path is the path of the initiates, the solar way. Therefore, we must transform the moon into a sun! 
In the image of this slide, the Goddess Luna is extending her hands towards the moon or lunar power of Yesod, the sexual energy. The sexual energy is a lunar, creative force that we must transform into a sun through alchemy. It is by working with this energy that we learn to comprehend the enigmatic language of the Sufis, since this energy opens the door to comprehension for us.
Remember that psyche was asleep and later awakened through Eros, Cupid, the god of love, the erotic energy. When that power is utilized by a couple, then they begin to understand the mystical meaning of sobriety and intoxication. Sobriety also is classified in two ways, according to Al-Hujwiri. Sobriety is also of two kinds: sobriety in heedlessness (ghaflat) and sobriety in love (mahabbat). The former is the greatest of veils, but the latter is the clearest of revelations. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
What does it mean to be sober in heedlessness? To be heedless is to act as an animal, to not follow the sixth commandment of divinity: “Thou shalt not fornicate.” It signifies a lack of practice or spiritual discipline, to not work against the ego, but to fortify it through mistaken habits and the sleep of our consciousness. It means to feed pride, anger, lust, greed, vanity, etc. To not work with the spirit, ruh, is to be reckless, careless in genuine spiritual terms. If we have no consciousness of divinity, if we do not meditate, then we are heedless. Therefore, all of us fall in this category until we learn this science and apply it.
Those who are sober in divine love practice alchemy and know how to conserve the seminal energy and never lose one drop of it. This energy therefore produces the clearest of revelations, since as Samael Aun Weor explains, many initiates know how to enter into the ecstasy of the spirit, to manifest God within, through mastering the sexual act. The sobriety that is connected with heedlessness is really intoxication, while that which is linked with love, although it be intoxication, is really sobriety. ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
Obviously, the language is tricky. The Sufis were always playing with donkey-headed intellectuals who have no intuition. But their wisdom is clear to other initiates. They wrote in this manner to evade persecution and scandals.
Anyone who gives into fear, pride, envy, hate, lust, desire, is heedless. To give into those negative psychological qualities is to be drunk in a very bad sense. Many people are drunk off their ideas, theories, beliefs, and more importantly their sense of self, their ego, the “me,” “myself,” and “I.” This is the state of identification, fascination, and sleep of the consciousness. The heedless hear about esoterism and rationalize, ignoring instruction. They are heedless and drunk off the opium of theories, which Samael Aun Weor stated is worse than death. But that alchemical experience that is linked with love, although it be intoxication through the sexual energy, is really sobriety, sensible. To use that power for spiritual life is really the most sensible thing. This is what it means to be sober-headed, to not be carried away by passion. But lunatics, idiots, fornicators, enjoy expelling the energy of Eden from themselves: The fear of the LORD (respect for the sexual energy) is the beginning of knowledge (Marifah), but fools despise wisdom and instruction. ―Proverbs 1:7
So what is this principle (asl)? Sexual alchemy, scientific chastity, to connect sexually with one’s partner, as husband and wife, and to never lose one drop of semen, that precious energy, but to transmute it, elevate it. Through transmutation, one is continually intoxicated by that light generated through the sexual cooperation of the couple.
As the couple practices sexual magic, husband and wife never lose their attraction for one another, because the energy of attraction and magnetism is never expelled, but sublimated. The couple then charges one another with divine power. Through this principle of sexual alchemy, husband and wife remain intoxicated by love for one another, and also remain sober-headed. They comprehend that the ego is the source of disorder and divorce. So, couples who practice sexual alchemy are better off for preserving their union, because fornication leads to suffering and expulsion from sexual bliss. This is how marriages can succeed, rather than end in divorce, which is very common nowadays. A matrimony can be one’s heaven or one’s hell. Here we are teaching how couples can continually magnetize and charge each other, so that they remain in happiness. When the principle of alchemy is not present within a couple, sobriety and intoxication are baseless, meaning: they have no foundation in the science of Yesod: the Foundation of Kabbalah. Marriages founded on fornication, the orgasm, are pointless, baseless in a spiritual sense. When people know nothing of transmutation, the terms sobriety and intoxication take on different meanings. The sobriety of fornicators consists of all the degenerated theories in this day and age that adamantly defend the orgasm. Humanity does everything it can to explain why fornication is healthy and necessary. People also speak a lot about feeding one's desires at all costs, being intoxicated not only by alcohol and drugs, but by anger, lust, pride, and greed. This is what it means to have no foundation, to "build one's house upon the sand of theories," which, after the first provocation of a storm or consequences of karma, will tumble and fall into the abyss. We must become true believers and followers of divinity through learning how to be through the libido. Chastity is essential and constitutes our foundation. As the Qur’an teaches us in Surah Al-Nur, the “Surah of the Light," verses 30 and 31: Tell the believing men to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts. That is purer for them. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what they do.
In synthesis, the Light Surah indicates that you cannot have spiritual light if you are not chaste.
Many students who begin our gnostic studies complain about lust. Whenever they walk across the street in the cities, their eyes are bewildered by the sight of attractive men and women. The work of transforming lustful impressions is always most difficult for new initiates, which is why women in Islam, initially, wore their hijab or headcovers to prevent the lustful eye. Whether this tradition is really being practiced well after the time of the Prophet is another thing… But let us continue elaborating on the language of the Sufis: In short, where true mystics tread, sobriety and intoxication are the effect of difference (ikhtilaf)… ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
The word mystic comes from the Greek root word myein, to close the eyes. This signifies a person who meditates. In this case, the meditators, husband and wife, have been initiated into the sexual mysteries. For true mystics, sobriety signifies sexual purity, chastity, not in the form of abstention or celibacy, but by being pure in the sexual act.
For beginners on the mystic path, intoxication refers to fornication, since people get drunk on the orgasm. When people think of sex, that is all they think about, ignoring that sex can be founded on purity and spiritual love. Sobriety for the mystic therefore is the opposite, to be rational, controlling the sexual energy. …and when the Sultan of Truth (the Being, Allah, the divine) displays his beauty, both sobriety and intoxication appear to be intruders (tufayli), because the boundaries of both are joined, and the end of the one is the beginning of the other, and the beginning and end are terms that imply separation, which has only a relative existence. In union all separations are negated, as the poet says―"When the morning star of wine rises, The drunken and the sober are as one.” ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
When the Being expresses Himself within the couple, the beauty and love that husband and wife feel during the sexual act is the truest consubstantiation and fulfillment of divine love. As Fyodor Dostoevsky once stated, “Human love is a reflection of divine love.” For the couple that unifies in compassion and selflessness, out of virtue and purity, of genuine conscious love and understanding, the terms “intoxication” and “sobriety” become concepts and intellectual terms that miss the meaning: since the couple is so lost in the ecstasy and compassion of the Being. The intellect becomes an obstacle. The consciousness, usually hypnotized by the duality and relativity of the mind, becomes absorbed within divinity, the perfect unity, thereby transcending creation.
In sexual union, all separation is negated, because husband and wife become one angelic being with the capacity to create divine life. There is no difference between them, since the egos, the intruders or infidels, are not present, the nafs are absent during the ecstasy. …as the poet say―"When the morning star of wine rises, The drunken and the sober are as one.” ―Al-Hujwiri, Revelation of the Mystery
This is a beautiful teaching by Hujwiri. Who is the drunken one? The soul that is drunk on God, being united with divinity through one’s wife, as a husband, and one’s husband, as a wife.
Who is the sober one? The Being, the Real, the Truth, al-Haqq. The morning star is Venus, the Divine Mother, wherein the waters of sex are sublimated into spiritual wine, the Kundalini up the spinal medulla. When the sexual fires rise from the base of the spine and illuminate the brain, then the two aspects of Jehovah, Jah-Chavah, are united, Kundalini Shakti—Chavah, the intoxicated from below―marrying Her divine husband, the masculine aspect of the Holy Spirit, Jah, the sober one, the real, in the brain. Together they signify Jehovah. This is the esoteric Sufi meaning of intimacy. For as Al-Qushayri explains: The true nature of intimacy [sexual magic and union with God] is rightly sobriety [sahw]. In truth, the condition of balance after mystical experience [samadhi with one’s wife or husband in tantrism, Marifah]. Everyone who becomes intimate with God becomes sober and clear. Such people vary according to the strength of their experience [in chastity, being able to restrain animal desire to a specific degree]. About this the Sufis say, "The lowest stage of intimacy with God is that if one were thrown into a blazing fire [when the fires of sexuality are active between husband and wife, which they must dominate and control], one’s intimacy [concentration and chastity, sexual purity] would not be disturbed." ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism
Therefore, if you are lustful, you will only see lust in sex. But the great alchemists know how to see divinity and the seven heavens within the cup of gathering and witnessing, Jamshid.
Sufi Dance and Intimacy with God
Many Sufi dances signify the path of intimacy with God. In the film Meetings with Remarkable Men (a biographical drama about Master Gurdjieff), there is one dance in particular that depicts these alchemical concepts. At the end of the film, Gurdjieff finds a Sufi school of initiation wherein he witnesses a group of turbaned initiates dance and perform the runic alphabet, which are a series of yogic postures used with mantras in order to accumulate energy. Eight men dance in the same spot as they position their body in the form of runic letters, so as to attract the powers of divinity and perform sexual transmutation. Two other men meditate on the sides with their arms crossed in the Egyptian style, with the right arm over the left. The most notable of the dancers is in the center, the ninth man moving in a clockwise circle, demonstrating the positive rotation of the chakras. His arms are crossed since he is not performing the runes, and his centrality and firmness in the dance illustrates his universal role as the Being.
The ninth figure among the dancers, the center initiate, also refers to the strength, solidarity, and power of Yesod, the ninth sephirah of the Tree of Life, which is the creative power of divinity. This is the power that can dominate the ego. The tenth figure dances in a drunken stupor around the man in the center. The drunken, intoxicated man is the soul, nafs, or ego that must be dominated by willpower. The intoxicated man is silently guided by the somewhat stationary, central figure, the Being or sober one. The man in the center has his arms crossed in the Muslim style, with the right arm over the left, demonstrating how the right-hand solar path dominates the left-hand lunar path. He does not show any acquiescence to the drunken man, but is firm, in control, leading the drunken initiate towards submission (Islam) to Him. The Being, the real or sober one, accomplishes this feat through the path of meditation and transmutation. The ten men dancing in the center are the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life. The drunken man is Malkuth, the physical person filled with vices, while the man in the center is Chesed, the spirit. The two men at the sides represent the two pillars of Kabbalah, Jakin and Boaz, which support the entirety of our psychological and spiritual temple. There are other dances depicted in this film, but we don't have time to comment on all of them.
All of this dance is accomplished through the power of sex, symbolized by the movement of creative energy through the runes. No matter how drunk or egotistical the soul is, God is immovable, commanding, as we see in the example of the central dancer. Through exercises like runes (used to develop willpower and control), the consciousness becomes trained for sexual magic. With years of discipline, the fires of intimacy (in sexual alchemy) do not disturb the initiates' concentration, but remain in check, as the wild egotistical mind bows humbly in submission before divinity in this dance.
The Sacred Name of God in Islam
The Arabic name of divinity also hides this mystery. الله Allah signifies “the God.” Illaha signifies goddess. ا Alif, the breath, is the Hebrew א Aleph, prana, wind, spirit, ruh, since both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages bearing the same roots in Kabbalah, the language of the consciousness and of God.
الله Allah begins with ا Alif, which is a separate, elongated straight line, a masculine and phallic letter. This is the sacred fire of Kundalini that rises within the spine. الله Allah ends in ه Ha, a feminine letter in esotericism that references the feminine yoni, the vagina. The yoni is a circle and the phallus is a line, which are easy to see in ا Alif and ه Ha. The two ل lams of the sacred Arabic name of God each represent a person, man and woman, in esoterism. The Hebrew equivalent is ל Lamed, which references the tongue or speech. When man and wife unite in the sexual act to transmute, pronounce mantras, to recite the sacred verb, they are working with الله Allah, Elohim, the divine. This is equivalent to the Hebrew אל “El,” the spirit, Chesed in Kabbalah, ruh in Arabic “Elah,” or “Eloah” also means Goddess. El is masculine. Eloah or Elah is feminine. As we've been stating, divinity expresses through the sexual energy. One of the sacred names of divinity in Arabic is Al-Wadud (الودود), "the Loving, the Kind One." Likewise we find Al-Khaaliq (الخالق), "the Creator." Where else within a human being do we find the possibilities for creation through love? It is in sexual union. Alchemical knowledge is included in the sacred name Al-Wadud, which contains two ו vavs or و waws. ו Vav or و waw can be pronounced as a vowel, such as an a, o, or u sound. و Waw or ו Vav is a spinal column and brain, represented by the straight line and top point of ו vav, and the circle and curved line of و waw. Ibn 'Arabi states that و waw connects the human being with the angels, the divine. Al-Wadud has two و waws, one for man and one for woman, wherein the Kundalini rises and unites the couple with الله Allah. Divine unification is also represented by the two د dals or ד Daleths of Al-Wadud, indicating two dervishes or initiates, one man and one woman, entering the doorway of alchemical knowledge: the science of the perfect matrimony, Da'ath or marifah in Arabic. The sexual power of divinity is well reflected within the Qur'an by the following verses: Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators. ―Surah al-Mu'minun, "The Believers," verse 14
After these explanations, it's logical to see, from this verse, that the power of divinity is in sex.
While the creative energy can create a physical child, this verse from the Qu'ran teaches about the creation of the solar bodies, the vehicles of the soul, a type of psychic matter or flesh that does not belong to fornication, but to chastity. These vehicles include: the body of liberation (Yesod, the superior aspect of Malkuth), the solar astral (Hod), solar mental (Netzach), and solar causal (Tiphereth); in total, these are the lower five sephiroth of the Tree of Life, the Kabbalah. Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio
To sum up these Sufi and Gnostic teachings, we have the following excerpt from Mozart’s Opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, The Abduction from the Seraglio. Mozart was a Freemason and a master of Major Mysteries who knew Sufism in depth, along with Beethoven and other initiates. These masters knew the mysteries of the occult stone, the Kaaba of Yesod.
In this opera, Belmonte, a Spanish nobleman, tries to rescue his betrothed, Konstanze, with his servant Pedrillo. She was captured by pirates at sea and sent to a harem, an Arabic den of prostitution, to be the slave of Bassa Selim, the Pasha or ruler of Seraglio. Konstanze is under watch and supervision from Osmin, a Muslim guard, whom Pedrillo tricks into drinking wine to intoxicate him and lead him to sleep. Once Osmin is asleep, Pedrillo and Belmonte make their escape attempt with Konstanze. All of this is symbolic and invites us to reflect… Konstanze is constancy, chastity, our divine soul trapped within whoredom, within the prostitution of animal ego, lust, desire, nafs. Belmonte is her future husband, whose Spanish name signifies “beautiful mountain,” “Bel-Monte.” He is Tiphereth in Kabbalah, the human soul or warrior who must fight to liberate the trapped consciousness. When he conquers the ego, then he can marry his divine soul. Tiphereth is our will or capacity to climb the beautiful mountain of initiation, which he accomplishes through Pedrillo, his servant. Pedrillo is “little Peter,” or little Pedro, signifying a “stone.” Peter is also slang for a phallus. He is the little power of Yesod, the little stone that David, Tiphereth, used to conquer Goliath, the ego, who is represented in this opera as Osmin, a giant bass whose voice inspires fear. Pedrillo gives Osmin wine to drink, which the guard, being Muslim, first denies. And yet Osmin is tempted by the wine and drinks, ending up drunk and incapacitated, so that Pedrillo, Belmonte, and Konstanze can make their escape. The symbolism of wine we’ve already explained: it is the energy of sex that inebriates the soul and slackens the ego, putting it to sleep, to make it inactive. Osmin, the ego, gets drunk off the wine and falls asleep. That energy, harnessed in meditation, has the power to put our defects to sleep so that the consciousness can escape from its shells and conditioning to experience samadhi, represented by Pedrillo’s tenor singing, the elevation of the soul. Both Pedrillo and Osmin sing about women when praising Bacchus, god of wine, the sexual potency. One can either praise women with chastity or praise women with lust and desire. Both polarities are expressed here in Mozart’s aria, “Vivat Bacchus,” “long live Bacchus!” Osmin praises fornication, but Pedrillo, little Peter, knows how to be chaste. Here we clearly see how sex is the power of liberation or damnation of the soul! Osmin also reminds us of the Rune Os, Othilla, Thelema, the rune of willpower, whereby single practitioners can learn to transmute their creative energies. Min or Minah in Kabbalistic language is sex. Interesting, no? Why would Mozart name Osmin, the ego, after the Rune Os, and the sexual mysteries of sex, Mina, the Menorah? Light is generated through conquering fire, through not giving into temptation in the sexual act, to not eat the forbidden fruit and to not culminate in the orgasm. We must instead conserve that light inside. Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light, virtues, comprehension, cognizance. We must steal the fire from the devil!
The sexual energy, the power of Bacchus-Dionysus, is precisely a drink for the Gods, Elohim. This aria is not just about a man getting a Muslim guard drunk, but symbolizes two paths for using the wine of light. When husband and wife are sexually united, they are a truly divine being. When the couple truly practices chastity, the ego, Osmin, is put to sleep, so husband and wife can enjoy sex with purity, to breathe the aromas of the tree of knowledge without eating its fruit…
Remember that the word Seraglio, the harem or den of prostitution, carries the three vowels I.A.O., Ser-Ah-gl-IO. This is because the power of IAO, Jehovah, is polarized negatively through lust within our mind, which is represented by the harem. Mozart was a great master of Kabbalah, as you can see, which he taught in a synthetic, symbolic and comprehensive way. 
Alchemy and the Garden of Gethsemane
Here we see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with the chalice of redemption, whereby an angel presents him his cross, symbol of the perfect matrimony, before Christ performs his Passion. Here Jesus was praying before his crucifixion, a symbol of the death of desire, the ego, upon the cross of alchemy. Remember also that the chalice is a symbol of the feminine sexual organs, through which the husband extracts the elixir or manna of spiritual life.
The Garden of Gethsemane precisely represents the garden of Eden, bliss, a matrimony. Gethsemane is the garden of Yesod whereby the Lord is betrayed, since Judas, sexual desire, submits him to the Jewish authorities, the different egos, to be tested, contested, and condemned. Jesus represents the human soul, Tiphereth, united with Chokmah, Christ, an alchemical amalgamation known as the Son of Man. Here the master prays before the work of completely annihilating his ego. He states, “Father, if it be possible, pass this cup (representing sexual magic) of bitterness from me. But not my will, but Thine be done.” This path of sexual magic is one of sacrifice of desire. To renounce lust and the orgasm is painful for the ego, but constitutes the intoxication of the soul. It’s obvious then why many people begin but few reach the end. But those who persevere in daily transmutation, death of the ego, and selfless service for others, become constantly inebriated by the divine. They never forget their work because they never forget their Being. Many people cringe when discovering the necessity of compassion, selflessness, and love for humanity. We recommend that students reflect upon the life of Jesus, who when being nailed to the cross, when he was humiliated beyond comprehension, the only thing he said was “Father, forgive them: they know not what they do.” This is a type of compassion we strive and struggle to develop, especially within a marriage, when cultivating the powers of our “garden,” our physicality. This is difficult precisely due to our conditioning, which obscures and prevents us from really accessing this state. But if we learn to see the other person’s point of view, we develop the will and perception of Christ, one who does not react to life, but responds. It is one thing to react egotistically to situations, but another thing to respond with cognizance, compassion, and love, with selflessness, thinking and acting only for the benefit of the other person. In this way, we can still establish boundaries and be firm with others who need it, but not with anger—instead, one uses kindness. This is a more potent force than any ego, any defect. The way that you really develop divine love, the hardest and best way is in a marriage. Despite a couple’s love and affinity, the worst conflicts the disciple faces is upon the cross, during sexual union. Husband and wife must learn to sacrifice their defects to truly love one another. Crucifixion symbolizes the pain one goes through in the alchemical work, in the disintegration of the ego. One can only transcend such pain through comprehension and annihilation of one’s defects in meditation, or, after having comprehended an ego, asking for its annihilation upon the cross, within the sexual act, as explained in The Mystery of the Golden Flower and The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. They recited: I’m amazed at someone who says, “I’ve remembered my darling.” Have I ever forgotten (my Being), that I should have to remember? I die (to my ego) remembering You (my Being), then come back to (spiritual) life. Were it not for my good thought of You, I would not have revived. Desire’s object lives (my Being continues) when I die to (egotistical) desire. How many times have I lived for you, how many times died (through the comprehension and disintegration of each of my defects)? I drink love (transmuted water, muhabbah), glass after glass (day after day in alchemy; only once per day in observance of the creative magnetic pause mentioned in The Mystery of the Golden Flower by Samael Aun Weor). The (alchemical) glass (my sexual organs) is not empty (because the seminal matter is always being generated, but transmuted by the alchemists). My (spiritual) thirst is not sated (I will not cease my transmutations, but strive forward). ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism Practice
1. Continue to develop your self-observation from moment to moment. At the end of each day, reflect on conscious you were of your three brains (mind, heart, and body).
2. Every day, sit in a comfortable meditation posture (sitting upright either on a meditation bench / cushion, or Western-style: in a chair). Relax your mind, heart, and body. 3. Vocalize the mantras OM MASI PADME HUM to develop divine compassion and to transform the energies of your body into spiritual fire and spiritual light. Pronounce this mantra for thirty minutes or more.
This mantra translates as “Oh my internal God!”
The seven chakras are awakened by this mantra:
Remember that by conserving the waters of love and by pronouncing the sacred word, the mills or chakras awaken. This is even more powerful within a perfect matrimony.
Today, we are going to discuss the nature of consciousness, the nature of mind as it is explained within the gnostic doctrine, as well as its relation to the famous solar bodies of esotericism. We are going to elaborate on how mind, or consciousness, is related to the vehicles of the soul.
The solar bodies are well mentioned throughout the literature of Theosophy. And we are going to address the nature of the solar bodies in relation to the path, which is the path of the Self-realization of the Being and the complete development of the human being. This path and the solar bodies are well explained within the Christian, Buddhist, Sufi doctrine, through all the world religions. As we are going to elaborate today, Master Jesus of Nazareth, Master Aberamentho, explains the nature of the solar bodies, in detail, in his gospel. We also have in this image, Padmasambhava, who is known as the Second Buddha. He originally brought Tantrism to Tibet. Now he is recognized by having documented The Tibetan Book of the Dead. He taught the nature of Dzogchen, which means the Great Perfection. So, we have here, in this image, Padmasambhava with his consort, the force of the vehicle of Tantra. Sexual union is how we create the soul. Let us remember that Master Jesus never taught that we have soul. He said: "With patience will possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19). The soul or the solar bodies are vehicles through which God can manifest and express. These are only created precisely through tantra: pure, pristine, chaste sexual connection or union, and the transformation of one's vital principles. When we talk about the solar bodies, we also need to talk about the nature of mind, because there are many misconceptions in spiritual circles between the consciousness and the solar bodies. We emphasize that the solar bodies are merely vehicles that can transmit light, in the same manner that a lightbulb transmits light. The bulb is the vehicle. The light is Christ. So, in the path of Self-realization, we need to create the solar vehicles. We need to become solar beings, pure souls that can transmit the light of Christ, without blemish. This path has been taught in all the religions. And we have a saying by Padmasambhava about the nature of this path. Dzogchen is the secret unexcelled cycle of the supreme vehicle of tantra, the true essence of the definitive meaning, the short path for attaining buddhahood in one life. ―Padmasambhava
When we talk about the solar bodies, we emphasize there are many steps in the process of Self-realization. There are many who think that when creating the solar bodies, one is done. But that is a mistaken concept. Because the solar vehicles are merely a footstep in order to enter into the higher stages of initiation.
So, again we have a description of the solar bodies in relation with the Egyptian mysteries. In this image, we have the Tree of Life, kabbalah. On the right, we have the Tree of Life transposed on an egyptian god, Ptah, which is where we get the word Patar, Father. So, this father is our Inner Christ, our Inner Lord. And notice that his body is made of gold. Gold is the symbol of Christ, the light of the Being, the light of our real identity or Innermost God.
Solar bodies are created intentionally. Human beings do not possess them by nature. And that is why we discussed elsewhere in the lectures; we find that the only way to create the soul is by revolution. Not against other people, but ourselves. The requirements are very specific. We typically possess what we call lunar vehicles, which we are going to explain in relation to the Christian Gospels. But speaking in general about the solar bodies, we are referring to the kabbalah, the Tree of Life. Here, we have in the bottom Malkuth, which means “Kingdom” in Hebrew. This is our physical body, which we receive as a gift of nature by the procreation of our parents. Above it, we have Yesod, which is the vital body. And our vital body is the origin of all our chemical, metabolic, catabolic processes―reproduction. It is our energy and vitality. Our physical body would not be able to exist without Yesod, our “Foundation.” After creating the Ssolar bodies like Ptah, Patar, the Father, as it is represented in gold, we can reach the Father―if we want to work with Yesod, our foundation, our vital forces, specifically our sexual energy, which, as we elaborate in the scripture, is the foundation of all genuine spiritual Self-realization. Above that we have Hod, which means “Glory.” This is our emotional body, our astral vehicle. That is what we commonly have when we go into the astral plane when we dream. What we typically possess is not a legitimate astral body, but a lunar phantom known as kama rupa, meaning “desire body.” This in relation to the theosophical teachings, as well as the Hindu scriptures. In the right, we have Netzach, which means “Victory.” This is typically referred by theosophists as the mental body. But we know from esotericism that we do not possess a solar mental body, but manas or lunar mind. Sometimes, we say kama manas. Kama means “desire” and manas, “mind.” So, our mind is animal, in desire and nature, as evidenced by the fact when we observe our psychology from moment to moment. We are constantly afflicted by negative thoughts and discursive elements which keep the consciousness enslaved. Above that, in the middle of the Tree of Life, we have Tiphereth, which means “Beauty” in Hebrew. This is our willpower. We call this human soul, which is not developed in us. As Jesus taught: With patience will possess ye your souls. ―Luke 21:19
We have to develop Tiphereth into a fully illuminated human being. But Tiphereth, as it is, is merely our willpower, which is typically channeled through our mind and desire, mind and emotions, which are subjective in nature.
We do not possess yet what is the called a solar casual body, a solar vehicle that only knows how to express the will of Christ. And which all the great initiates have developed. So, in emphasis to this point, we explain that we are not yet human beings. Because the human being is made to the image of Elohim, God. Or better said, “gods and goddesses.” When we refer to the human being, we refer to the Hum (Sanskrit for) the breath, the wind, the spirit and man, manas, mind. So, the real human being is man or mind, not exclusively of the male sex, that is united with Hum, spirit. Our image of Ptah represents a human being with his bodies of gold that are only created with alchemy, the science of perfect matrimony. Above that, we have in the left, Geburah, which means “Justice,” severity, in the kabbalah. We call this our consciousness, divine soul. To the right, we have Chesed, which means “Mercy,” our Innermost God, our inner Being. Now, notice above we have the trinity, which is known as Christ: Kether, the Father; Chokmah, the Son; Binah, the Holy Spirit. Understand that the top three sephirah [Hebrew for “emanations,” spheres, “jewels”] are Christ. The trinity is Christ. Chesed and Geburah, the Innermost and divine soul, are God within us. It is our inner Lord. God never enters into degeneration, meaning: God has not fallen. His human soul, Tiphereth can obey God or fall down into the abyss, Gehenna mentioned in the scriptures. The problem is this: the willpower obeys the inferior quaternary, the inferior four bodies, which are elementally, lunar vehicles in most of us. Because in order to create the solar vehicles, one needs to work in alchemy, in a matrimony. Speaking about the lunar bodies, what we typically possess, if we examine them in the internal planes, they are of a phantasmic nature. They are of a ghost-like appearance. They are not substantial. Question: The four lower bodies, those are the lunar bodies, the four lower ones? Instructor: In most of us. What we need to accomplish in alchemy is to create the solar vehicles, which are represented by the Tree of Life. But for most individuals who are not human beings yet, but intellectual animals, souls with intellect, our mind, emotions, vitality, as well as our physicality, are vehicles of the ego. We do not yet have the conduit, which are the solar bodies, in order to reflect the light of God and return it back into its source. Question: So you’re saying our willpower over the ego at this stage? Instructor: Our will typically follows our mind or emotions, which are the expressions of the ego. Question: So if you’re able to astral project and stay conscious in the astral plane, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you created that solar body, right? Instructor: It does not necessarily mean that, but, at the same time, individuals that did practice alchemy in the past are basically recapitulating their work. So, some individuals who do already have those bodies, tend to have experiences as a grace of God, to bring those souls back to the path. But just because one has experiences in the internal worlds, that does not mean that one has the solar bodies yet. The way to verify that is to learn to astral travel, to communicate with our God. For most of us, we do not have those vehicles. And Samael Aun Weor stated solar bodies are a luxury which can only be created through the work alchemy. It is Master Jesus that taught us we typically have what we call the lunar bodies. The importance of creating the solar bodies in order to express Christ is emphasized in the scripture―in Matthew 22:1-3 and verses 8-14, where we have the parable of the wedding garment. The wedding garment are the solar bodies, which can only be created in a matrimony. And Jesus answered and spoke unto them again by parables, and said:
In order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, we need to create the solar bodies. Because without those vehicles of Christ, we cannot resonate with the divine laws.
Christ needs a vehicle in order to express himself. And the way He does that is through the soul, the solar vehicles. So, with our lunar bodies we cannot enter into heaven. However, I will emphasize, even creating the solar bodies is the first step. It is not the end. We need to be born again, which fanatic Christians of these times associate with doctrine or belief. They raise their hands and say: "I believe in Jesus and I am saved." And they say, “Well, you are born again.” That is not the case. To be born again is a sexual problem. We need to use the sexual force in a matrimony. For as emphasized in this gospel: the wedding garment is the result of a marriage. Therefore, individuals who seek to enter heaven through abstinence, or as renunciates, or by rejecting sex, walk the path of error. Because Christ taught us that to be born again is to work in a matrimony, with the sexual power and to use it for Christ. For as Jesus taught us in the book of John, Chapter 3, verses 3-8, when he talked to Nicodemus: Jesus answered and said unto him: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 
So, we have in this graphic Jesus talking to Nicodemus, where he explains that which is born of flesh, meaning through the animal orgasm, is flesh, physical children. But that which is born of the spirit, through the sexual act, that is conserved and controlled, is spirit.
So, birth is, whether physical or spiritual, the result of working with the sexual power in a matrimony. There is no other way. Master Aberamentho taught this. 
Alchemy, Chakras, and Kundalini in the Psalms
We talked about the pneuma, the spirit like the wind, which we are going to elaborate further in relation to the bodies themselves, how to create them. When working with the spirit, we work with the sexual force known as the Holy Spirit, which we mention as Binah in Kabbalah. In this image, we have an illuminated spinal medulla and the seven chakras. These chakras awaken when the power of the Divine Mother, known as Kundalini, awakens from the coccyx and ascends up the spine into the brain. 
When that fire awakens in the matrimony, it ascends slowly in accordance to the merits of the heart, never by one’s own whim, but by the intelligence and power of the Divine Mother. She is the one who, as the Weaver in Arcanum 24 in the Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah, weaves clothes for the soul to inhabit.
She is the one in this card who spins the wheel. She elaborates the soul, so that the consciousness can be dressed. When she awakens in the coccyx and ascends up the spine, She awakens all the faculties, the seven chakras. That is a divine fire that you can see in this image. And, when we rise the fire within the different spinal medullas within our lower bodies within the Tree of Life, we create the solar bodies. As we illustrate, Kundalini is the sexual force. The seminal energy is the power that gives life or can produce death, if we abuse it. For it is stated many times in the scriptures of the Old Testament, we find one reference in the sons of David, in the Psalms. The trees of יהוה Iod-Havah are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. ―Psalm 104:16-17
So, that is why this sap that the Bible talks about is the semen. The sap is the semen of plants. And we know that semen, physically, in man or woman, is the condensation of blood. So, that sap that fills the cedar tree is precisely our sexual matter, seminal fluids, whether in man or woman, because semen does not only apply to man, but to woman as well.
And the cedar tree relates to this process of creating the solar bodies. The cedar tree represents our spine. And the angels that govern the cedar family can aid us if we practice sexual magic. Even the word Lebanon teaches us a great mystery. Samael Aun Weor explains in Igneous Rose: In the word Lebanon (Spanish: Líbano), we find the IAO that permits the angels of the cedars of the forest to open the door of the spinal medulla when we practice Sexual Magic. IAO is the mantra of Sexual Magic. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
IAO in Latin means Ignis, Aqua, Origo; fire, air, spirit; or fire, water, spirit. And Samael explains this is the mantra of sexual magic to create the solar bodies. First, it is the wind of the spirit working with the fire of sex in order to generate the pneuma, the wind, the breath of spirit, which is the essence of the practice of tantra.
So, Lebanon in the Old Testament refers to the science of IAO. This secret mantra is considered the holiest of all mantras amongst the great temples of mysteries. And we know from the writings of Samael Aun Weor that when this sacred name was pronounced in ancient times, they would pound the drums so that the profane outside would not hear the name of this mantra, because it is exceptionally powerful. IAO relates in Hebrew to י Iod, ה Hei, ו Vav. And IAO or י Iod, ה Hei, ו Vav is יהוה Iod-Havah, Jehovah. When we work with the sap of our bodies, we practice alchemy and raise those forces upwards, the Kundalini, so that it illuminates the chakras and gives birth to the soul. 
Solomon and Sacred Sexuality
To elaborate this point of our sexual nature, of the creation of the soul, we have the following teaching by Solomon, who is in synthesis a great solar man. He was a great king recognized for his kingdom of gold, meaning: he was self-realized. He was a great master.
He taught in Song of Songs the sexual nature of the spiritual union with God. And it is precisely through sex that solar bodies are created. And what will be relevant in this passage is that we examine this image of Shiva-Shakti, which is the Holy Spirit. Shiva is the Father or Abba Elohim with the Divine Mother Shakti, Aima Elohim. These are the two polarities of the Holy Spirit, which is masculine and feminine. This is represented in the scripture of the Song of Songs by Solomon. He talks about his wife, who is his sister, which if we interpret it literally, is absurd. Because the fact this great master was practicing incest would be a crime. Instead, these are principles. Just as Adam and Eve, in the garden, united sexually, they represent man and woman, or brother and sister. They are principles. They are not literal figures. So, Solomon and his wife, his sister can represent Shiva-Shakti, because the same power is male and female. And when we talk about Shiva, we need to talk about Shakti. And when we talk about Shakti, we need to talk about Shiva. Because the Holy Spirit is dual, both powers, male and female. Question: In Indian philosophy, one of them is the creator and the other is a destroyer. Instructor: Shiva-Shakti is the power of God that can create the soul or damn the soul, if that energy is expelled through the orgasm. That is our original sin. And so is represented in this scripture, we will explain how scientific chastity, purity in sex, is precisely which leads to the development of the soul. As Solomon states: Thou art all fair my love; there is no spot in thee (meaning that you are completely chaste with no impurity in you, my Shakti, the sexual force). 
What’s interesting with Shiva is that he is typically portrayed sitting on a leopard's skin or a lion's skin, meaning he has conquered animal desire. So, when he talked about being elevated in the mountains, that is the symbol of having looked the path of initiation and that one has conquered desire, like Solomon did.
Thou hast ravished my heart (which in Hebrew is לֵבָב lebab, similar to לבנון Lebanon, as we are going to explain), my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes (which in Hebrew is עיניים Ayneen), with one chain of my neck. ―Song of Songs 4:9
So, he talks about the heart as לֵבָב lebab and mentions right next the city of לבנון Lebanon. There is a profound relationship there.
We know that in transmutation, we bring the energies inward and upward to our brain, and into our heart. לֵבָב Lebab, as in לבנון Lebanon, is heart. The last part of Lebanon is נ Nun [or ן Nun Sophit, final Nun], which in Aramaic means “fish.” נ Nun is sperm, literally, because our sperm and ovum swim within the waters of sexuality. Lebanon represents those who practice chastity. As Samael Aun Weor mentions, Lebanon or Líbano is IAO. In order to really dwell in that divine city, one has to transmute the נ Nun, the sperm or the ovum through the spinal column into the brain, and then into the heart, לֵבָב lebab. That is the meaning of Lebanon. Question: You mentioned נ Nun again. Could you give the description where you mentioned fish? Instructor: "Nun” in Aramaic means “fish,” and refers to sperm and ovum. The letter N [the Hebrew נ Nun] hides the meaning of the sexual principles. Now, Solomon says: "Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes (Ayin)." How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine! And the smell of thine ointments than all spices. ―Song of Songs 4:10
The word for smell is ריח reyach. ריח Reyach relates, in Hebrew, to רוח ruach, which is spirit. In the book of Genesis, the spirit hovers over the face of the waters, the אלוהים רוח Ruach Elohim.
Genesis is a work of alchemy. So, by working in a matrimony, the spirit hovers on the waters of sexuality and creates the heavens in the seven days of genesis, which explains the teachings of the solar bodies in depth. It would take many lectures to explain each component, but here, we are speaking more generally. And the "smell of thine ointments”―the word “ointments in Hebrew is שמן shemen, which is where we get the word “semen.” “And the smell of thine ointments,” the רוח ruach of thine ointments, the רוח ruach of thy semen, the spirit of thy semen, is more voluptuous, “delightful than all spices,” meaning: all the common and terrestrial pleasures we typically experience―because the sexual act is the ultimate consubstantiation of love between man and woman, and Christ. When we talk about the spirit, or the ריח reyach, the smell, which is really רוח ruach, “the spirit of thine ointments,” it talks about, how through alchemy, by being sexually connected and controlling the breath, inhaling profoundly the energy, conserving it, transforming it, bringing it up in the spine, and later into the heart―that is how we enter in the kingdom of Lebanon. I mentioned נ Nun is the sperm and ovum, the sexual matter, and לֵבָב lebab, the heart. He continues: Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under my tongue... ―Song of Songs 4:11
That is honey, which was originally pollen. Through work, the bee transforms that into sweetness. This is the symbol of the soul. Because through the impurity of our daily life, we work on ourselves and transform that garbage into honey, through alchemy, into sweetness of the spirit. And that is ultimately achieved when one is working in a matrimony.
…and the ריח reyach, the smell of my garments is like the smell of Lebanon. ―Song of Songs 4:11
So, what are these garments? It is the solar bodies. Here, it is very explicit. The solar bodies are created trough sex. There is no other way. “The smell of thy garments, the ruach of thy garments, is the smell of Lebanon,” meaning heaven. Those initiates who entered the Heavenly Jerusalem, into the Kingdom of God, which is Lebanon or Jerusalem.
Lastly, Solomon states: A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. ―Song of Songs 4:12
So, the Hebrew word for fountain is מַעיָן ma'yan. And, if we look at this graphic, we have the word מַעיָן ma’yan, which is Mem, Ayin, Iod, Nun.
Notice, we previously talked about Solomon, ravished with one the eyes of his sister, his spouse. The word מַעיָן ma’yan is the same word as eye, עין ayin. It just has the letter M in front of them. So, instead of עין ayin, it spells מַעיָן ma’yan. That is fountain. So, these are the fountains of life that Jesus mentions, which will never allow you be thirsty again. As explained in the parable of the woman at the well, when the woman asks: "Give me the water that springs up to everlasting life." And Jesus says: "Go call thy husband." Meaning that if you want to know how to find the water, work with your husband, because in the matrimony is where the fountain is produced. These waters of life are precisely the sexual energy. And sexual energy has a profound relationship with our perception, as evidenced in Hebrew: עין ayin, eye; עיניים ayinim, eyes. מַעיָן Ma’yan is the same word, but with מ mem; and מ mem is water. So, in order to have spiritual perception, we need to work with our water. That means we need to be married in order to begin this process. In order to enter the higher stages of initiation, we need to work with the waters, represented by Mary, מרים Miriam, the Divine Mother. And עין ayin is an eye. [Remember that “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single (pure), thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil (impure, lustful), thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! ―Matthew 6:22-23] So, he says very clearly: "A garden enclosed is my sister. A spring shut up. A fountain sealed." So, we will have the energy of sex, but we need to be sealed hermetically with this force. We must never expel it. It is very well known in tantra, from the teachings of the Dalai Lama. He even explicitly states: Sexual energy should never be let out. ―The 14th Dalai Lama
And this fountain should never be spilled, meaning one should never reach the orgasm, because if we lose that fountain, we cannot assuage our thirst for the kingdom of heaven.
Question: But only in procreation―you would have to. That would be the exception, right? Instructor: In the past humanities, procreation was accomplished without the orgasm. Comment: But still, it was a fall. Instructor: There was never loss of the seminal fluid, but one sperm would be emitted in order to enter the womb of the wife. So, in the past, human beings procreated without orgasm and they had children which were pure. Question: Is that possible today? Instructor: Yes. What matters is that we follow the will of our Being, so that he can guide us as when to practice in the appropriate astrological hour, so those forces are conducive for producing a child without pain. It is mentioned in The Yellow Book, specifically. Question: So, you are saying that if a couple procreated without spelling the semen, the woman would give birth with no pain? Instructor: Less pain, I would say. When following the divine laws, we avoid pain. Comment: That’s tremendous pressure on the man, to get to the point that only one cell is emitted! Instructor: The force that guides that is the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother. So, we need to be sealed. A fountain that is enclosed. We should never let the energy out. If we want to have children of a divine nature, of a pure nature, we must learn to practice according to the guidance of the Elohim. Because that energy, in a matrimony, should not be expelled. But according to the will of God, one sperm can leave the phallus in order to enter the ovum. But that is in accordance to the will of God [and therefore constitutes what original, esoteric Christianity denominated an “immaculate conception,” sexual generation without impurity, blemish, orgasm]. Comment: These are spiritually developed people! They will have to be very spiritually developed to do that… 
Soma, Sexual Energy, and the Power of Shiva
Instructor: In this image, we have the picture of Shiva by an ocean. When explaining the nature of the fountain, the waters of life in Hindu language are Soma. In this image, we see Shiva drinking from an ocean that is being churned by a great battle between gods and demons, which results in the ocean being polluted and poisonous in order to extract Amrita, which is the nectar of the gods, the pure sexual energy. He drinks the poison, which I believe in the myth explains how he came with the blue pigment in his skin. He drinks this drink of Halāhala or Kalakootam. And this represents how the energies of sexuality have to be extracted from impurity. So, the impurity is the poison that is being generated in the battle with our own ego, our own lust.
Soma has a great relationship to the Christian scriptures. Soma or Amrita is the nectar of immortality. This is the substance, the seminal energy or seminal matter which can create the solar bodies. We find different definitions of soma, “a secret drink of Hindu Gods through ancient Hindu religious texts.” It also refers to the “press of drinks made of juiced plants.” So, the significance of being pressed in order to extract the juice of a plant is very significant in relation to alchemy, because when a man unites with his wife, the organs press together and, therefore, if the breath is controlled, the juice can be extracted, sublimated, and elevated to the brain, and into the heart. Soma also connotes the God Chandra, who relates to the moon. And we know that the moon relates to the vital forces of Yesod, which is the sexual energy. Question: Which is in the etheric body? Instructor: Yes. In Greek, soma signifies “body.” In order to create the solar bodies, we need to work with our own soma, our sexual energy. Unfortunately, in modern times soma can also mean hallucinogenic substances, which we do not advocate in these teachings. 
The Śvetāśvatara Upanishad and Sexual Yoga
So, as I elaborated in relation to soma, we have this image of the Christ crucified, which someone may find strange in the context of expressing the Hindu teachings. We find the symbol of the cross with the symbol of alchemy: the union of man and woman.
Christ, the force of God, is crucified whenever a man with an erect phallus enters the uterus of his wife. That forms the cross. The vehicle beam is the phallus. The horizontal beam is the uterus. And we see in this image his crucifixion in which all the impurities of his psyche are annihilated. This is what the crucifixion of Christ represents. And notice how in his right side, he is pierced by the spear of Longinus, in which flows his blood. This ties to the scripture known as Śvetāśvatara Upanishad, Chapter 2 verse 6: Where the fire is rubbed, where the wind is checked, where the soma flows over, there the mind is born. ―Śvetāśvatara Upanishad 2:6
So, when a man and a woman are united in the cross, the fire is rubbed, as mentioned in the scripture. When a phallus unites with the uterus in holy matrimony, the fire is stimulated. And when the wind is checked, when the breath in the sexual act is controlled, the soma grows and develops. The sexual energy is activated and begins to flow inwards and upwards.
We have two ways of energy flowing in our body: we have centrifugal force when the energy goes from inside to outside, which is what we do not recommend. And then, we have the centripetal flow of forces, which is from outside in, which is the science of transmutation. When the fire is rubbed in sexual union, and when the wind is checked, the spirit, the breath, ריח reyach, רוח Ruach. When the sSoma flows over, or rather, inside and upwards, then the mind is born, meaning: the Solar bodies can be created in this context. When we talk about flow, we talk about tantra. Tantra means “flow, continuum.” That is an eastern term for the nature of this science. The Four States of Consciousness
In relation to the solar bodies, we have to talk about mind. We make the distinction between the states of consciousness and the solar bodies of the Being. It is true that solar vehicles can grant us access to higher states of consciousness, but they do not determine a completely awakened state of being. There are many individuals with solar bodies, or could have developed these bodies in the past, and they are asleep. Or, even worse: many of them have fallen into the path of demons.
Do not think that once you have created the solar bodies one is saved. The consciousness needs to be developed further. When we talk about the mind or consciousness, we need to talk about four states, which we are going to the Christian Gospels as given by Paul of Tarsus. We have four states of consciousness mentioned in Greek, by Plato. Eikasia is the first state of consciousness and refers to a state of profound sleep, instinctual, animal desire, barbarism, war, violence. There is an instinctual state of being where there is no self-reflection or cognizance. If we translate εἰκασία Eikasia directly into English, it means “imagination,” which is interesting about this is that, as Master Samael explains, Eikasia is darkness. And yet the translation means “imagination.” What this relates is the fact that, even though we are physically awake, and active, we perceive imagery, sensation, concepts, thoughts, we are in darkness, spiritually speaking. It is a type of perception, but is devoid of any spiritual understanding of the nature of the phenomena. So, we have Πίστις Pistis, which means “belief.” This is the common state of consciousness of humanity. Pistis is belief, sometimes translated as faith. But here, we are referring to belief and faith in a conventional sense, devoid of any spiritual substance. Many people have beliefs and concepts of the afterlife, about astral travel, the internal dimensions, the solar bodies, but they have no cognizance of these things. They believe in religion, but they do not practice the esoteric heart of religion. Humanity tends to gravitate between Pistis and Eikasia: beliefs, fanaticism, and war. We have a third state of consciousness, which we seek to develop, and which grants us the doorway to really enter initiation. This other state is διάνοια Dianoia. Dianoia, as Samael Aun Weor explains in The Perfect Matrimony, is revision of beliefs. The way we review our beliefs is by awakening consciousness. This is the state of awakened perception. And in order to really develop this state, we need to be, like Solomon told us, a fountain sealed, a מַעיָן ma’yan sealed. Because עין Ayin and מ Mem, perception developed though the waters of transmutation help to awaken us to the state of Dianoia. Diá means “thoroughly, from side-to-side," which intensifies noiéō, "to use the mind," noús, "mind.” So, when we awaken our consciousness by working with our own fire, with our own fountain of life, we begin to change many concepts that we have about ourselves. This is to revise our beliefs about who we are, what we know, who we think we are, where we are going. Dianoia is the alert state of perception, the alert novelty. But now, we have a fourth state of consciousness, which can only be fully developed and reached by working in alchemy. It is νοῦν Nous. Nous literally means mind. Question: Excuse me, sir. Did you say something that relates to the left ventricle of the heart? Instructor: There is an atom that relates to the Innermost, a spiritual power, a force relating to the left ventricle of our heart. So, Nous relates to that. The atom Nous is in our heart. And the state of Nous is illuminated perception. It is the consciousness, which is in union with the Innermost, that perceives as the Innermost, that is one with Christ. 
Nous refers to heights of the Tree of Life. From Geburah, Chesed, and above. That is the spirit of the Inner Christ. Those heights can only really be developed, as Samael Aun Weor explains, by working in alchemy, because to develop the spirit is very arduous work related with transmutation, related with the perfection of the psyche.
We explain this in relation to the solar bodies because, in order to work in alchemy, we need to establish ourselves in Dianoia. We need to cease being asleep in Eikasia. We need to cease being hypnotized by our beliefs, our concepts, which is Pistis. To work in alchemy effectively, you must possess Dianoia to be awakening, to develop that state of alert perception through mediation, through self-observation. As I mentioned, there are many who have solar bodies, but they forget this fact. They forget this work on the ego. And Nous is fully developed when we have no ego. This path of Nous is represented by the path of the spirit, Pneuma. Nous, our Innermost, relates to that Atom Nous which is connected to our spirit. 
The Heavenly and Terrestrial Man of St. Paul
We have in this image, a teaching by a great master. His name is Hilarion IX. He was known as Paul of Tarsus. He was known as a great persecutor of Gnostics until he converted through a revolution in his experience.
Question: He was a tax collector? Instructor: I do not know what he physically did as work, but what happened to him was very profound. He experienced Nous, an illuminated state of consciousness when he knew Christ directly. The Logos. The force of God. And therefore, he stopped persecuting the Gnostics physically. Comment: In the Christian teachings, I think they claim when he was on his way to Damascus, and a lightning bolt hit him that the divine sent. “Paul, Paul, why have you hurt me, betrayed me, deny me,” I think. That was in the Christian teachings as I remember. 
Instructor: And the lightning bolt represents the force of Christ which descends from the Trinity, at the top of the Tree of Life down to Malkuth. So, he was struck by an experience, which Christ reprimanded him to change. And, so, he gave a very beautiful doctrine on the nature of the solar bodies. The nature of Nous. The nature of perception.
He explained that the solar bodies are created through sex. But importantly, we need to awake, he says, to righteousness. Meaning to work in Dianoia. If we do not awaken consciousness through meditation and annihilate the ego, we cannot walk to Christ. In fact, we can make the solar bodies and attain development to a degree, but if we do not fully eradicate our own desires, then we will suffer. We will go down. Question: That means you’re desireless for anything? Instructor: Desire in terms of ego. Animal lust, pride, vanity. Not longing. So, Paul of Tarsus taught [in 1 Corinthians 15:34-40; 42-43]: Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God (the esoteric doctrine): I speak this to your shame (to those who study, but do not practice).
Question: Does that correlate in the Greek mysteries to Ceres, or when they’re talking about grain?
Instructor: Yes, because the grain represents the seed of the sexual force that gives birth to the solar bodies. Comment: I have to say, you go really well into details. There are so many things that are allegorical that the Gnostics, the way you teach it―for some reason, the others, whether it be the tarot schools, the fish coming up out of the waters, pulling it out through mercury, but they don’t, none of them go behind it like the way you do. I have to say that, I’m finding out things. I thought, “I know this, no!” So much is allegorical, but they do not explain the relationship. Instructor: So he says, “Every seed to his own body.” Meaning: our body produces the semen. The seed that gives birth to our solar vehicles, which do not manifest fully in the beginning, but they are germinated slowly, in the same manner a child is born in the womb of his mother. Nine months. Nine relatesd to Yesod, the foundation, the sexual force. He continues in relation to the solar vehicles: All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. ―1 Corinthians 15:39
When he talks about the flesh of men, he means real human beings. Because a real human being has the solar bodies created. Those solar bodies define a real Hum-Man. Because the spirit [the Sanskrit Hum] can only incarnate when one has the solar bodies, and we fully eliminate the ego.
So, the flesh of beasts is really us. We have the flesh of beasts. Our family procreated in an ordinary manner, so to speak, and we are the result of fornication. We have the flesh of animals born through animal desire. We also have the flesh of another fishes, meaning those initiates who know how to swim in the waters. Who control the waters. Who are beginning on the path develop the seminal energy. And also we have the flesh of birds, meaning those initiates that know how to fly through the Tree of Life. That is one meaning we can derive from them. He continues: There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
So, this topic of resurrection refers to one level, the creation of the solar bodies. One has died to a certain degree and resurrects at a spiritual level. That is the process of the Major Mysteries, of initiation.
The solar bodies are sown in corruption, meaning: our body is imperfect. We experience many illnesses and diseases because our bodies are degenerated with fornication. But the solar bodies are sown in corruption, because we practice alchemy with this body. And the solar bodies are raised in incorruption, meaning they are pure. Just as the same matter in Buddhism, how the lotus flower floats above the muddy waters. That impurity is our mind. It is Eikasia. It is Pistis. However, the lotus is above that. It is pure. It rises above the impurity of the mind. “It is sown in weakness,” meaning we are weak in the beginning. But, when we practice alchemy, the solar bodies are raised in power, with tremendous force. 
The Psychic and Spiritual Bodies
The teaching of the solar bodies also relates to Paul of Tarsus and his teaching on the Tree of Life. Here, we have the image of the Kabbalah again. Another way to look at this is in terms of three triangles, which Paul of Tarsus explain in relation to the bodies of the soul.
Within the triangle of the Logos, again as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: Kether, Chokmah, Binah. Within the triangle of the spirit, the pneuma, which is Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth. Then we have the triangle of the psyche, which is Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. Malkuth is a fallen sephirah. Question: Is that top triangle, the very apex at the top, that’s smaller? Instructor: Smaller? Question: That’s Da’ath? Instructor: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, the upper triangle is the Logos. The secret sephirah, Da’ath, does not have any image. No representation. It is the secret science of alchemy. So, Da’ath relates to the throat, which relates to the practice of alchemy, uniting sexually with our partner, the mantras we pronounce, “I… A… O…” in relation to sex; we are working with Daath, the Verb. That is how we create spiritually. When we connect sexually, we pronounce the mantras: IAO is the most sacred.
So, the triangle of the spirit is Chesed [pneuma], Geburah, Tiphereth. The bodies of the psyche relate to Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth. Mind, emotions, vitality, and physicality.
Question: Kether is the Father? Instructor: Kether is the Father. Question: And Binah is the... Instructor: The Holy Spirit. Question: And Chokmah is the Son? Instructor: Yes. And so, as we show the image of Shiva-Shakti that is also the Holy Spirit. Because Shiva-Shakti is male-female. Or, we say Jehovah Elohim in Hebrew. But that is digressing a little bit. So, when talking about the solar bodies, we can refer to these triangles in relation to levels of spiritual development. Paul of Tarsus gives a very profound kabbalistic teaching, as he continues: It is sown a σῶμα ψυχικόν psychic-image body [Soma Psuchikón]; it is raised a σῶμα πνευματικόν spiritual-image body [Soma Pneumatikón]. There is a σῶμα ψυχικόν psychic-image body, and there is a σῶμα πνευματικόν spiritual-image body. ―1 Corinthians 15:44-45
Soma means body. Psuchi relates to psyche. Ikón is image. So, we can translate it as psychic-image-body, to be literal.
People think that it usually say terrestrial body in the translations. That is not what the Greek taught us. By terrestrial, I mean relating to our lower personality, whether the terrestrial or they say the heavenly personality, the heavenly Being. So, Soma Psuchikón, the psychic-image-body, the body that bears the image of the psyche, relates to this triangle, as we showed: Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth. This is the lower quaternary, which is what we are. So, Paul of Tarsus states: It is sown a σῶμα ψυχικόν psychic-image body [Soma Psuchikón]; it is raised a σῶμα πνευματικόν spiritual-image body [Soma Pneumatikón]. ―1 Corinthians 15:44
Soma is body, as I mentioned. Pneuma is spirit. They usually translate this as celestial body or spiritual body. Again, remember that soma is the sexual energy that gives birth, life to the bodies of the soul.
So in the beginning we create… Question: Some would be Yesod? Instructor: Soma relates to the vital force. It is the vital force. And, through this energy of the sex, we give birth to the bodies of the psyche, Soma Psuchikón. In the later process of initiation, if we are destined to walk that path, we elaborate the Soma Pneumatikón, which is really the solar bodies when they are completed, when they are perfected. In the beginning, we develop the psychic bodies, which, through intense alchemical transmutations, by destroying our desires, our ego, they become completely perfected and give birth to the bodies of the spirit. So, first comes the soul. The sSpirit comes next. There are many initiates who forget this detail, like Nietzsche. He thought that all human beings have these vehicles, the psychic bodies, or even have spiritual bodies. But he ignored that these have to be developed through initiation. Question: So soul is the reflection of the spirit, right? Instructor: Yes. Comment: I always get confused by… Instructor: Yes. The spirit is God and the psyche is the consciousness. The Being is. The soul needs to be created. We do that through alchemy for working with our soma. Question: So, soul and Being are two different things? Instructor: Yes. The Being is God. And through this work, the spirit, Pneuma creates the psyche. Question: So, spirit and Being are the same? Instructor: Yes. We use different terms, interchangeable. The Being is the Pneuma, the spirit. So, as Paul of Tarsus states: It is sown a σῶμα ψυχικόν psychic-image body; it is raised a σῶμα πνευματικόν spiritual-image body. There is a σῶμα ψυχικόν psychic-image body, and there is a σῶμα πνευματικόν spiritual-image body.
To elaborate, first, we create what we know as the terrestrial man. The human being is made through the creation of the solar bodies. Remember that the bodies are meant to project the image of the psyche and the Being.
First comes the psyche. We have to create the soul. Later, we develop the image of the spirit, which is a very long process. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from οὐρανός (Ouranos) heaven. ―1 Corinthians 15:47 
Notice that psyche is mind (Netzach), emotion (Hod), vitality (Yesod), and physicality (Malkuth).
We can also count Tiphereth. Tiphereth is psyche, human soul. The heavenly man is above, relating to Geburah (divine consciousness), which is the reflection of our own Innermost, our inner God, inner spirit. Above that, is the triangle of the Logos, Christ. So, first, we need to the develop the image of the psyche trough alchemy. And then, if we follow the path of the Christ, if we incarnate the Christ, He takes us to the development of the higher sephiroth within us. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
What is important to state is that, many Christians say they are “born again,” as if they had these bodies―“I believe in Jesus and now I am saved," whereas [the solar bodies] can only be created through alchemy.
You need a man and a woman [to create, to give birth]. They think they bear the image of the earthy. That is equal to saying that they have the bodies of the soul already developed. Comment: I’ve been to summer service. They mean well, some of the preachers. Then again, they say, in the emotion of the moment, they place some music in the background. Yeah, because like Dion Fortune said that in that moment, they go to the emotions only, but cannot go above that. So, when they get out onto the street, sure, well enough… (we all have the same defects…) in the emotion of the moment―I’ve also seen that when I was in Georgia―they all really get emotional down there. Some of them have tambourines, the spirit… Well, they may mean that! At that time, but then they slip back into everyday routines, defects… Maybe they’ve reduced a little, but they’re not reborn… Instructor: So, they say “we will bear the image of the heavenly,” meaning they have not entered alchemy to develop the psyche first. First comes the soul and then we develop the spirit within. 
The Manifestation and Contemplation Buddhas
So, continuing in relation to this topic about the heavenly man and the terrestrial man, we could refer to Buddhism, which teaches the same thing.
The solar bodies are what grant one the capacity to unite with God. But only with the condition the ego is fully eliminated. In Buddhism, we have the Inner Being, which is the Buddha, which we call the Contemplation Buddha. These are just Buddhist terms for the same thing, as told by Paul of Tarsus. The heavenly man is the Contemplation Buddha, God. Question: Who is Adam Kadmon? Instructor: Adam Kadmon is the heavenly man, which we are discussing. We also have the Manifestation Buddha, which is the psyche, the initiate who is developing his solar vehicles, and is walking the path to completely express the Being, the Contemplation Buddha. So, this is just to emphasize this teaching is not only from Paul of Tarsus, about the solar bodies. But it relates even to Eastern doctrines. So, Samael Aun Weor states in "Mental Representations": Much has been said of the Buddhas. There is no doubt that there are Contemplation Buddhas and Manifestation Buddhas. Manifestation Buddhas are creatures who dominated the mind, who destroyed the ego, who did not let negative emotions enter their hearts, who did not create mental effigies in their own mind nor in the minds of others. Let us remember Tsong Khapa who reincarnated in Tibet; he was the Buddha Gautama previously.
So, again. What is the Logos? It is the Christ. The Buddha that manifests is Tiphereth, the human will, the human soul. That is created after we have raised the fire in Malkuth, the Kundalini force through the spine, in Malkuth, to the brain.
Afterward, one must create the solar vital body through this process of alchemy. After that one, one must create the solar astral body. Once that one is created, the alchemist creates the solar mental body and possesses the solar body of will. 
This is beautifully represented in the Wizard of Oz.
We find Dorothy, the consciousness [who needs to return home to divinity]. The scarecrow needs a new mind. He needs a solar mental body. We have the Tin Man who needs a new heart. He needs a solar astral body. We have the lion who has no courage. He needs the solar casual body, willpower. The one that gives them that gift is the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard of עץ Otz, the Wizard of עץ החיים Otz Chai’im, the Tree of Life. So, the wizard is our Innermost, spirit, pneuma. And Geburah is an unfoldment of him. Dorothy represents the consciousness that has been sent to Malkuth. From Kansas to the Land of Oz. And we find the golden red road through the spinal medulla, up to the Emerald City, which is the chakra of the crown, which produces the halo of the saints. And the lower five sephiroth are the Manifestation Buddha, the Bodhisattva, the incarnation of Christ who manifests in the physical plane. The Contemplation Buddha is the five sephiroth above, which is our Inner Wizard, our Inner Magician. The Spiral and Direct Paths
What is important to state in relation to the nature of the solar bodies, and to put this in context, is to emphasize that that the solar bodies are merely vehicles in which we can express Christ. However, there are many individuals that develop the solar vehicles and do not enter into much higher stages of initiation, and much higher stages of spiritual development.
And we often talk in these studies about different kinds of angels or buddhas. In the realm of Nirvana, which is really Tiphereth, we find many masters. They reflect the spirit to a degree, but they remain at that level. They do not ascend to the higher stages of the path. Because, in order to access the higher sephiroth, which is Christ, the Trinity, they have to enter into a very elevated path of spiritual development. We call this the Direct Path. So, we talk about the solar bodies and creating those vehicles. They are necessary. We need to create the means by which our Being can manifest himself into our psyche. But, in order to develop the image of the spirit completely, in order to enter the realm of the Logos, we need to enter a very specific path. In the beginning, one learns to rise the five Kundalini [serpents] within the lower five vehicles in order to give birth to the solar vehicles. But, upon reaching Tiphereth, one needs to make a decision. This really depends on the will of our Being. Comment: Rudolf Steiner corroborated everything you said now. Some people, you know, they advance so far. They have no desire at that point to really, for whatever reason, whether due to karma. But it’s their option, not that they’re going to be condemned, or anything like that, because they do not want to go any higher. For whatever reason, they chose not to. They develop themselves apparently… Instructor: We call them Nirvanis, Nirvani Buddhas, Sravakas, or Pratyekas, different terms. They are buddhas that have attained initiation, but they choose to remain in Nirvana to enjoy the blisses of that realm. They forget about the suffering of humanity. They do not descend to help. Question: Some people call them selfish buddhas too? Instructor: They are called selfish buddhas, and the thing is that many people think this is a bad path because they forget about the cares of the world. They develop themselves little by little in very long spiral path that leads to the Absolute. The problem with this is that is a very long path. They manifest according to karma. They are still victims of karma. And the difficulty lies in the fact they can easily fall again when they have to return to a body. And so, many of them become Nirvanis. They fall again. They become demons. They become Nirvanis. They fall again. They become demons. It is a cycle that repeats itself. This is represented in Buddhism by the Bhavachakra, the Wheel of Samsara. We find different realms between gods, demons, humans, hungry ghosts. A constant cycle of different manifestations. Question: You’re saying eventually that they will see the light and eventually ascend even higher than Tiphereth? Instructor: That depends on the Being of that individual. Because there are many buddhas, spirits or monads that say: "Well, we are happy in this level. So, we do not want to go higher." Then, there are sSpirits like Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad, or Krishna. They want to go to the very height which is known as the Absolute. In order to reach those degrees, one has to incarnate Christ. To enter that path is to walk the Direct Path. Because the Nirvani Buddhas go to the spiral through eternities, to the Absolute. There is nothing wrong with their process. But in this path, we teach the path of the Bodhisattva, which is very revolutionary. Question: Are these conscious decisions to go in either direction, or is it unconscious? Instructor: It is conscious. The Being is the one who decides whether to enter the straight path. And when the Being decides that, one must follow. Bodhichitta
In order to get to that point, in relation to this topic of the solar bodies, it is important to state that we need to develop a very specific type of consciousness if what we want is to enter the straight path after creating the solar bodies. We call this Bodhichitta.
I mentioned the term Bodhisattva and now I mention Bodhichitta. Bodhi means “light, wisdom, enlightenment.” Chitta means “mind.” So, in this lecture we are talking about the [enlightened] mind and the solar bodies. And to elaborate that, the solar bodies are a step on the path. They are not the end if we follow the Direct Path. We need to develop something very specific, a state of mind which is the combination of conscious love for humanity and comprehension of the Absolute. It is the union of two things. And Buddhism teaches this very beautifully. One cannot have real love without understanding the nature of That, the Absolute, which we call emptiness, inconceivable to our intellect. Neither can we have real cognizance of the Absolute, the source of all the gods, the universes, That which is beyond all concept. We cannot have understanding of That without real love for humanity. When we comprehend the inherent nature of emptiness, of all phenomena and how human beings suffer in illusion, naturally love is born within our hearts, to want to serve and help others to realize their real, [intimate divine potential, which we call Christ. The Absolute is in the Christ. Bodhichitta is a state of consciousness in which we comprehend the emptiness of phenomena and how life is illusory. But also, to have that experience in meditation when one approaches to the Absolute. Bodhichitta is taught in Buddhism as a type of attitude. And it is so powerful when it impregnates the soul, that it goes beyond having the solar bodies. One does not create the solar bodies and develop Bodhichitta necessarily. In fact, what is important is to develop Bodhichitta now, before we even enter the path or developing the solar bodies. Question: Just define Bodhichitta again? I missed that. Instructor: Bodhi is light, which refers to Christ. Chitta means mind. So, it is mind or consciousness that has experienced Christ. So, just like Paul of Tarsus had that experience going to Damascus, he developed that lightning spark that illuminated him, in order to recognize he needed to serve humanity, to serve others. Comment: Well that was an epiphany! Instructor: Epiphania relates to revelation, to experience the state of Nous that illuminates the consciousness. Question: That’s what he experienced? Instructor: Yes. So, we often talk about Bodhichitta as a very deep topic. But in synthesis, it refers to conscious love for humanity and cognizance of the Absolute. One that has that experience returns to the physical body and then works to serve others so they can experience divinity for themselves. Question: Just one other thing. You mentioned about the solar bodies, that they’re vehicles. But then again, what are they? Do they refer to the five lower sephiroth, in terms of how the solar bodies relate to the Tree of Life… Instructor: The lower five sephiroth. And so, we seek to develop Bodhichitta above all things. And then, if we are married, we work to create the solar bodies. It is more important to develop that aspiration to serve others than to seek to acquire powers and initiations. So, as it is explained in The Voice of the Silence, the nature of Bodhi, the light: The Dharma of the ‘Eye’ is the embodiment of the external, and the non-existing. 
Here is an image of Buddha Maitreya. People think Buddha Maitreya was one individual. They do not recognize Maitreya is a title. As I mentioned, there are many buddhas in nirvana, millions, zillions. You cannot count. However, there are very few who incarnate the Christ. In order to enter the Straight Path that leads to the Absolute, one needs to become a Bodhisattva.
But first, one develops Bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is that aspiration to help others. And that service comes about as a result of comprehending one's empty states, or the emptiness of phenomena, as well as the Absolute, which is the goal. Many Buddhas do not have Christ incarnated. Because Christ only enters the human being who has shown he has served humanity. And that aspiration and love for humanity is Bodhichitta, cognizance of the Absolute, emptiness. Question: So, Mother Teresa might be one? Instructor: I never investigated her, but she embodied Bodhichitta because she really showed sacrifice for others. She said: "You must sacrifice for others to the point it hurts." And always the utmost sacrifice requires pain in our part in order to genuinely benefit others. Question: Bodhichitta is developed through meditation and transmutation? Instructor: Yes. Bodhichitta develops when we meditate and we really work to develop compassion and love for humanity. To serve others and to experience God. Comment Just along those lines, I’m thinking of an article I read about the nurses who work in children’s hospitals. Usually in five years they say that it’s too much. They say the pain and then the relatives coming in, the interaction and the pain. They actually have to put up a shield. It’s too much! They do good, God knows, but that’s one occupation they take them to task there, compassion-wise. Those people who stay on for a couple of years have to balance that. The pain they feel, you can’t help it, since there’s transference. Instructor: In order to develop Bodhichitta, we need to transform our psyche. So, whatever pain we experience, we transform it as an opportunity for compassion and love for others. So, Samael Aun Weor continues in a lecture called The Esoteric Path: There exist the Transitory Buddhas and the Permanent Buddhas.
So, the Heavenly Man is the one who fully develops Christ is known as a Permanent Buddha. But, one who is a Transitory Buddha, the Nirvanis, they spiral through Nirvana and come back to Malkuth. Maybe they descend. They go back to Nirvana. They fall again. They are in transit. They are never stationary, meaning they never attain the absolute heights. So, a Permanent Buddha is the one who has incarnated Christ.
Question: So, a Transitory Buddha did not really incarnate the Christ [or made preparations...] Instructor: Transitory Buddhas are those Nirvanis who have not incarnated the Lord yet. They haven’t walked that path. But those who do walk the Straight Path, they incarnate Christ and they walk a dangerous road to fully eliminate the ego in the most profound depths of their own abyss, in order to unite with the Absolute. Comment: Then they didn’t fully eliminate the ego! Instructor: So, the Transitory Buddhas are those who have ego. And even Bodhisattvas, those who incarnate Christ, they still have ego. They are only perfected until they fully eliminate desire. So, the importance of mentioning the solar bodies is the fact there are many who create these vehicles, but they remain in Nirvana. They do not care about helping humanity. Question: Why do some people say that that’s the end? Some read a book, and don’t go beyond… Instructor: There are degrees. There are stages of the Tree of Life. There is Nirvana. There is Paranirvana (beyond Nirvana). And we have Parabrahma, which is the Absolute. So, there are degrees. The problem with many buddhas in Nirvana is that they do not care about serving humanity. They want to enjoy bliss in their realm, but they do not sacrifice themselves in order to incarnate the Lord, Christ. As stated in The Voice of the Silence: The Shangna (“initiation”) robe [the solar bodies], 'tis true, can purchase light eternal. The Shangna robe alone gives the Nirvana of destruction; it stops rebirth, but, O Lanoo [disciple], it also kills―compassion. No longer can the perfect Buddhas [Nirvanis], who don the Dharmakaya glory, help man's salvation. Alas! shall SELVES be sacrificed to Self; mankind, unto the weal of Units?
So, again, just to really get to the point: there are many buddhas in Nirvana. They have solar bodies, but they remain in that realm. They do not work to help others. And unfortunately, they are afflicted by their own karma. They manifest and they return to Nirvana according to the laws of the cosmos. They are not masters over the laws of the universe.
All those who incarnate Christ become lords of all things. In order to get really inspired to that path, we seek to develop Bodhichitta (the aspiration to reach the Absolute for the benefit of others). Working to self-realize, not for oneself, but for humanity. And to clarify what Bodhichitta is, Samael Aun Weor states in The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled: Bodhichitta is the awakened and developed superlative consciousness of the Being. Bodhichitta emerges in the aspirant who sacrifices himself for his fellowmen, long before the Mercurial [solar] bodies have been created... The one who does not possess Bodhichitta, even when he has created the superior existential bodies of the Being, is still unconscious and absurd. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled
Do not think like many esoteric practitioners, when they create the solar bodies and that is it. That is the path of the Nirvanis. If we really want to enter the path of the Bodhisattva, the path of Christ, it means we have to renounce our own mind and give everything for humanity.
To conclude, solar bodies are necessary, but they are not the end of the path if what we aspire is to imitate the example of Christ. Questions and Answers
Comment: You could see that on the Tree of Life where you showed us the five solar bodies. Above it are the other, higher sephiroth, so you can’t stop really from what you’re telling us. You can’t stop there.
Instructor: The one who decides to enter that path is the Being, our own pneuma, our own spirit. If we have attained to the height Nirvana, meaning we reached Tiphereth and we have the solar physical, solar vital, solar astral, solar mental, solar causal bodies, related to the five spheres below, and if our own spirit demands it, if our own Innermost, Chesed or pneuma decides we enter the path of Christ, then we do. That depends on the will of our Being. Comment: Seems in a way, you might say, that some of these things might be predestined. Instructor: If your Being is pushing you to practice this science, it may be the chance he wants you to walk the Direct Path. But that path is not necessarily finished in one life, like I mentioned in the beginning of the lecture with the quote from Padmasambhava. There are few initiates who can do it in one life. It is very rigorous. But for most of us it takes many lives. Comment: This path you are talking about [the Direct Path], going back to… Steiner, on the Tree of Life, what he called the hermetic path, is doable. That was one path. He called it the mystical path, straight up the Tree, like that, but it involved a different type of esoteric practices in a way than you would if you went from sephirah to sephirah like some people do with tarot cards, correlating astrology and all that. Steiner said it had a lot to do with the heart, and he mentioned there a lot of things that were in line with what you’re saying regarding the Direct Path, or the arrow, קשת Qeshet Instructor: קשת Qeshet in Kabbalah, which is the Hebrew word for “rainbow,” which we see in the Book of Genesis after the flood of Noah. He saw the rainbow, קשת Qeshet. So, that rainbow is the path that Dorothy takes to Oz, from Malkuth with her companions up the straight road, in the middle, to the Father, Kether, who is our wizard, our Inner Magician. But the only way that path can be reached is by sacrificing oneself for humanity. Because if we only work for our own liberation, we enter the Nirvani Path. But if we work to help others, to help humanity to reach Christ, then Christ would say: "Well, if you reach the Fifth Initiation, I will incarnate in you." Then, you must die completely. The solar bodies are not quickened unless you die. Like Paul of Tarsus said: "We do not perfect those vehicles until we die in our ego." Any other questions? Question: Does the Being nudge by putting events on our path? Instructor: Yes. We can refer to karma specially. We have many events in our life which are the result of past actions, the karmic results of our previous lives. But in many other cases, our Being, in order to help us, changes that, such as finding this type of science. The Being is intervening to help that soul to change. Comment: Or even meeting someone who is studying esoteric studies, and saying, “Here, read this book!” And then something turns on. It could be when you’re very young, middle-aged, or even old, and say, “I want to pursue this further.” Since you look back on your life and you see that you get resentful, but then they tell you you can’t. You say, “There’s something pushing me. There’s something I have to do.” It could be based on fear too, of the unknown, or the whatever. But it starts you on a metaphysical reading, attending classes, but something happened… Instructor: Those longings are the impulse of the Being to make that soul work to walk the path of the Self-realization. Now, what is necessary is to cultivate Bodhichitta, that aspiration to serve humanity and attain liberation for the sake of others. We need to develop Bodhichitta if we really comprehend our mind, and work to serve in whatever way possible, whatever is the idiosyncrasy of our Being. For some people it is teaching. For some people it’s like Mother Teresa, providing shelter for others who are sick. Gandhi was teaching and leading political movements. That is how he worked with his aspiration basically. Comment: Can I just add one other thing? Just getting back to finding out the meanings behind a lot of those teachings. But the Bible, and Rudolf Steiner said too, in a lot of ways it was a closed document, he wouldn’t go into detail. […] Someone I know who is a member of the Masonic Lodge, Jewish-American fellow, fairly intelligent, he said, “When I was in the Navy I went out and took an eclectic approach.” So he was related to the Jewish religion, but he wanted to find out, you know, he studied other religions. He said, “I used to sit on the fan tail of the ship… by myself and read. The only thing,” and sad in a way, “But Christ spoke in parables. I couldn’t follow that.” That’s another thing. People need experience in the way they see things. Instructor: We need to know Kabbalah to understand the Christian Gospels. So, we explain in brief the meaning of the teachings of Christ as well as the teachings of Paul of Tarsus. Comment: There’s just so much, really, is in [parables]… some people think there’s just surface meanings. They quote the waters, but what’s really behind it? And they talk about… in the human being! As it relates to the human being! What are these waters? You never see, I’ve never read this in any esoteric books except in things you’ve explained. Instructor: What is necessary for us is to meditate. To experience this for ourselves. But personally, when I am talking about the solar bodies and Bodhichitta is because I have studied these teachings, not from a book, but from experience. So, do not take this at face value, but practice. And awaken your psyche so you can experience your own pneuma. And a practice you can use to develop Bodhichitta is the prayer of Saint Francis. I do not remember specifically every line. "Let me not seek as much to be loved, but to love. To be understood as to understand. To give in order to receive. For in giving, we receive and in death we are born to everlasting life." Comment: Francis of Assisi, and he, that was interesting, he certainly had an epiphany or an awakening, because he was born, as history tells us, into a very wealthy family in Tuscany, in Italy. And the father wanted him to get married and live well with possessions, but he totally renounced everything… Instructor: He is a great Bodhisattva. He fully developed Christ within himself. He was an embodiment or expression of the teachings of the Straight Path. So, meditation and prayer can open a lot of things in terms of how we can help humanity. 
The reason why many people approach spirituality often comes from the results of organized religion. We often find in popular institutions teachings that, while they resonate with our heart, they are lacking something critical, something profound, and something fulfilling. It might seem unusual that the very thing missing in organized religion is an understanding of sexuality.
People often, on the news and on television, show the results of monastic life, such as in the Catholic Church, which profoundly ignores how sexuality can be used for a divine purpose. In organized religion, they do not know how to utilize the natural expression of the human being, because sexuality is a part of life, and despite what people think, sexuality is also a part of religion, in a genuine sense, not from an institutional dogma. The reason why there are cases of abuse, violence, is because priests do not understand how sexuality should be used and understood, and not repressed. People look at sexuality as something filthy, something perverse, or something to gratify the pleasures of a couple. There are extremes in our culture. In religion, we are taught to reject sex, which has its problems, because as you have seen with institutionalization and the rejection of sexuality, that quality of the human being has to be controlled or understood or worked with, and when people try to repress sexuality, it ends up in forms of perversion, such as molestation of children, deviant sexuality, abuse and degeneration. But we have this other extreme in our culture, where in America, or all throughout the world, people feel that we should indulge in sex. We should acquire as many sensations as we can, pleasant experiences, relationships, and yet, we look at the results in humanity: divorce, suffering, marital conflicts, pain. So it is very clear that when we look at society, people and religion do not understand what the role of sexuality is, from a spiritual perspective, from a divine perspective. Some people think that sexuality is simply a means to procreate, to create children. That is a very noble aspiration, to be a father or a mother, to have a family, but, we do state that that is not the entire gamut of what sexuality is. To procreate the species, that is one part. People don't really understand that sexual expression, as the natural birth right of the human being, can be something divine, heavenly, sacred: not from the Christian perspective, that we are going to use this act as something to create a child, to create a family, but there is another purpose that has been taught in all the ancient schools of religion and mysteries that, unfortunately, have been gutted out, removed―primarily because people face a difficult problem when addressing this issue of sexuality. Sexuality in itself, the creative energy itself, has marvelous potential. It can empower our most divine attributes. It can ennoble the soul, our most divine qualities, because the sexual energy is the ability to create. It always acts. It always has to move, to flow, to work. But the question is how? In what way do we use this energy which resides in our glands, whether male, female? Unfortunately because people have not been educated, we think that sexuality is simply indulging in desire, pornography, prostitution, adultery, and our society worships these qualities and believes that you can indulge in all these actions and think that there are no consequences. But you see the result of what happens to people, the life of prostitutes or adultery. Sexual action is the most profound action a human being can perform. If we push it away, it churns in the subconsciousness and becomes desire that is never satiated, and then it becomes a monster, which is why priests who don't understand how to consciously work with this energy in a divine way―with practices, with exercises, to transform that energy into something creative, into something expressive―that energy then ferments. It rots. It becomes putrid. This is why you see priests committing such horrible crimes against young people. It is really disastrous. So we have to look beyond just the beliefs about what our culture wants us to think. It is better if we can analyze and investigate what this energy is, and the purpose of this lecture is to talk about how the creative energy, in itself, has the potential to develop our spirituality, our true nature, which is the soul. Consciousness and Desire
You might have listened in to previous lectures. We talked a lot about the soul, consciousness, our true nature. Sometimes people think of Buddha nature in Buddhism. It is the pure element of consciousness that can reflect divinity, who is inside, in our hearts and our very qualities of being, qualities like compassion, happiness, serenity, faith, understanding, patience, love.
These are qualities that we have deep down, but unfortunately we have mixed it with impurities: anger, hatred, lust, envy, greed, which religion calls the seven deadly sins. Every tradition has its names for what we call ego, defects, desires. And all that, according to a real meditative tradition, has to be removed. All those negative qualities have to be eliminated. But first we have to comprehend them, understand how our own anger makes us suffer and makes other people suffer, how our own pride injures our neighbor and ourselves at the same time. We don't really understand how our own egotism creates problems for ourselves, and because people do not understand how to work with the mind in an effective way, they take the most powerful energy available to them―the sexual energy―and they channel it through anger, through violence, through perversity. This is how you have all the monsters of today that are very abundant.
Divine Eroticism and Awakening
So this is a very serious topic and we'll talk about how the soul, known as Psyche in the Greek myth, can be awakened to her true nature through Eros. Eros is the god of love, Cupid, in the Greek myth, which is a symbol. It teaches how our own divine spiritual nature, how through divine love, a divine marriage, the force of Eros, eroticism, awakens our full potential, which is pure, divine.
Different traditions symbolize that work in many ways, but of course, in this lecture we will be very explicit about what these traditions are. You may have heard of alchemy in the Middle East or medieval Europe, Middle Ages. They talk a lot about how we must transform lead into gold. But of course, that is symbolic. It teaches something spiritual, and even psychological. Our egotism, our defects are like lead. They weigh us down. But if we learn to work with energy, the creative sexual energy and learn to direct it with our consciousness, our soul, that energy is going to empower us radically, and with that force we can transmute, transform, elevate, make our egotistical consciousness become a divine consciousness―lead into gold. 
In this image, we have Padmasambhava with his consort, his wife. They are in sexual union, but there are many misunderstandings about what this tradition teaches called Tantric Buddhism. A couple, man and woman, who embody masculine and feminine principles, can combine their energies to work in a very transformative way, and these ancient traditions teach us, whether from the East or the West, how a man and a woman, using the energy that is available to them, and the power and ability to procreate, can take that energy that they awaken within sexual union and transform it, use it to empower and create the soul.
As Jesus taught in the gospel, “that which is born of flesh is flesh” through the common sexual act. But the same sexual act or the sexual act transformed can be utilized for the Spirit, since “that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” So many Christians ignore what this teaching is about. They have no clue, because people haven't been educated. The physical sexual act can create a physical child. Anybody knows this. But with certain procedures, if the couple retains the sexual energy in their union and uses that energy with the soul, it can transform their marriage and make it a sacrament, a holy union. This is the meaning of religion, from the Latin religare, “to reunite.” This is the highest yoga, from the Sanskrit yug, “to reunite.” It is also known as tantra, which is where this image comes from. The medieval alchemists, whom people denigrate today, knew this secret science. It was never taught publicly because it has tremendous power. The sexual energy can create anything, a child. It perpetuates the species. Sexual drive motivates every aspect of society, every aspect of life. Even chemicals, compounds, molecules, electrons, atoms, are driven by sexual propulsion, energy―attraction, rejection, repulsion, combinations of energies, a form of marriage. That energy is everywhere, and in the human being, that most profound force, the ability to create, is in our sexual glands. This energy is so powerful that it can develop a human being to their highest potential. So for many centuries, this knowledge was kept secret, because unfortunately many people would abuse it. But we are living in a very different age now, where this type of knowledge and spirituality, information, is given openly. The doors have been opened by divinity for people to understand this kind of knowledge, so that people who want to transform themselves and have a method to help them attain that goal, can. 
The Symbolism of Alchemy
But of course, the alchemical science was taught in symbols in medieval Europe to prevent persecution, such as with the Inquisition in the Catholic Church, which had completely extirpated the sexual teachings of esoteric Christianity.
Alchemy comes from Allah in Arabic, meaning the God, the name of divinity in Islam. And khemia, the Greek word for chemistry. It is the chemistry of God. It is how a couple, man and woman, using their sexualized polarities, can take their energy, combine them, and restraining the sexual energy, circulate that force, learning to control their egotistical desires, and unite out of love, to dominate their subconscious passions. Those individuals, those couples, can unite with God or divinity, whatever name we wish to give to that impersonal energy or force. 
In Greek, the word khemia can also mean “to fuse or cast a metal.” There are many symbols in the Bible that retained this knowledge. Moses lifted up a brazen serpent on a staff to heal the Israelites wounded by divinity for having disobeyed Him. If you study alchemy, the science of metals, bronze is an amalgamation of copper and tin. Copper in alchemical science relates to femininity, woman, love, Venus. Tin relates to Jupiter, masculinity, man. When husband and wife unite their energies, they can awaken the brazen serpent known as kundalini amongst the Gnostics and the Yogis of the East. That serpent can be raised upon a staff, the spinal column, so as to heal our soul from the afflictions of our daily life.
In the Bible, Moses represents willpower, the power and the will to dominate temptation and desire. It doesn't mean to run away from sex, but to approach the sexual act with respect and veneration, with love, to remove passion and desire and connect out of divine love. So this couple, Padmasambhava and his consort, are not united out of lust, to fulfill their animal desires. Unfortunately, people look at these kinds of images and only think with animality, with satisfying and having pleasant sensations. Pleasure is natural to the sexual act, but it should not be the only basis for which a couple unites. It should be for the couple to really develop their love, their consciousness, to take that energy and, through certain exercises, controlling the breath, even performing sacred sounds like mantras, we learn to circulate the energy. Instead of making go from in to out, to expel it, one makes the energy to go out to in, to circulate it, to control it, to elevate it. 
This is the mysteries of Jesus being baptized in the river Jordan. The word ירדן Jordan in Hebrew means “descender.” That energy that is deposited in our sexual glands is divine. It can create life. It is the power of life. The Jews say לחיים L’Chaim, to life, and the Christians call it the Holy Spirit, even if they don't understand what that energy is.
So that power of life can create spiritual life. The couple needs to learn to take that energy, which usually descends down into us and we expel it through a moment of pleasure or a few seconds of pleasure, which are fleeting―that energy instead of descending, we can learn to make it reascend, to make the river turn its course, which instead of going out, it goes in. It circulates as energy. You have the actual matter or entity of semen, which is physical in either men or women. Sexual fluid, those waters which are symbolized in the Bible as the waters of Genesis, the waters of generation, we can learn to be baptized with that energy, transform it, the substance into divine power through very specific procedures. This is very well documented in every religious scripture in the world, but in allegory. 
Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding, the marriage of Cana. He turned water into wine. People think it is a literal story of Jesus getting people drunk, and they can believe that. But more profoundly, he is teaching a couple who knew this science, to transform the water or entity of semen, into energy, into the wine or ecstasy of the spirit, circulating it. And that is how you are baptized with water. He turned water into wine.
The mystics of Islam, the Sufis speak very beautifully about this too. Very abundantly, they talk about love of God. “Muhammad was in love with God,” and they make it an erotic teaching, which scandalizes many people because people like to separate religion from sex, and don't understand that you show true religion by loving your wife if you are a man, and as a woman, loving your husband. This is a science from Egypt, from Al-Khem. This is a very ancient science that was studied in all the primeval cultures of the world before they degenerated, before people, instead of respecting these types of teachings or laws in themselves, decided to indulge in desire, because sexuality can be for animal pleasure or lust. Or it can be for the soul. It depends, and you have the judge in yourself how that is. This is why we study meditation too. So this is a very deep topic. We are introducing some of the basics, because to really practice like Padmasambhava without lust, united sexually with his wife, takes a lot of work. Because of course, in the beginning we are full of animality, desire. But with training, we can ride upon desire, like a donkey, as Jesus rode up on a donkey into Jerusalem, the heavenly city. Symbols, but not explained for many years. The Sufis also mention that, I believe the poet Rumi, who is the most popular poet in the West today, said that when you look at a cup full of water and you have your own desires, you only see your own face in it. But if you are looking as a result of love of God, you will see God in those waters. He is talking about this. If you are married or husband and wife, male-female, in a relationship that is sexually active, we show our love for divinity in the sexual act. But of course, with training. One has to be educated how to do that. It takes time, but it can be done. Or if one is filled with desire, we look at the sexual act and see just the gratification of pleasure. That is one extreme. Tantra
So this teaching is known as tantra in the East. In Sanskrit, it is a word for “continuum” or “unbroken stream.” It comes from the Sanskrit “tantrum, literally loom, warp.” Hence, it is a “groundwork, a system, a doctrine.”
What is this continuum? When the sexual energy is retained and transformed, it circulates in our body. We have certain energetic channels in our spine, in our body, that can take that energy and circulate it. And we will talk about what that particular aspect of our physiology relates to. But the energy has to be controlled. It has to be contained. That is the only way for energy to circulate. If the energy is released through the orgasm, there is a short circuit. That continuum is broken. So we are very explicit about how tantra works, because there are people who think that tantrism is just about sexually uniting with one's partner, enjoying pleasure, and then reaching the orgasm. There are many people who teach that kind of doctrine, but unfortunately, that type of action feeds desire. In these studies, we are working to remove our imperfections like lust or desire itself. We want to empower the soul but in order for Psyche to waken, we have to work with Eros and retain that power. Even the 14th Dalai Lama explained that in tantra, the seminal force is never let out. We can contain it, conserve it, and make it circulate through mantras or prayer, through breath work. That is how it becomes an unbroken stream. That is how we perform the loom of God. A loom is where we create clothes. When we work with the energy, we create something. If that energy is conserved and worked with for many years, internally we create vehicles of expressing divinity in us. We talk a lot about this in the studies of alchemy as the vehicles of God, the wedding garment of the soul. In the Gospels, it is stated that one cannot attend the marriage of divinity without the wedding garment. So that is the loom. We have to create a type of vehicle in which our soul can act. It is not physical, but it is internal, vehicles that relate to different aspects of our psyche within different dimensions. We will be explaining about what these vehicles are in-depth, but I just want to introduce to you that the energy has to create something. It can create a physical child, or it can create the vehicles of the soul, the soul itself, which is like a wedding garment. Isn't there a saying that you are what you wear? Or “the apparel oft’ proclaims the man,” states Polonius in the play Hamlet. So we weave the soul through this energy. It is a groundwork. It is a system. It is a doctrine, from the word tan, “to stretch or extend.” Of course, this has a sexual significance, as represented by the erection of the male phallus. Tantra refers to “that continuum of vital energy that sustains all things.” So I stated, the creative energy is within our sexual glands, but we find it within everything, from down to the atom, to the galaxy. It is also “the class of knowledge and practices that help us harness that vital energy which can transform us radically, thereby transforming the practitioner.” 
Transmutation
Some people also call this transmutation. You may hear this term a lot within the books of Samael Aun Weor and throughout different lectures on this topic. Tantra, alchemy, and transmutation are the same thing. So transmutation is broken down from trans, which is a prefix we find in words like transcend or transfix. It means to take something “across, beyond or through; to change something thoroughly; to move.”
The word mutate we find relates to “causing something to change in form or nature.” So what is transmutation or sexual transmutation? It means, through practice, to take the actual entity of the semen retained within our body, our receptacle, and with certain prayers, mantras, exercises of breath, we can take that actual matter and transform it into energy, mutate it. I know we are probably familiar with X-Men, mutants, people with power, but people don't want to recognize that Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and many prophets were mutants. They took that energy of sex and created, or recreated themselves spiritually. They became such great beings because they were married. They had that energy available to them, and through love, they changed themselves. So all those qualities that we admire and beings like the prophets, Jesus, their selflessness, their compassion, they did that because they became mutants. They mutated that matter and became an energy. They carried over that force within themselves, raising it from the sexual glands to the brain, and then to the heart. 
If you are familiar with the shepherd's staff so popular with in Biblical allegory, it refers to that image, the serpent of Kundalini rising from the coccyx to the head and then down to the heart. That is how one leads flocks, spiritually speaking, because they have that energy manifest, at least true teachers, with true prophets or gurus. Therefore, transmutation is “the act of changing, or the state of being changed into another form.”
It is logical that that energy which can create a child can create something inside of us. It has tremendous force. It is power of divinity. Divinity creates through the sexual act, through the sexual energy, but it depends on the quality of our mind. What are we doing with that energy? Are we expelling it out? You can more radically take that force, conserve it, transmute it, make it into something more powerful, because as it is now, it is in a very rudimentary state, but that energy can really grant us access to many things. 
Animal Desire and Divine Sex
So as I said, Krishna was a great mutant. He changed his spiritual form, and he had many powers that are documented in the Bhagavad-Gita, which of course, there was a master in the Hindu Pantheon who actually came many thousands of years ago to represent this principle known as Krishna. He is what is known as the Hindu Christ.
As I said Christ, divinity, is not a person, but an energy. It is impersonal. It is universal. And that energy is synonymous with sex. The power of life, the power of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of divinity, is here. Krishna, who is a beautiful symbol of that force, had power to act precisely because the soul or the person was working with that energy very beautifully, very profoundly. As I mentioned, divinity is the sexual energy. It is a sacred force, which is why even in the Qur’an, the doctrine of the Muslims, some of the sacred names of divinity is Al-Khaliq, “the Creator,” and Al-Wadud, meaning: “the Loving.” And that scripture mentions how, “Did we not create you from a sperm-drop…” which of course can be a literal thing. We are created from the sperm and the ovum, but more profoundly, if you know the science of alchemy, Allah-Khemia, divinity creates in us by taking that very same matter and transforming it, transmuting it, creating the soul, creating life. "And truly it is easy for us if you are but believers." Meaning: people who are not fanatic or dogmatic, but who learn to be through the power of love. Be-lieve. That was the original meaning of the term. Now belief is something just to accept a doctrine with the intellect or to feel something is true, but to not know. So there are a lot of parallels in different scriptures, but I would like to quote from the Bhagavad-Gita, which is a very powerful statement of how Krishna, Christ, is that creative energy. I am the strength of the strong, devoid of काम kama and राग raga. I am धमम kama which is not contrary to धमम Dharma. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
There are a lot of words from the Sanskrit that have a lot of different meanings depending on the context of the phrase. So the same word काम kama in some context can mean, “sex life.” It can mean “lust.” It could be “desire,” or just “pleasure.” On the contrary, it can be “chastity.”
Chastity is an interesting term. People have been miseducated to think that chastity means abstention from sex. It is logical that people came up with this definition, because when people think of sexuality, they think of animal gratification. So what does it mean to be chaste? It means not to engage in the sexual act with the orgasm. Chasity simply means “purity, immaculateness.” And it refers to a couple learning to use their energies. They can be sexually connected, but chaste. No confusion there. People get hung up on the idea of immaculate conception. Was Jesus really born from Mary when she did not have sex with anyone? Obviously, that is a very ludicrous interpretation, because the only way to create is through the sexual act. But the question is: what is the definition of chastity? Obviously, Jesus was born from his parents, and through an immaculate conception, which means through a union that did not involve orgasm. It is not necessary to expel millions of spermatozoon to create a one child, because only one sperm is going to fertilize an egg. It is not necessary. If the couple is working seriously and is working with divinity, if they want to have a child and they are praying to divinity to give them a son or a daughter or a girl, they can concentrate on their divinity and pray and work with the creative energy. If it is accordance with the law of divinity, they can take one sperm out from the man and it can fertilize the egg. That is an immaculate conception. Obviously, it is very magical, you could say, because the sperm that is utilized in that instance is going to be very superior than one ejaculated out of lust. Obviously, there is a psychological quality embedded in the energy, depending on how we use it. If we are chaste and are pure in our minds and hearts, really loving our spouse and being divine or loving divinity, that energy becomes superior, elevated, for concentration and prayer. So: I am the strength of the strong, devoid of काम kama and राग raga. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
Devoid of lust, and the word for raga is “attachment, grasping; to clutch and to pull; to hold.” Pretty sure we can look at our own lives to see how much of our sexual activity was based on attachment, clinging, holding, grasping. We want those experiences. We chase after them. We change our appearance. We model our behaviors so that we can find a partner. We are grasping at sexual pleasure and sensations and being in a relationship and satisfying those desires. That is raga.
Love is something very different, something divine, which is born in the soul when the time is ripe and the appropriate partner is met. But raga is sexual attachment: wanting to indulge in animal pleasure, the sensations of sex, and grasping at those experiences at the expense of our soul. Desire is one thing, but the soul is another. The soul knows how to love, to respect the partner. Desire only wants to satisfy itself. That is the distinction between an angel and a demon. An angel has love, Eros towards Psyche, but desire only wants to fulfill itself at any cost. So: I am the strength of the strong devoid of lust and attachment. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
But then he uses something very interesting here.
I am काम kama which is not contrary to धमम dharma. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
So many people get confused about this statement. How is it that he says I am not kama and yet he says I am kama? Because the word kama is dual. It's dualistic. It can mean lust. It can mean love. It can mean desire. It can mean chastity. So he is sexual drive that is not contrary to Dharma, and Dharma means “religious principles, law, truth, reality, virtue.”
So contrary to popular belief, there is a type of sexuality that is divine. It doesn't have to be animal. And in fact, Krishna is saying that “I am a sexual union of husband and wife, male-female, that is not contrary to the divine law.” It is respected by the gods, because the buddhas or angels or masters or prophets became what they were because of certain causes and conditions, spiritual laws. Like, if you wish to create a physical child, there is a procedure through the common way, through lust. But there is also a divine law that says if you want to create the soul, to be born of the spirit, one can use certain procedures or the science of alchemy. So “I am sex that is not contrary to spirituality.” When we think of laws, we tend to think of laws given by society, by governments. When I mentioned husband and wife, I don't mean marriage papers. People are not married because of a paper or a ritual. Real marriage occurs between a couple when they sexually unite, and that is all that divinity really cares about, because when a couple unites, they are sharing all their mind, their energies, their emotions, their forces. It's a marriage. It is a type of union, but unfortunately, many of us have engaged in relationships or entered the sexual act with many partners without knowing about the Dharma, which is, you know, our situation. But of course, that can be changed and rectified. This is why we give classes on this type of knowledge. So what I mean by law, Dharma, truth, reality, has to do with the causes and conditions that produce our happiness in the soul, our spiritual development, to help us become like Jesus or Buddha or Moses or the prophets. 
Liberation from Desire
So again, I show Padmasambhava with his consort. He stated very interestingly that:
Lustful people do not enter the path of liberation. ―Padmasambhava
Marriage, sexual union, the sexual act, can produce one's greatest happiness and one's greatest damnation, suffering. Look at humanity today, as I mentioned―people engaging in sexual behaviors that produce pain. Of course, people being hypnotized by kama and raga, desire and attachment, always go towards those experiences, grasping at pleasant experiences, and don't recognize that that very same act of lust and desire produces pain. Because once lust is fed, sex has culminated with animal pleasure, it can result in disillusionment pain, suffering.
The sexual act itself, tantra, alchemy, is the narrow way mentioned by Jesus in the Gospels. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. ―Matthew 7:14 
Of course, people think of this path of liberation as something devoid of a sexual flavor, but literally, the narrow way is when husband and wife unite, male-female. This is the symbol of the cross. Vertical phallus. Horizontal uterus. They unite so that those energies accumulate, and when directed by the couple, it can crucify our defects. It is a symbol of Jesus going on His Passion. He lived it literally, physically, but he was showing something symbolic and allegorical and sexual.
That energy which can create life can also destroy impurity. That is the nature of the Kundalini. It is the nature of Shiva-Shakti amongst the Hindus, the creator and destroyer. Shiva is the power of the Holy Spirit or the sexual energy, which in tantra. That energy can be directed at any defect, any fault that we have, that we have understood profoundly through meditation, and to remove it so that the soul is liberated and the soul is united with divinity. That is the path of liberation, the secret path that Jesus taught that few find. It is obvious that humanity does not know the path, because you look at the state that it is in. Lustful people do not enter that path, meaning: they may be married and they may know this teaching and may know about conserving sexual energy and working on the mind, but if they don't actually work on themselves, they don't enter the path from experience. On our websites we talk a lot about Gnosis, from the Greek, meaning “knowledge,” to have experience born from spiritual practice. We cannot have genuine spiritual knowledge, experience of divinity, if our soul is asleep, if Psyche is dormant, but we can awaken the soul by learning to use this energy. Of course, married couples have much more power to work with, but individual practitioners can learn through pranayama, spiritual exercises, how to work with that energy as an individual until, with work and patience, that person may find their partner in accordance with divinity. They may be helped. They may find their marriage. This was originally the meaning of monastic life, which of course lost its true purpose. Monks and nuns would practice individually at their monasteries for many years, learning to circulate and work with that energy individually. When the time came, they would be brought their partner and they would learn to practice alchemy. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and many groups didn't like the sexual flavor of this type of teaching, because, of course, it scandalizes many people, unfortunately. This is the stone of Peter: the rock of offense upon which we should build our church. “Is it not marvelous?” it says in the gospels (1 Peter 2:7-8). Many teachings hidden there. 
The Caduceus of Mercury
Lastly, we will talk about how that energy can circulate. The Bible calls the circuitry of tantra, those energetic channels that rise from our coccyx to our brain and then to our heart, the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation. It is known as Ida and Pingala in Sanskrit amongst the Hindu yogis. These are the two serpents that entwine a staff on the symbol of medicine, because we heal our soul like the bronze serpent healed the Israelites in the wilderness by working with these two energetic channels in us.
These two serpents are two forms of energy: masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, copper-tin. So whether we are male or female, we have those two energy circuits in our spine. But of course, men will tend to polarize more of the masculine energy and woman the feminine energy in their physicality, which is why it is important that if one is going to work with this energy in a marriage, you need both polarities to create. Physical man, physical woman. Together, just as they can create a child, they can create something more. But we also have those circuits in our spine. As you notice, Adam-Eve in the Bible, male-female, Ida-Pingala, Solar and lunar. We can do certain exercises like in books called Kundalini Yoga, The Yellow Book, even some practices in The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor, to work with mantras and prayer and breath work. If we are single, we can take that energy on our own and circulate it, and train ourselves so that we can use that energy to empower meditation. That is the primary purpose of working with that energy, to empower our soul. 
But if one is married, of course, it is more energy, more fire, but more difficulty, because the difficulty that couples face is that they are trying not to eat the forbidden fruit. In the Bible, Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It is a symbol of how they didn't respect the law of divinity, of conserving the energies of God in themselves. They expelled it, or better said: they expelled themselves from Eden, which is a symbol of the state of bliss in spirituality that our humanity once knew before it indulged in desire. This is eating the forbidden fruit, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, of positive and negative, Ida-Pingala: the two witnesses.
That forbidden fruit is, of course, the orgasm. Divinity said, “You shall not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Do not take that energy and expel it out of yourselves because the day that you do, you will surely die, spiritually speaking.” This is the foundation of the Judeo-Christian Bible. Of course, the one that tempted them was a serpent, because that serpent above is Kundalini. But if we are filled with egotism and desire, it is the tail of the demons, the tail of temptation We have many practices that can teach you how to work with energy. To really understand how all the different symbols and traditions teach this science takes many years. It is very extensive studying the Bible or the Qur’an or the Bhagavad-Gita and many scriptures. I just wanted to introduce some of these elements for you to see that is very vast. It is a very profound teaching, which you can verify not only through reading books by Samael Aun Weor or other authors, but really examining the original root scriptures of tantra, of alchemy. It takes a lot of time to learn and understand how this science was taught and also more importantly, how we practice it in ourselves. Do you have any questions? Questions and Answers
Question: You were talking about how we can use this energy, how we can eliminate imperfections. Is that only for married couples or is that for single people?
Instructor: Good question. For both. Obviously, a single practitioner is going to have energy to a degree. They can learn to direct that energy through pranayama, mantras, prayer, so that they can eliminate certain defects that they have to a very minor extent. When a person is married, they have available to them the fire of a sun. More power. So when they are sexually united as a couple, they can have more force by which to eliminate defects. So compare a single person to the light of a candle. Compare a married couple to the light of the sun. You can't compare the magnitude of that force. It is truly tremendous. So obviously, individuals can eliminate ego, defect, desires, but married couples can eliminate much more. They can do the totality of the work. So eventually people who are single, if they really want to pursue this type of path, they have to eventually get married. But of course, that is a delicate thing, a long process, and depends on the unique situations of the individual. Question: What is the Buddhist root tantric script? I studied online, and I guess many teach adultery and black tantra in the scriptures. Are there any tantra scriptures that are still in tact that the Dalai Lama uses or any in other tradition? Instructor: Sure. Just to be clear, as I mentioned, there are different forms of tantra. There is positive tantra. There is negative tantra. We call them white and black. White tantra refers to purity in sex, meaning: never expelling the sexual energy in any form or way, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, to orgasm, or through desire. You have black tantra, which is exclusively focused on expelling the energies and even taking that energy and directing it into desire, which of course is not what we teach here. That is something different. That's called black tantra because it is impure. It is the science of demons. People who really feed their lust and desire direct that energy into anger and pride and fear, laziness, to fortify those elements. So obviously in the end, that produces a lot of suffering for individuals and other people. There is also gray tantra, which sometimes a couple unites periodically. Sometimes they conserve the energy. Sometimes they expel it. Gray is in the middle, but eventually gray tantra degenerates into black tantra, because obviously these desires accumulated from indulging in lust. It becomes comes bigger. The Dalai Lama talks a lot about Padmasambhava. He wrote a book called The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Bardo Thodol. A lot is about consciousness and dreams, but is one of the most seminal tantric texts available, which you can read about. It talks a lot about states of consciousness and dream yoga, dream science, which you can learn to take the energies of tantra, transmutation, prayer, pranayama, so that your consciousness can awaken from dreams, which is partially one of the symbols of Psyche and Eros. She awakens from her sleep, meaning internally, even when being in the dream state. She awakens our consciousness so that she can investigate those regions, those realms called heavens, different dimensions, which is where we gravitate to when our physical body sleeps. We go out in the dream state usually hypnotized by our own projections of mind, dreams, but we can awaken from dreams by using that energy. So that is a key text that the Dalai Lama introduces, and I believe one of the most recent publications of that book, The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the works of Padmasambhava especially are powerful. Tsong Khapa too. It has more Mahayana Buddhism, but you know, he teaches the foundations by which to understand tantra, especially. And of course the study of tantra is very deep. [See also Tsong Khapa’s The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra in three volumes, also a key tantric text]. I just want to just give you a bit of the gamut of what that tradition is like, because people were never introduced to tantra right off the bat. This is a very different lecture than what has been done traditionally for thousands of years, because they would make the student study under a guru or sheikh or teacher or prophet, or whatever, for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, before they taught them, “Now that you know how to work with your energy as an individual, now, I am going to teach you the science of how to practice in a marriage.” So there are tantric texts out there and I can give you some references too to write them down. Question: A lot of tantra from the Dalai Lama, they speak about visualization a lot. To visualize yourself as an enlightened being and visualize a mandala... How does Gnosis combine that visualization? Instructor: You can read The Mystery of the Golden Flower as one book that we have available, where Samael Aun Weor explains how when a couple is united and after they have meditated profoundly, they can work together, and when they are sexually united, they can imagine an event and their day in which a certain defect that they observed in themselves popped up. Imagine that defect. If it's the husband's defect, he explains to his wife, “This is the defect I saw in myself earlier in this day at this moment. This is what I have comprehended. I noticed I saw lust in myself,” as an example. The partner, the wife imagines with him. They both develop their imagination and visualize that defect that they want to eliminate together. They pray. They do mantras, and they work to eliminate that defect through concentrating upon what we call the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother Kundalini is Her name. She can eliminate defects when the couple is working together. Of course, that is a very powerful practice. It just takes a lot of communication and work and support, you know. You can read about that in The Mystery of the Golden Flower specifically. The whole book just talks about how to do that. You imagine the defect you want to eliminate, and because the couple is united, they are like God. They can create. Male-female. Adam-Eve. Or in the Hebrew name: יהוה Jehovah, Iod-Havah. י Iod is masculine, Adam. A הוה Havah is Eve, because the word for Eve in the Bible is חַוָה Chavah. Iod-Havah is our divinity. So the couple has to work together, unite their polarities, and they can visualize together what they want to eliminate in the husband. And then, after the husband and eliminates that defect, together they eliminate that fault because they are sharing that power to create and destroy. They take turns and the wife can present a defect she observed in herself, understood, and meditated upon. They work on that defect together. That is the procedure. Of course, it takes a lot of time to learn that. Actually, you can read about it, but when you are practicing, it is another thing. Question: Can single people do the visualization? Instructor: Yeah, they can visualize whatever defect they have understood in themselves and ask for annihilation through certain mantras like Krim, is one mantra.
The vowel S is another.
We have explained this process of meditation in our course Gnostic Meditation if you want to know how to practice that type of meditation. You can study the last lecture in that course that is called Retrospection Meditation. Any final comments or questions? So I invite you to study, because I know we talked about a lot of different things, but the main purpose is to present the breadth of this science. It is very deep and extensive. It takes a lot of study and practice and understanding. So if you are interested, you can see some of the books we have available that talk about these things. But also, if you want to read these books and scriptures online, you can go to Glorian.org, which has everything available electronically too. 
So welcome everybody to our introductory course on the studies of spirituality within all traditions.
In this type of study we emphasize that the human being, as he or she is now, has the potential to become something more, something greater, and profound. Contrary to conventional belief, that the human being as we are now is the epitome or the peak of potential, we state that this is a false assumption. Every tradition in the world has taught or been delivered by all the messengers of divinity, no matter what the tradition. We study in this school all of the teachings of these different faiths, primarily because we want to look at the heart, the essence of spirituality, because it is universal. It is one intelligence; one type of understanding that expresses in accordance with the needs, the language, the culture, the qualities of the students, the time and place in which those teachings were given. But if you really look at the heart of what yoga teaches, Buddhism teaches, Judeo-Christianity or whatever faith, we find that at the heart, there is a science by which one can achieve what people call religion. The word religion in Latin means “reunion,” religare. In the East, it is yoga, from the Sanskrit yug, “to reunite.” And all these traditions have taught that the human being is a seed, has potential to become something truly divine and magnanimous, beautiful. Different religions called this seed consciousness. The Buddhists call it Buddhadhatu, the seed of a Buddha, an awakened one, a master. The Christians and Muslims and Jews have called it soul, and there are many names for that quality of being in those faiths. In this study, we call it the Essence. It is the pure potential to reflect divinity, and this is something that we can experience for ourselves when we know the science of meditation and when we practice it. We can develop that potential in ourselves and have the experience of what different traditions have called divinity. That knowledge amongst the Greeks was called gnosis, but not intellectual knowledge. A lot of people in the West, especially in academies, like to think that gnosis was isolated to the first Christians, but that experiential wisdom of knowing divinity has nothing to do with theory, with believing, with a concept. It is what we know by experiencing the awakening of our Essence. 
They are very vivid experiences which have been allegorized in all the scriptures. You have Moses on Mount Sinai, you have Krishna, like in this image, manifesting all of his qualities to the meditator, known as Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita. You have many faiths, many stories. The Greek mysteries, the Buddhist teachings, they are all symbols of internal truths. It is not literally that Moses went on a physical mountain and saw God, that it was a physical experience. It is a spiritual and psychological experience, something we witness in meditation, inside.
We can verify these things for ourselves through experimentation, through practice and therefore we don't need to believe in anything, to follow an institution, a religion, a dogma, a belief system. We like to be very practical in this type of studies. But of course, it is a very difficult thing to do. It is not easy to experience divinity, to conquer in ourselves the causes of suffering, to understand that which in our own life really conditions and makes us suffer, because there is a reason why we may not know God now or divinity or Brahma, Christ amongst the original Christians, which is not a person. It is a type of consciousness that is universal, which different traditions call by different names and have been symbolized by all the beautiful paintings of any tradition. These are not literal people. These are qualities of being, and in this image we see the Lord Krishna who is the Hindu Christ, that divine consciousness that is not personal to just one individual, but is universal to all beings. We see that he is a child seated with one hand facing up, the other down, and he is surrounded by millions of figures. This is a beautiful painting about the experience of the meditator Arjuna who asked Krishna, “I want to see You in Your true form. Show me in my consciousness, in my meditations, what You are.” And then Krishna, or divinity, manifested in a form of images―not physical images, but images we can see in meditation or in dreams. This is very beautiful experience that was depicted in this scripture. And you see that all these multitudes of figures represent all the universal qualities of divinity, which are inside: compassion, divine love, selflessness, patience, compassion. But to really develop these qualities in us is not easy. If it were easy, then all of humanity will be a very different state of being. This planet would be a very different place. So this indicates to us that these qualities are not developed in a permanent sense, are not realized in our own daily life, and so in these studies we like to be very practical. We like to analyze certain methods of meditation that teach us how to have that experience, and how to develop and maintain that state. I am sure any one of us who studies any type of meditation or is attracted to religion or any type of faith, they really deep down want to have that experience. They want to escape suffering. This difficult path of meditation has been discussed in all religions. It is not easy to confront in oneself negative states like anger, resentment, pride, fear, laziness, lust, desire. All traditions teach that it is these negative qualities of mind that trap us. They enclose our potential in a static state. It is not active because in us, that potential is not active or developed. It has to be freed. It has to be worked upon very intentionally. So in the beginning some people practice meditation and they may have an experience seemingly by accident, but the reality is that there are certain causes and conditions that brought about that state. One may not be aware of how and why. Some people call this spiritual awakening, insight. It happens. But if we want to be permanently established in that state, it is important to put forth the causes and the conditions that produce that reality in a permanent way. So this is called self-realization amongst the Hindus, the realization of our true identity, which is divine. It is the awakening of consciousness. But of course, developing that is challenging, primarily because of the difficulty of our own conditions of mind, which is why in the Bhagavad-Gita, chapter 7, verse 3 state: Among thousands of men (or women, practitioners) one perchance strives for perfection (to realize that perfect divinity inside. As Jesus of Nazareth stated, "Be perfect as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.") Even among those successful strivers (those who are really working to experience that truth) only one perchance knows me in essence. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:3
So again, these are levels of consciousness. I believe even the 14th Dalai Lama stated that consciousness has the potential to expand to an infinite degree―so other levels of knowledge, levels of understanding.
This tradition or this statement has been paralleled in the Christian Gospel by Jesus, who was an incarnation of Christ. He manifested that divinity in himself, and with his life was allegorizing certain steps and stages about the spiritual path. He also said:
Enter by the narrow gate (enter into the meditative path that awakens your full potential, your seed, your Essence of soul). For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it by are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to spiritual life, and those who find it are few. ―Matthew 7:13 
Think of an analogy of a tree. A pine tree has thousands and thousands of seeds. How many of them actually become a full tree when they land on the Earth? You may have a handful, or one or two. A few. So spiritual development is no different than nature. Things happen progressively in steps, when the causes and conditions are ripe. In order for a seed to develop into a pine tree, it needs water. It needs appropriate soil. It needs sunlight. It needs the conditions that give birth to that full development of a tree.
But of course, many seeds are lost, and this is the sad reality. Our true potential is not a guarantee, that it will develop into something fully perfect and divine. And this is very evident by the state of humanity today. We can look at the news and simply see the state of crisis in which people are afflicted: wars, violence, acts of destruction, which are truly horrendous. It is evident by the state of our culture and this planet that people are not developing the seed of their spirituality. It is a difficult fact to realize. It is very unpleasant. If that seed were fully manifested and developed, there would be no wars, because divinity is compassion. It is love. So it's evident that this seed of humanity is not generating into a tree. It is degenerating. It is not being developed. And so any person who looks at the news and feels that horror of what this planet is in, evidently feels inspired to want to know the reason why, and as well to escape that type of destruction, which is very prevalent. And so how do we develop that seed? There are beautiful stories and many scriptures that can teach us about that development. The Bible is one of them, which is a very misunderstood text, read very literally, dogmatically. People don't understand that scriptures like the Bible are telling parables through stories. They represent principles and truths which are psychological, spiritual. We have a very famous statement in the Book of Matthew, chapter 13, verses 31 to 32 about the development of that perfect seed, how the seed of the human being can become a god, an angel, a buddha, a deva, a jinn―whatever name we want to give to that fully self-realized and perfected individual. Another parable put he forth unto them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge and the branches thereof. ―Matthew 13:31-32
Individuals like Jesus or Krishna, Moses, were once like us, a seed. But because of certain discipline of mind and training, they became the individuals that we emulate, in which millions of people follow, who are inspired. We like to think in this culture or even for thousands of years that those were just exceptional people. It had nothing to do with people like us, that somehow they receive the grace of God and were able to have those experiences, which is true to a degree. But the reality is that they worked to become them.
They were once like us, people afflicted by fear and distress and anxiety and suffering. But because of their tremendous compassion and their work ethic, they were able to become enlightened beings. And like a tree, they can house through their teachings and their instructions, all of the birds of heaven, all the saints, all the students of meditation who really want to become like that. 
You have many myths and stories throughout the world that teach and allegorize, whether in art or religious scriptures, stories that all teach the same thing: that we are a seed. We could become like divinity into a fully developed Christmas tree. If you are familiar with the Christmas tradition or the Christian tradition, people like to decorate a pine tree with many stars and globes and luminous objects and a star the very top. It s a very ancient symbol of this concept. The soul became a fully developed master of meditation and has lights illuminating that tree. It is a symbol of what we can become, as performed on the Nativity of Christ, the birth of Jesus, who symbolizes the birth of divinity in our hearts through practice and specific methods.
There is a very ancient teaching in the Aztec and Mayan religions that also point towards this concept. Samael Aun Weor who is the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition of which we study, wrote in a book called The Great Rebellion: One codex of Anahuac states that, "The Gods created humans of wood, and after having created them, fused them with divinity." But later adds, "Not all humans achieve integration with divinity." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion
So what does it mean that the gods made people made of wood? A very interesting concept which anthropologists like to laugh at and read literally, thinking these are very superficial people or ignorant people who believe that, literally, people were made of wood by the gods.
Unfortunately, that materialistic view point misses the point. There is something symbolic here. 
Even in art, amongst the Greco-Roman tradition, Renaissance art, European art, they reflected these concepts in their images. But people who are very materialistic like the thing that God is a person, physical. They don't understand that it is a representation of something spiritual and conscious, psychological. This is the creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel: a beautiful symbol of the development of or creation of the soul.
Some of you may be familiar with a story called Pinocchio, which also hides this truth. It was written by Carlo Collodi, who was an Italian author, and wrote about the story of a wooden boy that wanted to become a human being. It is a symbol. His writing was intentionally veiled in the form of a children's tale so as to avoid persecution. He was writing for a very select group of people who are studying this type of knowledge that was at the time forbidden to unveil or convey, primarily because people would not understand it and would create problems, because this type of thinking goes against the grain of institutionalized dogma. We can only think of the inquisition as an example.
So “Pinocchio, Pinoccoli or Pinocchio is the Tuscan Florentine word for pine nut or pine seed.” It is a symbol of us. We are a seed in a potential state that may want or feel inspired to become a fully developed human being, a person of flesh and bone, a fully developed being, a spiritually enlightened one. The Three Esoteric Sciences
There is a lot of teachings in that story which are very beautiful and profound, symbolic. And if we read it from the knowledge of three types of science, we can gain a lot of understanding.
Those three sciences are known in different cultures and traditions, which we study in synthesis here. The word esoteric means “secret, hidden,” that which has not been taught publicly. These esoteric sciences, while some aspects of these traditions have been conveyed to the public, they were never fully explained until very recently, through the effort of many authors throughout different traditions, such as the Western Esoteric Tradition: the Golden Dawn, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy of Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner's writings, from Anthroposophy, and many other teachings. We study these three sciences called Kabbalah, alchemy and psychology, in order to develop our full potential. Kabbalah, alchemy, in the Book of Genesis, in the Old Testament, are called the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. These are symbols, practical methods and ways of study that can awaken the seed and develop it. These are not literal trees in the Middle East, that people think a single man and a single woman existed in a garden in Mesopotamia many millennia ago. That is a very literal teaching or interpretation. What people don't recognize is that these sciences permeate all of the language of the Bible, but because people have not been instructed about the symbolic nature of those types of teachings, they of course read it like a newspaper. They don't really see the real value and depth of that instruction. 
Kabbalah
קַבָּלָה Kabbalah is the Tree of Life. These Hebrew letters read from right to left. The word קבל kabel in Hebrew means “to receive.” You may have heard many Jews study Kabbalah in this time. Real Kabbalah, in its spiritual sense, is knowledge that we receive from divinity, from direct experience. We can study Kabbalah intellectually and read books, but it doesn't equate with the actual personal verification of meditation for ourselves.
Kabbalah is a beautiful teaching that is symbolic and helps us understand all the parables and stories of the Bible, because the Hebrew letters themselves represent numbers, which are spiritual. They represent things, qualities of consciousness, and these letters also represent qualities of soul, which we study very didactically in our courses of Kabbalah, which we have on our website, or you can study also on Glorian.org. Alchemy
We also have the science of alchemy, or the Arabic الكيمياء: Allah-Khemia. The word Al or El in Hebrew is God. Khemia is a Greek term meaning chemistry: to fuse or cast a metal. Many people have heard of alchemy as being a medieval superstition of people literally trying to transform lead into gold, out of greed, and there are people who were like that, who misinterpreted this tradition to think that they could actually accomplish this feat. But the real depth and knowledge, the spiritual symbol of alchemy, is transforming the lead of the personality, our own negative states of mind into the gold of the Spirit. It is also the work with energy, working with all the energies we have in our body, in our heart, in our mind, so that we can fuse like a metal with divinity.
Psychology
And then lastly we have psychology. This is the Greek (ψυχολογία psychologia) read from left to right. Psychology in these times is divorced from spirituality. People think psychology is simply the study of the mind, the brain. If you look at the original etymology, psychology is actually something very dynamic.
It comes from psyche, logos. Psyche is soul. It is consciousness. It is the essence of a person. It is not just the intellect, because truly in our depth, we are more than just a mind. We have a heart. We have a body. The consciousness is not just thinking. It is the ability to perceive, even beyond thought. So psyche and logos or logos, in its original term, means “word.” You may be familiar with the Book of John: "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Greek word is logos. “In the beginning was the Logos, the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” These are symbols or qualities of being. So what is genuine psychology and it's real root? It is how the soul, psyche, through meditation, unites with logos. Very simple. It also has to do with studying the obstacles in our own mind that create conflict for us. We develop the seed of our potential through these sciences, and we will explain about these three in synthesis today. The Sexual Seed: The Synthesis of Spiritual Creation
So the word seed has a very interesting connotation. A seed is the sexual synthesis of any being, whether from plants, from animals, from human beings. That seed of a person, of a soul, can be developed, very intentionally, when we learn how to work with all the energies that we carry within―not just our heart or mind, but even our creative potential.
That seed, which is sexual, our creative sexual potential, can give birth to a human being. We know this. The seed of a man and a seed of woman can unite to create a child, but people do not know that that very same seed, that energy or power that can create a human being, can create the soul, can fully empower it, because it is the power of life. It is the most powerful creative power a human being possesses. It is how all societies are run. People are born through the seed. They have life. And just as physically we can have life with this body, the generation of our physical temple, we can also learn to transform the sexual seed through specific practices, transform that seed into energy, because creative sexuality is a tremendous power and a powerful responsibility. It is a tremendous responsibility to give birth to a child. It is very serious. But even more so, to give birth to a child within us, our full spiritual development, is even a greater responsibility. It has more power. We can do that by learning to work with our energies. Some people may be familiar with Buddhism, of tantra, spiritual union, sexual union of husband and wife, working to connect from a state of purity of mind in order to transform everything that they have into developing their spirituality. This is why all traditions and all religions have really fought and explain that marital union, the love between husband and wife―not in a legal sense or in terms of paperwork, but from a conscious standpoint―has tremendous power, tremendous responsibility. The Bible relates some of these teachings in a very symbolic way, which people have interpreted, again, literally, but we'll explain some of the alchemical significance of these lines. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made... ―Galatians 3:16
If you are familiar with the Old Testament, Abraham is one of the patriarchs of Judaism, the founding fathers. His people, the Jews, were promised by divinity that they would receive help. This is the fundamental, literal meaning. But if you look at this in a symbolic way, there is something more interesting.
He saith not, And to seeds, as of many (meaning: individual people, because every person is a seed. When they are child, they grow and become a human being.) But as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. ―Galatians 3:16― Galatians 3:16 
So what is that seed that is mentioned in the Book of Galatians? We could look at this image of a elderly man with a sun emanating from his genitalia, a book in his hand, a staff of power in his left. This is from the medieval tradition of alchemy. So many alchemists, who knew the science of uniting with divinity, taught their truths through art. They didn't explain this explicitly, because they would face many problems and persecutions, many scandals.
So they taught through art, and this is a very beautiful image representing an elderly man who is a symbol of our own inner divinity, the figure Jehovah amongst the Jews. He holds a book in his hand, referring to study, the need to study oneself, one's life. He also has a staff in his hand, representing a weapon, a type of will that is needed in order to achieve genuine religion. We have a sun emanating from his sexual organs because, just as the ancient people knew that the sun gives life to all things, they made the connection and knew that our own sexual seed is the power of generation. The sun generates all life in every level. We could not exist on this planet without light, and so the ancients knew that this seed is a type of solar force. It is a solar energy. It is a power that can give life. And even Plato and many Greek masters knew that the ultimate divinity is the sun, the Platonic Logos. Or like Jesus, and the great paintings has a halo of light around his head, because he has used his own seed to transform that, and to develop the light of the saints. He is a Christmas tree with light, with spirituality. There is a statement by Samael Aun Weor in the book The Great Rebellion. He states that: The Sun has deposited the seeds within the sexual glands of the intellectual animal in order to germinate a Human Being. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion
Some people get offended when they hear this term. But if you look at the story of Pinocchio, he was a wooden boy. He wanted to become a real, fully developed human being made into the image of divinity. And what is an animal? It comes from the Latin anima; to animate, to have life. If we look at humanity, we find that all the violence and wars and bloodshed and poverty and affliction is not the result of our own humanity, but that which is animal in us: anger, violence, prostitution, hatred, lust, envy. These are qualities that are animalistic, instinctive, and we all possess those elements.
But unfortunately, it is a very difficult thing to see how our own states of mind are the cause of our suffering. These are animal qualities. And because we have the intellect, we can rationalize. We are anima, souls, with intellect. But an intellectual animal is any one of us who has the seed and who can develop into a perfectly enlightened being, like in this image. And what is a real human being? You can look at the Sanskrit: hum-man. Hum means “spirit.” Man or manas means “mind.” It is a mind that is united with hum, the spirit. And what is that Spirit? Like in the previous image, we saw Jehovah pointing his finger towards Adam, creating the soul, a symbol of creating the perfect being, not a literal history. That represents how the spiritual force of divinity is fully perfected in manifested in us. That is a real human being, hum-man, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna. They fully manifested all the qualities of the Spirit in a perfect way. That is a real human being. But when we are criticized and we respond with anger and say very negative things, it indicates to us that we have much from the animal kingdom inside. Science and popular culture likes to defend that which is animal. You see it in our television, in our movies, in our cinemas, in our sports, in our fighting for power, in our politics, in our religions. These are animal qualities: competition, fighting, debating, arguing, inflicting harm. But a human being is beyond that. Has transformed the seed into something perfected and we can do that by working with our energies through the science of alchemy. Obviously, such seeds can develop or be ultimately lost (going back to the quote of Jesus and the Book of Matthew or the gospel of Krishna). If we want those seeds to develop, it is essential to cooperate with the efforts that the Sun is making in order to create Humans. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion 
We have other images in this graphic, a lion beneath the genitalia of this elderly figure. You may be familiar with the Christian tradition of the Lion of Judah. It is a symbol of the strength and power divinity. You have also figures below who are fighting, grappling each other with swords and weapons, doing acrobatic acts, playing games. That represents all of humanity, people who don't really take spirituality seriously, their conscious life seriously, because they choose to engage in frivolities and wars.
So what is the way to escape the circus of humanity, the chaos? It is by studying ourselves like in this open book, and using our staff, which is a symbol of willpower, of daily effort. 
The Seed of the Second Birth
Since we are explaining about the seed of generation, we find a very beautiful teaching in the story of Jesus talking to Nicodemus. It is very common knowledge amongst Christians, or the belief that one is born again through belief. This is from the old scriptures of the Gospels, a very famous teaching that is not very well understood.
Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” ―John 3:5
People commonly interpret this as baptism, a ceremony or ritual in the church that one has received the water of spirituality and is blessed and then is saved.
Unfortunately, this type of thinking does not really address the practical problems of our sufferings. We may believe in divinity, in an institution or a church. We may be inspired by our groups. This is all necessary and beautiful, but belief does not change suffering. We continue to suffer whether we think something is true or not. The way that one overcomes suffering is through action, through work. But in a more deeper level, this scripture hides something very interesting that relates to alchemy, spiritual birth, the birth of the soul. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Obviously people do not need to be taught how to generate a physical child. But that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Through the matrimony or union of man and woman, one can give birth to a physical child, but that which is born of the Spirit through the same union, can give birth to the Spirit. But of course, there are very specific procedures involved. When the couple works in their marriage or their union―and when I mean marriage, I don't mean papers, but a real marital union is the union of two souls that love one another perfectly, that are selfless and working on themselves, fully investing all their energy and love and potential, not only for their own benefit, but for the benefit of others. So that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Birth is a sexual problem. In order to give birth physically we need male-female. But Jesus was indicating symbolically how through the same connection, but done with purity and with specific methods, one can give birth to the soul, the Spirit. And this is symbolized in some of the Kabbalistic meaning, the language of this scripture, which if you see these letters: Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born (ה) of water (מ) and of the Spirit (ש), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” ―John 3:5
This is Hebrew. We can look at the meaning of these individual letters, transpose over certain aspects of his explanation. This letter is called ה Hei. It is related to birth. It is even shaped like a womb. The letter ה Hei refers to birth, genesis, the divine feminine. The next letter is water relating to מ Mem, and מ Mem has two forms. There is an open Mem (מ) and there is a closed Mem (ם). Sometimes in Hebrew, when a letter is at the end of a word or name, it takes on a different configuration, but it is the same letter, the same meaning. Now water is מ Mem. You have very famous references in the Bible to water: the water of life, the fountain of youth, the waters of Genesis, how the world was made and life came from the waters.
Again, the book of Genesis is not literal, a literal history, but refers to the birth of the soul. Those waters are our own sexual fluids, the creative waters of life, which, when they are conserved and transformed, can generate a lot of power, to give strength to our spirituality and make us truly warriors, those who really work out of compassion for others and generate all the beautiful qualities of the soul. So “except a man” or person “be born of water and Spirit,” and the word Spirit relates to this letter called ש Shin. ש Shin has three prongs and refers to fire, but not a literal fire. It's a spiritual force, a power. Remember that Moses saw the burning bush, that Tree of Life, the Being, the divine, our true nature, inflamed with fire and light. Or Krishna with all those figures and light emanating from him. It's fire. It is a type of energy. It is not a literal fire in the kitchen. It is a fire that gives birth and light and understanding to our life. That fire is contained within our own waters, because obviously, when a couple engages sexually, they are inflamed. The organs are inflamed. There is energy circulating, and the Buddhists call this tantra. Tantra is Sanskrit for circuitry. This is the circuitry of God. That fire can be conserved and circulated throughout the body and the mind to give youth. That energy which can create a child can rejuvenate the body and the soul, create harmony in every level. So if one is not born of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of God. This is the meaning of “to be born again.” It is a pure marriage or union. And again, marriage has nothing to do with paperwork. It has to do with love. So you look at these Hebrew letters and the science of Kabbalah teaches this very beautifully. These letters can be reorganized in different ways in order to spell different meanings. You use these three letters to spell השם Hashem, which in Judaism they say ברוך השם אדוני Baruch Hashem Adonai meaning: “Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” השם Hashem is a reference to the highest identity amongst the Kabbalists. You also take those letters and switch them around you spell משה Moshe, Moses. 
Moses is a figure in the Bible or was a real person, but can represent something psychological, spiritual. He frees the Jews from this bondage in Egypt, which are psychological parables that teach about freeing the soul from the bondage of suffering and returning all of the parts of our soul to the Promised Land.
So all this is very interconnected and very interesting, and there are many connections we can draw between this tradition and many others. I am just providing a very general example that highlights that this is a very intricate and beautiful teaching. Very dynamic, but very simple in synthesis. 
Spiritual Birth is Not a Theory or Belief
And as I stated, birth is a sexual problem. It is born from the Genesis of two human beings, male-female. And Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Perfect Matrimony:
A seed never germinates because of what a person believes or stops believing. An insect is never born because of what a human being thinks or stops thinking. A man is never born from the parchment of theory. This subject matter is sexual and in this, the angel is no exception. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
So this is the highest level teaching given in Buddhism, in Christianity, in Sufism. The mystics of Islam talk a lot about the love of the soul with divinity, but unfortunately people like to extrapolate, and they don't see the connection that we show the highest love of divinity in one's relationship, which is sexual. We show our love not only just with words, but with connection, because that is how the circuitry of God exists, how the energy flow between male-female.
Liberation within Sex
So this is an image of Padmasambhava from the Buddhist tradition, who is showing the highest teachings of yoga tantra, where literally yoga is “union, reunion.” There is no greater power or reunion with divinity than in the sexual act, because men and women can create a child. They can create life.
This is Padmasambhava with his consort, his wife, and he explained that in order to enter the highest teaching, individuals must be prepared through a lot of work in meditation on themselves, because the obvious difficulty of sexual connection is having that energy buildup and losing it. So the foundation of all traditions of meditation always taught chastity. Of course, this is a very misunderstood science today. People think of chastity simply meaning abstention from sex. But chastity has to do with purity. It means immaculate purity. So by conserving that power, one can transform it, raise it through the body, the different centers of energy in ourselves, in our mind, our psyche. And this is how spiritual birth occurs, by working with that energy. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. ―1 John 3:9
So the essential component is that the seed remains inside. That energy is never let out, whether it is to procreate a child or for simple animal pleasure. So it is a very specific procedure. That seed is never lost. Instead, it is transformed into energy through certain exercises and prayers. It is done with a tremendous sense of respect and love and purity and honor.
Mind and Perception
Lastly we will talk a little bit about psychology. So we mentioned a little bit about Kabbalah, the Hebrew letters. We also talked about the science of alchemy: fusing oneself with divinity, working with our most vital principles.
In these times, there is a predisposition to believe that we are the intellect. We are the mind. Because we think, we rationalize, we conceptualize. But we emphasized that the mind is not our genuine identity. It is not really the full essence of what we are, because we have perception even before thought. But in these times, people tend to identify very much with intellect, with thinking, with concepts and rationalization, because in the West, especially, that is the foundation of our culture. We are very intellectual people. We do use the intellect for our spiritual studies and we need it. We need it to exist in this society, but it is not the sum total of what an individual is. Consciousness is very different from mind. Consciousness is the ability to perceive, to know, to understand. And we can understand things without having to think. This is very evident by certain experiences of businessmen who go to meetings, as an example, and they think and they think, they think, trying to argue out a problem, to solve a solution. But many of them become tired and they can't figure out what they need to do for a certain proposal. They take a break for five minutes and don't think of anything, and suddenly, they may get an understanding. People come back to the meeting rejuvenated, energized. This is a concrete example that can reflect something in our spiritual life. Understanding doesn't have to be intellectual, a concept, a way of thinking. The mind is not the sum total of what we are. If we put our hand on a hot stove, we burn our hand. We retract in pain, and only later do we have the thought, “That really hurt!” Instead, we had consciousness of the experience and we reacted. We understood the problem where we got injured. And then we thought later about, “Well, I shouldn't do that again.” This actually shows us that the intellect is the slowest aspect of a person. It's not the quickest. It is actually not the most divine either. It is actually not divine at all. It is just a machine. An intellect can have understanding of concepts. It stores information and then it gives back. We can learn to use the mind in a spiritual way, in a conscious way, in an intuitive way. But the intellect has also been used to feed qualities like anger and resentment. Anger has its own logic fear, its own logic, ways of thinking. 
And so these qualities of mind, again, are animalistic, which is allegorized in the story of Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He is representing, or what it is representing in that act, how our own inner divinity must conquer the mind and this is what we attempt and practice in our meditations. Don't think so much. Don't worry so much. Don't daydream. Don't fantasize, but just simply be aware and attentive.
As we begin our practices of meditation today, we were just doing relaxation: a very basic practice in which we just become aware of our body, because most times we go through our day unaware of even our breathing, or circulation. You may have found that when you are starting to concentrate on certain parts of the body, you may start to daydream or think about other things. It means that the mind is not in control, that the mind is riding us instead of we, ourselves, riding the donkey, because the mind is like a donkey. It is an animal. It can be tamed or it can be wild. Anyone who begins to practice meditation realizes that the mind is very chaotic. It could be a very disconcerting realization to make, but it is not a means or a reason to stop practicing. It is just that we are learning about what our state of mind is. We are just not cognizant of that fact on a daily basis because we tend to be very unconscious, in a spiritual sense. We don't really are aware of the full totality of our life. 
So there is a concept of, “I think therefore I am.” This is from the famous French philosopher Descartes. So anyone of us who study philosophy at universities really takes a lot of time to emphasize that “I think therefore I am,” that the intellect is somehow our true identity. But according to Samael Aun Weor in his book Igneous Rose, he mentions that:
The concept of Descartes, “I think, therefore I am,” is completely false, because the true Man is the Innermost, and the Innermost does not think, because He knows (since our divinity sees and observes and understands all things. It is a state of consciousness).
So we can look at our own lives to see examples of this where the mind is animalistic. We can even look on the news. Again, people committing acts of violence which are really cruel, inhumane, we say, demonic.
The Innermost does not need to think because He is omniscient. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
He sees and understands all things.
We also have a quote from the Book of John: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. ―John 14:6
Of course, people think that one has to believe in Jesus and that one is saved, because he is the way, the truth, and the life, but symbolically, Christ, divinity, was speaking through him, saying that only through your own inner divinity can you reach your inner true development, your potential. “No man cometh unto the Father,” which is a symbol of our own inner divinity, the Innermost, we can say, “but by me.”
Christ is an energy. Christ is the seed, a force, which can birth to our soul. So as we are talking about alchemy, we give birth to the soul through that energy when we learn to work with it. 
The Story of Pinocchio
And lastly we'll conclude with a teaching from the story of Pinocchio, to kind of circle back. There is a very famous part of the story in which Pinocchio is going to school and the Blue Fairy, a symbol of the divine feminine, is teaching him, telling him go to school and learn. It is a symbol of how we go to a certain school or group or meditative school and learn this type of knowledge: how to transform ourselves.
That Blue Fairy, the divine feminine, has been called many names in different traditions, symbolized by Mother Mary, Athena amongst the Greeks, Kali, Durga amongst the Hindus, a symbol of our own creative forces that is feminine, inside, and which can help any meditator achieve genuine religion. Pinocchio is going to school, and then he is confronted by a friend who says “Why go to school? Join me come to the Land of Play where we can play all day and never work.” And Pinocchio is tempted. He goes and eventually goes to this place, where eventually he is transformed into a donkey. Of course, later, I believe, even in the film by Disney, which does a very good job of depicting this, in the book he gets out of that state eventually. He has to do a lot of work to reverse that, but it is a symbol of how in life, we come to any kind of school of meditation that teaches us how to change, and yet we then get distracted. Our friends say, “Come out to the bar and drink with me!” or “Come see this movie!” or “Let's go to the Land of Play” in a figurative sense: television or whatever distracts us from attempting the practice of meditation, so that we can be more introspective and spiritual, profound. This is a type of work, because there are a lot of temptations in this society. Our Western society is a land of distraction: sports, media, television, news. We tend to saturate our whole life with all these things, which pull our attention away and makes us very distracted. And so he becomes a donkey, but eventually he gets out with the help of the blue fairy, his Divine Mother we can say. The Divine Mother in Hinduism is a symbol of our own Being, an aspect of our divinity. Divinity is not just male. It is represented as a masculine projective force, but also is receptive and feminine. There is that duality there and we will talk more about that in our studies of Kabbalah (See The Divine Mother from Beginning Self-Transformation). And so we have a teaching from the book Igneous Rose: The Innermost must flagellate the mind with the terrific whip of willpower. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
Flagellation, again, is not literal here, but it is a recrimination. Meaning, we start to act in a mental state of anger in a certain situation or crisis, we want to react in a certain way. But in that moment, we use our will and our awareness, our attention, not to act on that type of behavior, so that we don't cause harm for ourselves or for others. It is a type of willpower. Again, if you look back at the image of the old man with a book in his hand and a staff, he has a staff in his hand and the sun in his genitalia. That staff is a symbol of will, which is why all the shepherds in the Bible had staffs, a symbol of willpower, spiritual willpower.
The one who identifies with the mind falls into the abyss. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
One who enters into greater states of suffering, not only just in some dystopian reality or hell realm, according to religion, official religion, but in our own existence. So there are different levels here. We can find that if we act on negative states of mind, we suffer. As the Buddha taught in the Dhammapada:
Mind proceeds phenomena. We become what we think. ―Buddha, Dhammapada
If we think wrong and harm and evil, then the result will be harm for ourselves and others. But if we enact the virtuous qualities of mind, positive qualities of mind, we reap the benefits, and other people obviously benefit too.
The mind is a donkey upon which we must ride in order to enter into the heavenly Jerusalem. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
And the quote from Carlos Collodi from the book Pinocchio:
Boys who do nothing but play end up turning into donkeys. ―Carlos Collodi, Pinocchio
So what is a donkey? It is a stubborn animal. And you may find that in meditation that the body is stubborn. The mind is stubborn. We sit to adopt a posture or an asana and to relax, and yet we start thinking of other things. We start day dreaming of other things. The body wants to shift and move. We want to adjust ourselves. We feel tension or pain, but if we are always moving in our posture, we are not actually meditating. This is why a great Swami from the Hindu tradition of yoga, Swami Sivananda said, “Your asana, your posture, should be like a mountain, firm,” but relaxed. We don't move. And if you resolve in yourself in the beginning: “Don't move,” you'll find that your mind starts thinking over things or your body wants to move. You have an itch. You have a pain in your neck. You want to adjust yourself. That shows us that the body is like a donkey. It is an animal. You have to train it. The mind likewise. And sometimes even our emotions too. Negativity is animalistic.
So we hope to conclude with the fact that the soul can develop through these three sciences: alchemy, Kabbalah, and psychology, because that seed can become a tree of life when it is intentionally nourished and developed. Do you have any questions? Questions and Answers
Question: Where would you put astrology in all this?
Instructor: Sure. For those who are not familiar with astrology, it is the ancient science of the stars: astros-logos: astros, meaning heavens or stars, Logos meaning divinity. We can say that astrology permeates all three sciences―in the original sense or in the interpretations of astrology that there are 12 zodiacal signs that one is born in. According to Hindu tradition, one is born in a different zodiacal sign in each life, if you studied reincarnation and what those concepts entail. But the zodiac has to do with certain influences in the mind, the heart, the personality, our spirituality too. There are different levels of influences from nature and the cosmos that influence a person. Of course, astrology today is a caricature. It is very divorced from a lot of the ancient roots and sciences that these astrologers actually knew. Astrology in its real sense is astros-logos: how the soul unites with the divinity of the stars. Every star and every planet has its own intelligence, its own divinities. Real astrology is when, in a state of meditation, we can let the body go to sleep, and the consciousness can awaken in what is called the internal dimensions. Some people call it dreams, astral projection, dream yoga, out-of-body experiences. This is something that you can experience for yourself and provoke at will if you seriously practice this. 
In that way, in those dimensions known as the Tree of Life, again, the Tree of Life is a symbol of different levels of dimensions of nature that are psychological, spiritual, internal. And you can have those experiences in which your body is abandoned and you as a soul, in those planes, some people call it the astral plane, world of dreams―and then in that state, with profound clarity and awareness, you can call upon divinity. This is symbolized by Moses talking to God on Mount Sinai.
What is a mountain? It is a symbol of climbing that Tree of Life in meditation. A very difficult path, but you can reach the peak, those higher levels of consciousness in those states, and then you can call upon for help in those vivid, conscious, illuminated dreams, lucid dreams, people call it. In that way, you can get help from all the divinities of the stars. If I am telling you this is because this is what I do regularly in my own practices. We receive help. And anyone can do this, because we all have a seed that can develop into that potential. Astrology relates with Kabbalah because when we receive that wisdom from any divinity, help for our physical life, we are performing Kabbalah, kabel, “to receive.” But also we can learn to have those experiences more regularly by working in alchemy, which is the science of The Perfect Matrimony, a book written by Samael Aun Weor, who is one of the founders of this tradition that we study along with many of the books that we have. Astrology is not just the study of charts or memorizing complicated glyphs and numbers, which can have very interesting correlations to our life or not, but more profoundly, real astrology is when we develop our seed through these methods, these three sciences, so that we can receive help from the stars, literally, from heaven. Heaven is not a physical place, but a state of consciousness. You can awaken in the dream state, no longer projecting your dreams, your mind into that dimension, but you can see things as they are. It is not a vague or an amorphous dimension, but it is a material world just manifested by different levels or laws of nature. It's not physical or material like this physical plane. It's something different. But that's real astrology. You can talk with the divinity of the stars. We have a book available called Practical Astrology with the different practices that you can use for each of the zodiacal signs during certain times of the month, where you can experience these things for yourself, receive help from those different influences. Any other questions? So if you are interested, I invite you to see our websites. You also can visit Glorian.org [formerly gnosticteachings.org]. You'll find a lot of resources that teach this science in a very profound way. We have many courses available. The books that we have for sale here are also available online. You can also read every book, every chapter online. But if you want a hard copy, you can always purchase from here too. Everything that we teach here is practical. You don't have to believe in any of it. We don't recommend that you believe in any of it, but in a state of neutrality, experiment and practice and see the results. And as you see results in yourself, that develops what we call genuine faith. People in these times confuse faith and belief. Faith is real knowledge born from experience. When you know from conscious experience that putting your hand on a hot stove burns you, you have faith that if you put your hand on a hot stove, you are going to get burned. It's a concrete experience. But even with those mystical experiences that all the saints of the different traditions taught, you can have that faith too, and you'll know from a state of lucidity and consciousness what those realities are, and then you don't the believe in anything. Belief doesn't change anyone. So again, you are also free to take some flyers and pamphlets if you are interested. We have the books available too, but I thank you all for coming. |
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