The Dialectic of the Consciousness

Download PDF

We have been discussing the nature of consciousness in the past few weeks, specifically how it applies to the science of meditation―the practice of introspection, of knowing oneself. We explained that consciousness is a form of light, of perceiving, of understanding, and of knowing, qualified by the virtues of the soul mentioned in every religion: contentment, peace, understanding, as well as altruism, generosity, and genuine knowledge of the divine mysteries.

We are explaining how consciousness can be developed and can be expanded. Those virtuous qualities that are intrinsic to our true nature could be developed if we work intentionally in a day-to-day discipline and a moment-to-moment effort. The science of meditation is precisely the means by which we learn to comprehend the obstacles within our psyche which create suffering for ourselves.

We talked about the conditioning elements of fear, resentment, hatred, pride and that these conditions trap the essence of who we are: our consciousness, our soul. Meditation is precisely how we learned to go in, to our mind, to see our faults, to eliminate resentment, which has made many lives bitter. Envy, greed, fear―those psychological conditions trap the energy of our perception and make us vibrate at a very low level of being.

It is easy to analyze and see that we carry many of these psychological conditions inside of us, and which make us vibrate and suffer within low states of consciousness and inferior states of being. We explained how the body, our physicality, needs food. It needs nourishment. It needs water. It needs food. It needs air. Likewise, the consciousness needs a type of nourishment in order for it to grow intentionally. Because consciousness as it is needs to be exercised; it needs to be trained. And, if we are honest, we can see that by a few minutes of reflection and of examining our mind, we find that we are distracted with memories, daydreams, and thoughts―thinking about what we are going to do later in the day or what we did. Never being present within our body and within our mind. Where we are at and what we are doing.

Just as the body needs food and nourishment, likewise the consciousness needs its food. That food of the soul is precisely comprehending what produces our pain, our suffering; that which afflicts us most and which makes us miserable. Any person who approaches meditation or religion wants to understand how to see suffering and how to cease being in pain. 

We talked about the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The first truth is that in life, there is suffering. The second also that there are causes to suffering. But the third truth: that there exists a means to cease suffering, and that path in the fourth truth is meditation.

Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern classic tradition stated that meditation is the daily bread of the wise, precisely because the food of our consciousness, that which is going to feed us and give us a genuine sense of peace, is by reflecting within and understanding the cages we have built. That is: the conditions we have put around ourselves.

Of course, this is not an easy reflection to make because when we discover that inside of us, we carry many elements which are difficult and painful.  When we truly comprehend that anger, fear, desire, and lust, these horrify the psyche. In truth, these elements make us realize very profoundly that we carry many elements that can qualify us as demonic. Because a being that is perfect, that has no fault, no blemish, no sense of "I,” of “what I want, of what I crave,” these beings have been known by the name of masters, Buddhas, angels, and prophets―regardless of what religion or language they spoke. In their heart, they all taught how to meditate, how to understand the conditions that make us suffer, so that by comprehending them, we can break those shells.

And by breaking anger, resentment, gluttony, and laziness, we free that part of our consciousness which we put in that place. Just as the genie from Aladdin's lamp, when the shell is broken, we produce the miracles of the soul, the beauty of the consciousness, and the beauty of understanding. Comprehension is precisely when we as a consciousness understand what ego is and what the sense of self is. Me: “what I want, what I crave, and what I desire” from moment to moment and day by day. Comprehension is the understanding that this sense of self, such as my thoughts, my heritage, my language, my race, my beliefs; the sense of self is a form of suffering that grasps at the exterior world wanting to satisfy desire. That is a condition and a cage, because when the consciousness is purified and free of conditions, it is at peace.
​
It doesn't mean that by eliminating desire we are like zombies, or dead people without any feeling, because in truth, the consciousness, when it is freed of anger, it vibrates with love for humanity. With love for divinity. When we eliminate lust and sexual desire, we develop the virtues of chastity. A purity which does not mean abstention from sex, but approaches one's spouse with a sense of beauty, of harmony, of true love, and compassion. It takes great heroism to look in ourselves and to see that we are the only ones responsible for creating our suffering. It takes tremendous courage precisely because we take responsibility for our actions. 

​Psychological War in the Myth of Perseus and Medusa

As you see in this image, we have Perseus with the head of Medusa. Perseus is a myth of how the consciousness must go to war against negativity and affliction. He is precisely our soul, like David and Goliath, and many other myths that teach about the battle that is waged in the soul for its redemption. Perseus is holding the head of the Gorgon, the Medusa. She is a representation of our own negativity, our ego, and our sense of self that we feed.

If you remember the myth, Medusa has a head of many snakes. Many vipers, which are a representation of the multiplicity of desire, of our defects. The seven capital sins as well as the legion of defects that we carry within are each represented by a serpent and that head.  To look directly into the eyes of the medusa, in the myth, turns men into stone. Many people think about this myth literally, but the real meaning is that when we identify our consciousness with any desire and with any defect, we become petrified. We become conditioned and shelled, because obviously, when we are in a moment of anger with a loved one, a boss, or a co-worker, and we vibrate with anger, resentment, and hatred, then all of our energy is going into that desire which only wants to harm.

There is nothing rational about anger, even though many people in our current day and age justify it. It is a negative quality, a demonic quality and that energy that is trapped in anger makes us very poor people, psychologically. Very weak. When we look at that anger, in the moment of observation we can see that we are burning with that fire. However, there is a path that leads out of that type of negativity, and that precisely is represented in the myth of Perseus.

Now, he knew that by looking directly into the eyes of Medusa, he would become stone, and that is a representation of our habits. Day by day we have certain habits we indulge in. Some good and some bad. But meditation is a means, self-reflection is a means, by which we learn to comprehend the Medusa and not to identify ourselves with that anger, with that fear, and with that problem.

The way he (Perseus) overcomes that animality in himself is by using his shield. He uses the reflection of the shield to see the image of the Gorgon, the beast. Then with his sword, he decapitates it. These are symbols. These are stories that teach a psychological truth, precisely because that shield, the reflection in the mirror of that armor, is precisely the act of observing. To see our ego and our defect without getting carried away by it.  Without investing our energy into that element.
​
This is a struggle that we face moment by moment, in which certain defects emerge. We are observing ourselves and becoming aware of certain thoughts, certain emotions, and certain negativities; we are focusing all our energy and power inside to look at what is going on psychologically. As we explained in our previous lecture: “The Light of Consciousness,” that is the path of self-observation.  Observing one's psyche, one's mind, one's emotional states, and one's impulses in the body to act. That act of introspection is light and understanding. We experience genuine joy when we realize that we are not anger and that if we don't give that anger what it wants, then we free energy and we can become strong. As Muhammad said in a famous oral tradition of Islam, "The strongest among you is he who controls his anger."

​The Significance of Dialectics

This is the path of the dialectic of consciousness. This self-reflection is precisely the path of the revolution of our dialectic. You could say it is a way of thinking.

This term has been used in the Greek mysteries founded by Plato and perpetuated by Aristotle. Dialectic means discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method to resolve disagreements and reveal the truth. The word dialectic has many interesting etymological meanings, which can help us understand this topic more deeply. It is from the old French dialectique of the 12th century, or Latin dialectica, from the Greek: dialektike, the art of philosophical discussion or discourse.

The word dialectic was usually associated with the word dialogue. The word "dia," the prefix, simply means “thoroughly, from side to side” which intensifies logos, logic, understanding. What is dialogue or dialectic? It is the ability to understand with the reasoning of the consciousness.  The understanding of the soul. The word "dia" means “from side to side” and dialogos refers to how we develop the power of divinity inside. Logos. The Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word (Logos). The Word was with God (Logos). And the Word was God (Logos)” (John 1:1).

That mantra we did at the beginning of this exercise, the mantra INRI, is a mantra to invoke the Lord, the divine. The Logoic energy emerges from the cosmos into our mind so that we can develop a type of reasoning that is superior, because our anger has its reasoning, its logic, and its concepts. It thinks a certain way, it feels a certain way, and wants to act in a certain way at the detriment of our neighbor.

​However, dialogue or dialectic is “to stand; to move side to side” and not be limited by once's thought―to not be identified with those egotistical elements.

Also, this is what we are doing with these types of lectures; we are seeking to understand what is consciousness by learning to have a dialogue and to learn.

Traditionally, the word dialectic in academia has been associated with presenting a thesis, then presenting an antithesis in order to arrive at a synthesis: the unification or the superior meaning. 

The ego has a sense of logic, a type of logic such as the feelings of resentment. "He hurt me." "He betrayed me."  Or a desire that says "I need to satisfy my desire." "I want to be with that person.” Or fear, the logic of "I need to pay my bills." "I need to please my boss so I don't get fired." "I need to do this this and that to take care of my needs." That is a form of logic. But if we examine and look inside with the consciousness, we see that logic comes from a condition and negativity. And if we give our energy to that thought, that feeling, that impulse, then we are staring into the eyes of Medusa. We become petrified in that element. 

With self-observation, the work of the spiritual warrior, the meditator uses the shield, the reflection in the mirror, which is self-observation; looking at the psyche in order to use the sword of insight, of wisdom, of spirituality, and of supreme spiritual methods in order to decapitate that element. In this type of dialectic with ourselves, we are expanding our logic. Meaning, our understanding of who we are as a consciousness, precisely by moving “from side to side; thoroughly,” to go thoroughly into the mind. But, also not being limited by any type of ego or any type of self, which is negative. This is how we arrive at a truth, a synthesis, and an understanding which is the nature of consciousness.

Now, what is interesting is that certain philosophers talked about the limits of the intellect of logic and of reasoning. In these studies, we do not denounce understanding and intelligence, but instead we denounce the subjective logic of hatred, of pain, and of desire.

Emmanuel Kant gave a very interesting understanding about the nature of the logic of the mind, which is the logic of the ego, the intellect. He explained what is known as the antinomies of reason, that you can have, which in terms of philosophical studies are two completely different arguments. One is saying that there is God. The other that there is no God. You can then present your evidence for both reasons and both could be valid according to logic.

The reason I bring this up is because Emmanuel Kant pointed out the limitations of the intellect. The limitations of the mind―that the mind can think and theorize and believe what it wants, especially about who we are psychologically, and yet there is no change. Likewise, many schools and movements have many beliefs about what consciousness is. What is not consciousness? What is God? Does God exist? Some say yes and some say no. You have a thesis and antithesis. This is the nature of the mind, the intellect. It does not know the truth, the divine. However, by understanding with our perception who we are psychologically, we can understand whether there is divinity or not.

Those who have experiences in meditation and have broken free from the limitations of the mind, develop the dialectic of the consciousness―the logic of the consciousness, which is an understanding that is devoid of desire, of “thinking that I'm thinking, of feeling that I'm feeling.”  Of just acting and reacting to life mechanically.

By arriving at that synthesis, we have genuine peace. We understand from experience the limitations of the mind and then we understand from meditation how forms of logic perpetuate sarcasm, as we see on TV shows: anger, violence, resentment; all these defects show about that type of reasoning that people worship.

You see that in this current age, in this society, we worship Medusa. It is enough to look at the television, news and to see humanity; people's dialectic and reasoning is egotistical and is negative. However, by seeing that and recognizing it, we can do something to change. 

However, that revolution of our thinking occurs through meditation: by understanding that thinking is not going to resolve anything. Instead, understanding will. Comprehension will. These are qualities of consciousness, of seeing or perceiving, because the intellect can only justify. It can say "I know that I have anger and fear and pain and resentment and all these things," and yet we continue to engage in those habits and behaviors that perpetuate our suffering. This is why we talk about dialectic, reasoning, and logic.
​
We have many excuses and beliefs about who we are. Many ideas. And yet, those are all egotistical. If we look inside and we are observing as a consciousness; what our thinking is, what our ways of behaving are, then we develop a superior type of understanding which is the focus of this lecture. 

​The Revolution of the Dialectic and the Present Era

This type of observation of oneself is the type of revolution and we see it here in this image from the Ghent Altarpiece. This is the Virgin Mary reading a book. That book is our own life. We have many chapters, many passages, and many defects that we must study to see, to perceive, and to comprehend so that by comprehending them we can go beyond those limitations.

As I explained, we are living in very degenerate times. I believe on the news this morning, there was a terrorist attack in London and there are many issues that are occurring with our humanity, which are very discouraging. However, by learning to meditate on ourselves and to transform those elements that produce such violence, we can help to be a more effective change for others.

This type of work is a revolution of our thinking; it means to go beyond thought. In our practice we began observing ourselves and becoming aware of our thinking; the memories, the daydreams, and the thoughts which tend to surge like clouds. They emerge, they sustain up on the screen of our awareness, and then they pass. This type of work is about deepening that attention in order to take the consciousness that is trapped in ego, defects, and desires, so that the whole consciousness can be integrated.

Samael Aun Weor, wrote in The Revolution of the Dialectic:

In these decrepit and degenerate times, a revolution of the dialectic, a self-dialectic, and a new education are necessary. ―​Samael Aun a Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

We talked about the meaning of dialectics and here we see that a self-dialectic precisely means that knowledge we acquire about ourselves through observation and perception. We do not need to read any book, any scripture, or any other teaching in order to understand who we are fundamentally. However, those types of writings such as the scriptures of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism are helpful or beneficial.

It comes to my mind a very famous philosopher and thinker by the name of Krishnamurti who was a very profound master with a lot of light. He studied Buddhism, but you find that his explanations and his understanding were not based on book knowledge. It was based on what he observed in himself and how he liberated his consciousness. He had self-dialectic, self-understanding, and self-comprehension which he was able to share with others in a very profound way.

Therefore, we need a new education; meaning, methods and means that are going to aid us in breaking the shells of our conditions.

In the age of the revolution of the dialectic, the art of reasoning must be handled directly by our inner Being in order for it to be methodical and just. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

This type of revolution is not by going to the exterior world and trying to change things through policies, through politics, and all these external matters, which we've seen from history and experience don't do anything. But if we want to cease suffering, we have to look inside and change what we can perceive.

The Being is the Gnostic term we use in this school to refer to our divinity. Our inner God. This is not some anthropomorphic old man in the clouds with a beard and long hair who sits in the cloud of tyranny dispensing lightning bolts to this poor humanity. The Being is not anthropomorphic, but is energy and is light. And, that Being is precisely our true nature and our true self. But, not egotistical or subjective.

“…the art of reasoning (the mind) must be (controlled and) handled by our inner Being in order for our mind to be just,” because our mind and our thoughts affect other people. If we are observant, we can see that certain thinking, certain ideas, or certain habits affect other people at work or are at home. Our thinking shapes our life, and therefore, that mind must be controlled and disciplined through meditation so that it can be serene in a natural equanimous state. This is “an art of objective reasoning” that “will provide a pedagogical and integral change.”

In this lecture, we are talking about objective reasoning, which means understanding without having to think about something; we simply know. That is the distinction between thoughts and comprehension. Pedagogy has to do with the way we instruct others by our example, through our ethics and our way of being.

All the actions of our life must be the outcome of an equation and an exact formula in order for the possibilities of the mind and the functionalism of understanding to surge forth. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

This inner divinity is called the Being.

​Comprehension of Reality: The Perfect Expression of the Being

We have been explaining in our recent lectures on the Tarot, which related to divine principles, numbers, and mathematics; which is a topic of another discussion.  However, we can see that in a moment of observation, in which we truly let our inner God act through us, His actions are mathematical; Her compassion is precise in all our interactions of life. It is like a formula or formulaic. It is precise and definite. Those qualities are well mentioned in certain schools of meditation which we study.

In this image we have Christ being tempted by the devil, which is a symbol of something psychological. How we as a consciousness, who must unite with the divine energy known as Christ, is opposing the mind represented by the devil. People believe in these figures as something external, but what is more interesting is that they represent something psychological for us.

In that exercise (the mantra INRI) we are invoking the Christic energy into the mind precisely so that we can overcome the temptations of our egotism, the logic of hatred, of sarcasm, and of fear. Christ is a form of understanding our mind, which is superior, and in this dialogue between him and the devil in the desert, it represents something we all experience when we genuinely attempt meditation. We face that temptation of the mind wanting to distract us and to give us what we want or desire―filling the mind with certain elements which surge and then churn constantly.

But as this parable or this myth teaches us, by working with energy and by being serene, concentrated, and not being identified with the mind, obviously, the devil in the myth is false because I believe the lines from the gospels was "tempt not the Lord thy God." Meaning the soul has been united and identified with the divine so the mind becomes still. The devil falls in the myth down a precipice or down a tower. It represents how the mind is conquered and is serene.

This also represents how our concepts of life do not equate with the reality of life. Our concepts, meaning our thinking, tends to be very limited. We can rationalize all we want about meditation and divinity, but what gives us true comfort and knowledge is our own experience, which is the dialectic of consciousness. 

As Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Great Rebellion:

Awakened consciousness allows us to experience reality directly. Unfortunately, the intellectual animal mistakenly called a human being, fascinated by the formulating power of dialectical logic has forgotten about the dialectic of the consciousness. Unquestionably, the power to formulate logical concepts certainly becomes terribly poor. From thesis we go on to antithesis. After discussion to synthesis. But the latter remains in itself an intellectual concept which can never coincide with the reality. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

How does this apply to us? Obviously, this is related to schools, philosophical movements, religions, and ways of thinking. We can think all we want and believe what we want. But does that necessarily change our way of being? How we act? Whether our actions are truly beneficial, limited, or detrimental for humanity?

We can think all we want about who we are. We tend to have many concepts and beliefs. “This is my race, my religion, my family, and my school that I grew up in. My university diploma.” These are concepts and ideas. But what is the reality of our state of being? Do we truly understand the origins of our defects? Of laziness, of despair; and the whole conglomeration of errors? Because by understanding the root, psychologically, of those conditions, we can change them.

The dialectic of consciousness is more direct, thereby permitting us to experience the reality of any phenomenon in and of itself. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Those who learn to meditate obviously learn to have certain mystical experiences which are mentioned in the different religions. Some people refer to this as astral projection or dream yoga in which the consciousness, free of the physical body, experiences the realities of the dream world or the fifth dimension. This is all very beautifully mapped out in what is known in the Kabbalah as the Tree of Life.
We can investigate any phenomena in nature. We put the body at rest. We relax and we silence the mind. We observe ourselves and we concentrate on our inner divinity, begging Him or begging Her, to give us that wisdom we seek.  Therefore, we focus on projecting into the astral dimension and with certain disciplines, practices, and exercises that we utilize, the body goes to rest and we enter those dimensions. We can investigate and see things that are beyond the physical senses.

Personally, if I am teaching you this, it is because I have been doing this for years. I want to help my students experience the realities of the consciousness. It is not just limited to physical matter. You can experience dimensions that are not material in the physical sense, in which the religions called heavens. Also, you can investigate the infra-dimensions, or what is known as hell or hell realms because one thing we mentioned is that your state of consciousness, your level of being, and your state of mind determines if you vibrate within superior laws or inferior laws. It is simple cause and effect. Therefore, by learning to meditate and eliminate conditions of the mind, we vibrate at higher levels of being and higher laws, so that we can naturally investigate the phenomena of nature. Anything. That is the beauty of the consciousness because it has the capacity to expand to an infinite degree as the 14th Dalai Lama has instructed us. ​

Intellectual delusion is fascinating and we want to force all natural phenomena to coincide with our dialectical logic. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

People believe many things, again intellectually, about the universe, the solar system, and our nature. We want everything to fit into our theories, our ideas, our beliefs, and our habits. More importantly for us, this has to do with our own understanding of who we are. This is the most profound form of delusion. We think we are a certain way and yet the reality is in certain situations, we keep provoking conflicts.

We can all think of examples of this. We think a certain way. We have a certain opinion. We have a disagreement with a friend or a stranger and we want to force everything we are perceiving about our neighbor in our logic. “That person doesn't like me, or that person is resentful,” or that person is this, this, and that. Yet, the very qualities that we attribute to other human beings and other persons are precisely the qualities we carry within.

Therefore, we tend to live in delusion. We don't understand the sources of our problems; where our defects come from and where our habits originated. We tend to go through life very hypnotized and identified with external phenomena. Becoming fascinated by a new job, house, car, or whatever it may be. We want to fit everything into our logic about who we think we are. However, real courage occurs when we as the consciousness learn to face the mind and not to be tempted by it. We look at the mind and just see it for what it is.

Where do our thoughts come from? Our feelings, our impulses? Simply look at it and don't judge one way or the other, but observe. That is how you gain information about that type of psychological phenomena inside. That is why:

The dialectic of consciousness is based on true life experiences and not on mere subjective rationalism. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

That dialectic of consciousness is when we experience by fact. The reality is that our mind tends to be fractured and is split, but by observing that fact we gain strength because we see that we are not the mind; we are something more profound.

A master by the name of Ibn ‘Arabi, who practiced Sufism, which is the mystical aspect of Islam―he was considered one of the greatest teachers of that tradition. He wrote a very interesting excerpt from a book called Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom. It builds off from what I just mentioned to you about the science of dream yoga or awakening in the internal worlds, when your physical body is asleep, but you use your consciousness or are acting and moving in a different dimension. 

Typically, people who go to sleep at night are knocked out for eight hours and then wake up in the morning. They may have some memories of dreams that are usually nothing. That's a barometer for how conscious we are. If your consciousness is very awake and is disciplined in meditation, you can converse in those dimensions with the angels and with the Buddhas. With the masters like Jesus, Buddha, etc.

In this quote he also talks about the nature of perception and how it is not intellectual. Renee Descartes’ theory that "I think therefore I am" is wrong. To think is not to be. When thinking about our friend, coworkers, or our spouse when we are driving our car, we are not paying attention at what we are doing. We are not being in the present moment and it means we are asleep. The consciousness is not active. It is lost in thinking and daydreams.

We think we see with our eyes. The information, the influences of perception are due to our senses, while the real influence, that is, the meaning of things, the power behind what sees and what is seen can be reached neither by the senses nor by deduction, analysis, comparison, contrasts, and associations made through intellectual theories. The invisible world can only be penetrated by the eye or mind of the heart. ―Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom

Knowledge is of the intellect, but Being, divinity, consciousness is more of the heart. Understanding is at the core of our of our Being and of our emotional center, because when you truly intuit and know something profoundly, it is ingrained in you and it is permanent. The mind can wander and think what it wants, but when you know something from fact and from experience, that is unshakable. Such as, having an experience in the astral plane where you are talking face-to-face with a master.
​
Personally, I have done that many times where I have been speaking with the founder of the Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, as well as certain initiates who have been helping me. Especially, because I am trying to teach others how to experience that and therefore it is not a theory for me. I don't believe in anything. I don't believe in it. It's something I do as a consciousness, because I'm meditating daily and training my mind so that I can continue to get guidance about how to live my life. ​

The invisible world, the higher dimensions are known by the qualities of the heart; your ethics. By eliminating anger, lust, hatred, and fear you expand consciousness. You inflame your heart as represented by the sacred image of Jesus. His heart was constructed by a crown of thorns. This is a very famous icon in Christian thought and the thing is that it is a symbol of how we have to wear our own crown of thorns, which is obviously a symbol of restraining the mind and negative qualities in the heart. It is a type of willpower one needs.

When you sit to meditate, willpower is needed because we find that the mind wanders, and it gets distracted. It won’t stay on one thing for a long time in the beginning, but with practice and by going through a type of conflict in oneself, one learns to inflame the heart with understanding and that occurs by restraining the mind and not giving it what it wants. Again, saving your energies mentally, emotionally, and physically.

“The invisible world can only be penetrated by the eye or the mind of the heart” because the consciousness awakens by working with energy. As we emphasized in the beginning of our practice, this mantra INRI helps to fill us with fire and with power. With energy and by saving energy mentally, emotionally, and physically, we expand consciousness.

Indeed, the reality of this visible world also can only be seen by the eye and mind of the heart. ―Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom

Again, if we want to understand the source of our problems in our daily existence, meditation is a means and a method to understand ourselves

​Spiritual Practice and Experience

Some of you who have been to my lectures previously see that I like to use a lot of different scriptures and writings. This is a tradition that I very much have a lot of respect for compared to the Orthodox extremist beliefs. This is a scripture from a book of Sufism, which is a mystical teaching of Islam. This tradition, of course, is very degenerated today. It has been abused of its original meaning, but if we look at some of the symbols and principles of this tradition, we can extract knowledge for our benefit and we emphasize in our school that all religions have one source, whether they have deviated from that is another thing.

This is a scripture called Principles of Sufism. This is a writing by Al-Qushayri, who is a great Sufi master and who inspired Rumi. If you are familiar with the poet Rumi, his power evidently came from studying this other master. One thing that is mentioned in this scripture is very important about the need for a type of spiritual discipline because true experience and the ability to have those types of experiences in the internal worlds is dependent upon our practice. It is a very practical method.

Samael Aun Weor wrote the following:

It is completely impossible to experience the Being, the Innermost, the Reality [the Divine], without becoming true technical and scientific masters of that mysterious science called meditation. It is completely impossible to experience the Being, the Innermost, the Reality without having reached the true mastery of the quietude and silence of the mind. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Spiritual Power of Sound

The Sufis corroborate what he says, meaning that through daily discipline one can experience the divine and can expand awareness. Al-Jurayri said:

Whoever does not establish awe of duty and vigilance in his relationship to the divine will not arrive at disclosure of the unseen or contemplation of the divine. ―​Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

What is this awe of duty? It has to do with our daily meditative practice―to feel a sense of awe and reverence every time we sit to reflect on ourselves because we understand that through this exercise, we are going to come closer to our inner Being, our true nature. Also, to feel that sense of urgency that we need to change and therefore we need to act. 

It signifies to feel that inquietude, that disturbance in the heart that pushes us to want to know what religion teaches―to experience it, because through vigilance, observing ourselves, becoming aware of ourselves, and not letting the consciousness go to sleep, we in turn develop a relationship with our inner divinity, our own innermost God. That is personal for each one of us. It is very profound.

Vigilance: meaning that in a vigil you don't sleep. Instead you pray all night. You don't let your body go to rest but perform some types of austerities. This is one public level of meaning, but real vigilance is when you are driving your car, but you are not thinking about other things. You are doing what you are doing and being attentive. By developing vigilance and awe of duty, we obtain real knowledge. By daily discipline is how we truly train our mind to be serene, to be calm, to be peaceful; because those who don't will not arrive at disclosure of the unseen.

This has to do with having experiences in meditation, but also in dream yoga. To disclose the unseen also has another translation, which says "to unveil." When you unveil the mysteries, you are meditating and your body is at peace, your mind is calm, and then you receive an experience like a lightning bolt. It can be an image, a sound, a scene in which you are a living spectator and a participant. It could be a dream experience where you are seeing yourself doing certain actions or having certain types of interactions that are symbolic. That is unveiling, or tearing the veil of the mysteries; to see from the internal dimensions certain qualities of consciousness.

However, it is not enough just to unveil or to have those experiences. It is important to understand what they are teaching you, because your inner divinity will teach you in meditation through experiences and certain symbols that apply to your life and spiritual work. 

Many people in this day and age are very fascinated with dream symbology and want to get certain books to teach them. "I had a dream about this and this. I want to read it and look at what it means." In this tradition, we don't rely on those types of books because the real method of understanding our dreams and experiences comes by meditating. When you meditate and you read scriptures and understand certain symbols, it is easy to interpret things. But relying on other people's opinions is not a guarantee that you can read about in certain books. I found more effective for my own practices to not read any book, but just go and meditate on the experience until the understanding surges forth.

When we have the experiences, we learn to understand what they mean. As the kabbalists teach, "A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read” (Berachot 55b). Therefore, contemplating the meaning of our experiences is known as Mushahada in Arabic. This is the word “witnessing, to witness.” If you are familiar with Islam, they do the Shahidah, which is the declaration of their faith in the public level: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet.”
​
People recite that many times, but do they really understand what it means is another thing. When you say that you have witnessed God, it means that you have been meditating. Then you as a consciousness have had the experience of uniting with your Being. You are witnessing the ecstasy of your soul united with that truth and that purity. That is to be a witness, to perceive, and to be awake. It doesn't mean just thinking that I believe in this tradition or I believe in Jesus or I believe in Samael Aun Weor, thinking that belief is going to guarantee anything. Instead it is about having the experience. That is witnessing. When you have those experiences your heart becomes inflamed precisely because you have seen the truth for yourself and you know that you are not alone.

​The Four States of Consciousness

We talk about four states of consciousness in this tradition. From the Greek mysteries and in the spirit of this doctrine, of the dialectic of consciousness, we have been talking a bit about the Greeks in terms of their language and etymology.

We can say there are four types of dialectic or four types of being. We have Eikasia, which is profound sleep. We have Pistis which is sleep with dreams. Now we have Dianoia or awakened consciousness, followed by Nous or spiritually illuminated consciousness.

Humanity tends to be stuck in the first two forms of consciousness, which is sleep or sleep with dreams. People in these times believe that they are awake. We tend to have this belief that we are conscious. When you practice meditation and if you analyze your eight hours of sleep at night, whether you are awake or not in the dream world, then that is a barometer for how weak we are. Typically, we tend to be sleeping for eight hours and there is nothing. That is sleep. That is Eikasia.

Pistis, which is sleep with dreams, has to do with not only the dreams we experienced at night, but in our daily states.

As I mentioned to you, when you are at work or you are washing your dishes, but thinking of other things, this means we are dreaming. We are not awake. We are not aware of what we are doing, which is going mechanically with our habits and our actions.

I like to relate to you some of the etymology of these Greek words because Eikasia, Pistis, Dianoia, and Nous; they are Greek words, but they have a lot of meaning if you really break them down.

Eikasia (εἰκασία) literally means “imagination.” It means “images” from the Greek εικόνων eikonon. I mentioned to you that we tend to be asleep or that we are asleep physically as a consciousness. Physically our body is active, but if the mind is wandering and if we are not aware of what is going on, it means that we are experiencing sleep without dreams. This is a very barbaric form of consciousness that is very negative. All the violence that you see on television, the wars, and the bloodshed; that is Eikasia―to be unconscious, because someone who is awakened spiritually would never dare to harm another human being. They would never inflict violence.

Eikasia means “imagination” and the word imagination simply means to perceive images, and is a representation of what we are going through now. We perceive images in life physically and yet we are not aware of what we are seeing. We are not questioning what we see. We just go with the flow. This is very easy to see, when at the end of your day, you reflect and try to remember what you did at certain points in the day. If you can't remember those certain periods of time in which you got up that morning and you were driving a car and don't remember where you drove or what you did, that is being asleep.  We have gaps in our memory. We say, "I don't remember what happened." What you are thinking, what you are doing, and what you are feeling; that is Eikasia, or unconsciousness.

Πίστις Pistis is a little different and it is not much better. This is sleep with dreams. From the Greek Πιστεύω Pisteuo, meaning “to trust, to have confidence, faithfulness, to be reliable, and to assure.”

Pistis simply means belief or faith, but in the subjective sense. As I have been explaining, to believe that by following Jesus one is saved is superficial. We also believe and trust many things. We put our faith and our confidence on many things that are not reliable, whether institutions, traditions, religions, etc.
​
But we also experience Pistis. We dream when we are thinking, acting, and doing other things but not being aware of where we are at. We then put our trust into our thinking, our feelings, and our impulses; we invest our energy. That is Pistis.

Dianoia (διάνοια) is much different. It means the awakened state of consciousness. The word "diá" means “thoroughly, from side to side” which intensifies "noiéō" or "noús," which means “mind.” Dianoia is when you step out of the cage of your intellect and when you perceive that you are not the mind. You engage your mind thoroughly and examine it. As a consciousness, you are evaluating yourself and your habits in meditation and throughout the day through self-observation. This is to be awake―to not identify with any phenomena outside or inside but to be conscious.
​
Nous (νοῦν) is much superior. This is to be spiritually illuminated. It is not only when you are not identified with your mind, but you as a consciousness unite with your inner God, your Being: who you are in your essence, fundamentally. 

These four states are represented by the Allegory of the Cave of Plato. Obviously, the cave represents the darkness of the mind and in this myth, the allegory of philosophy is such that a certain person was chained with other prisoners in a cave. Then this person was released by some Guru or master and taken out in order to experience the stars, the landscape, the mountains, and nature. To see the sunrise for the first time. In condensed form, it is a symbol of how we escape the darkness of our intellect, our subconsciousness and desires in order to experience illumination, your true nature, and your Being.

Obviously, this is the goal, and you can have that experience by daily discipline and meditation where you are not only awake as a consciousness, but you experience what your inner divinity is, which is plenitude, happiness, and contentment.
​
But in order to get to that point, we learn to examine our psychological states. As I have been indicating, interactions with humanity and with other human beings is our psychological training, because in those moments of interaction we learn to see the conditions that truly shape us and limit us. By learning to be observant of our psychological states and our interactions with humanity, we learn to understand and discover our secret faults and errors. It also gives us the opportunity to develop virtue: real conscious and beautiful action in which our soul and our divinity expresses through us. We become vehicles of enlightenment. 

​Internal States and External Events

People who want to separate from life, due to despair or whatever qualities from external events, do so because they feel so lost in suffering. They demonstrate their incapacity to live. Meditation is precisely the means by which we learn to live more consciously with rectitude and with ethics.

When one wants to separate the external events of life from the internal states of consciousness, one demonstrates concretely his incapacity of existing in a dignified manner. Those who learn how to consciously combine external events with internal states march on the path of success. ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

So instead of blaming our job, the politicians, or whomever, we take responsibility for our own suffering, because if we didn't have anger, we wouldn't suffer. Likewise, with pride and all these elements.

In learning to develop virtue, we help humanity and help ourselves. Our psychological state determines our life, which is well-known within Sufism. The Sufis talk about three types of blessing or three types of principles which are at the heart of understanding ourselves and of meditation. They referred to that tradition known as Islam, which means “submission” in Arabic. Does it mean to physically adhere to some type of tradition? To say, “I believe in Muhammad and there was only one God” and to pray five times a day? That's very superficial and habitual.

Meditation is something more profound. When you submit to God, your divinity, it means that you no longer perform harmful actions. 

People complain and we have had many letters written to us. A missionary was asking us, "I don't experience God. I haven't seen my inner Being. I don't know what the truth is. I want to know how." I always reply to them and ask, “How do you behave with other people?” Not only with them, but psychologically, because when you examine your internal states and if you find corruption, negativity, and desire, that is the problem.
​
In those moments of observation, you get light and your divinity will show you what your ego is that you must work on the most. It presents itself and when you see it and catch it in the moment, you say "Aha!" and you feel joy. That is the greatest joy of the meditator, because you see a defect and then you say, "Now I know what this defect is and I am going to meditate on it so it is going to be eliminated." That is how you change your internal states so that you learn to vibrate with higher laws, and therefore, when you relate to other human beings, you help them rise to a higher level of being, a higher level virtue.

​The Three Blessings of the Sufis

That is Islam: when you submit to God. It doesn't mean you bow to the east, but instead it means that in the moment, you refrain from harmful action, harmful thinking, and harmful feeling. You no longer let your sufferings dictate your life. You also have Iman, which means faith, and as I mentioned to you, the word Pistis also means faith. However, real faith in the true sense doesn't mean belief, to think, or feel something is true, without experience or evidence. Real faith is when you have the knowledge and experience of the divine in your consciousness, and therefore you know that there is no theory there. It is very clear. Lastly, there is Ihsan, which is a word that relates to the Arabic name Hassan, which means beauty. Ihsan means beautiful action. To act beautifully is to let your Being express through you, in which you become the vehicle and the means by which your inner Christ or your inner Buddha is manifest.
​
How does this relate to our internal states? Our psychological states, as I mentioned, fluctuate. They change, they churn, and by learning to be observant, we understand how our psychological states shape our existence.

When Al-Junayd was asked about the Gnostic, he replied, "the color of the water is the color of its container." That is, the nature of the Gnostic, (one who knows in meditation and who experiences the truth) is always determined by the nature of his state in a given moment. ―​Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Moment by moment, we learn to observe ourselves and that is always something changing and dynamic. It is nothing static, because the truth is the unknowable from moment to moment. As I have been mentioning to you, meditation is the means by which we overcome the intellect and to use it in its right place. To use it well.

​Comprehension and Imagination

This is from Igneous Rose by Samael Aun Weor, where he explains what the dialectic of consciousness is, the understanding of the soul. The reasoning faculty is not something to be discarded completely, but to be utilized well with comprehension and with understanding:

We must extract only the golden fruit from reasoning. The golden fruit of reasoning is comprehension (to know without having to think about it, to understand). Comprehension and imagination must replace reasoning. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

Comprehension is that spark or hunch, that understanding, of the causes of suffering. Imagination, as I indicated, is perception, to see not only physical imagery, but psychic imagery, something that is internal, such as internal states, because when you develop your observation of yourself, you learn to see and taste the different qualities and the nature of our psychological elements

Imagination and comprehension are the foundation of the superior faculties of the understanding. ―Samael Aun a Weor, Igneous Rose

When we learn to meditate, we develop two factors in ourselves. Comprehension is a result of having a serene mind. That is, when your intellect is no longer churning with so many negative elements and the imagination is when we use our consciousness and we can see clearly.

If the lake of the mind is serene, you can then perceive and reflect the images of the divine, the sky, and the heavens in that lake. That lake is your mind. If it is churning and if it is rippling with violence, anger, and prejudice, then the mind is agitated. You can't see clearly. Obviously, we have a day of work and we are full of anger. We feel negative. We can't see clearly, psychologically. We are engaged in and constricted by that negativity. But through observation of the mind, naturally you are not acting on the ego and your defects, then the mind settles and you develop equanimity. That is when the images in meditation start to reflect. When your body is still and relaxed, your mind is calm after a day of self-observation and of reflection.

Then as you are relaxing and approaching the state of slumber, images appear that reflect within our psyche as experiences. That is imagination: the capacity to perceive experiences that are not of a physical type, but of a spiritual type. Imagination and comprehension are the true faculties of our understanding: serenity and insight.

The Sufis elaborate on this point very beautifully about the nature of insight, the nature of consciousness. Someone who has developed light inside of themselves has insight. To have insight into the nature of any experience, psychologically speaking or even physically, depends on the depth of our consciousness. That is, the ability to penetrate into the mind. Because as we are now, we tend to be lost in Eikasia or Pistis, which is sleep. But someone who develops light is awakening consciousness and understanding.

As the Sufis teach:

“Or one who was dead whom we gave new life and a light with which he can walk among men, can he be like one who is in the depths of darkness from which he will never emerge?" (6:122) One of the Sufis said that God’s words means, “One whose intellect had died and so God gave him new life by the light of insight and whom God gave the light of manifestation and witnessing, he is not like one who walks among the people of negligence in his negligence."

It is said, "If a man’s insight is sound, he ascends to the station of witnessing.” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

This is talking about people who have light and those who don't. What does it mean to have insight, understanding, and comprehension? When we have those experiences, we become filled with inspiration, peace, and happiness. Therefore, we learn to engage life in a much more dynamic way. But, to be negligent refers to all of humanity, or people who don't understand what meditation is. Or, if they do practice it, they may do it once in a while, but not consistently. Negligence means to not elect. To not act. The purpose of consciousness is to act, to behave in an upright and conscious way.

“Those whose intellect have died,” meaning that they are no longer limited by the mind; they use the mind in its service. Those are the people who have insight, who developed witnessing, who can say that “I believe in God, that there is no god but God,” because they had the experience in meditation.

Those who are witnessing the truth are not like those who don't. It is a very clear distinction. It is also said that if a man's insight, his perception, and imagination is sound, he then ascends to the station of witnessing: a technical term referring to leaving the physical body behind, and in the higher dimensions, you unite with your Being, which we will be explaining in the courses of Kabbalah specifically.

In meditation we learn to focus on one thing and not let the mind get distracted. That is the beginning. We develop serenity, we learn to concentrate, and don't get distracted. Remember what you are doing. The next step is to develop our capacities for perceiving imagery, which we do through exercises like taking a mandala or sacred painting, and trying to reconstruct that image in your mind, so that you can see it with your imagination.

If I asked you to think of a cup of water, the image emerges in our mind. We can think about it. We can see it not with physical senses, but psychological ones. That act of being able to perceive imagery is imagination. Some people have called it clairvoyance. That is a very fancy term meant to confuse people that made people think that they don't have the ability to be conscious. That is a mistake. Instead, we all have the capacity to imagine and to perceive.

When you learn to silence the mind, then you can focus on perceiving more clearly and profoundly, because when the lake of the mind is calm, you can see into the depths of your psyche. That is imagination. In our practice of meditation, we learn to silence the mind and then afterwards, we try to perceive deeply with our consciousness, an image, a stone, or try to understand scripture.

With many things, we can develop our consciousness.  There are many purposes of meditation, but most importantly, we learn to comprehend what we perceived in ourselves during the day. Imagination is the ability to go deep into the mind to understand and perceive all those defects we caught in action, on a moment-to-moment basis. Those who develop profound insight are able to go very deep into the mind.

Abu Hassan Ibn Mansur declared: "The one possessing insight hits his target with the first arrow he looses. He never turns to interpretation, speculation, or supposition.” ―​Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Someone who has profound imagination developed, in a simple and single practice, goes and silences the mind. He focuses on that thing without having to rationalize about that object of meditation. For example, you take a scene in your day, maybe at work with your boss in which you had a certain conversation that provoked a lot of negativity inside of you. You saw perhaps anger, fear, pride, vanity, and all those elements surged in that moment. Then you caught it and you saw it in yourself. Then at home, what you would do is relax your body and relax your mind, reviewing your imagination on what you went through in that experience. Try to see ego, each defect in that instant, or in those moments at work.

Someone whose imagination is very profound will not be thinking about "Well, I'm not sure what this element is," or maybe trying to rationalize about what we are focusing on. Someone who is concentrating is trying to imagine him or herself and that scene in the day. One doesn't refer to speculation. Don't think or try to speculate about what you saw.  Simply look at the facts. What did you perceive in yourself? What did you capture?
​
Don't try to interpret it one way or the other, but just look. The act of looking is the act of understanding, because when you don't rationalize about what you're trying to meditate on, the insight emerges spontaneously and profoundly.  It's magic. It comes into your mind and suddenly you say "Aha! I understood that anger and that moment. Now by praying to my inner divinity I can learn to eliminate that fault.” ​

​Certainty of Inner Spiritual Experiences

It is also said (and this refers to different levels of meditators), the insight of the seekers is speculation that brings about certainty. The insight of the gnostics is a certainty that brings about inner-realization. ―​Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

We are all seekers here. We're beginning meditators. We may have certain hunches or intuitions about certain religions, traditions, or about ourselves. Things that we want to know more about. However, there is a higher level of being. We seek to prove in our current level of being certain truths contained in religion. But somebody who is a gnostic, someone who really awakens a lot of consciousness, they have experiences, and when they return to their physical body after an experience of dream yoga, they look in the physical world for evidence to confirm and validate what they experienced.

I give you an example of what this phenomenon is. I remember many years ago when I first started gnosis, I was meditating and I had an experience in the dream world where I was shown ten faces. Two rows, five images each. I saw mine at the very bottom right. I saw the other faces there and they were very powerful and divine. Especially what was most notable to me was an old man with a very profound countenance―very strong and all these images were from the Nordic mythology. Different characters like Wotan, Father of the Gods.
​
I remember looking in certain books to find out "What did I just experience? What did I just go through?" Then someone introduced me to the Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism. It is a map of ten spheres. Those ten pictures were really the Kabbalah. I had an experience and then I read about it in a book later. The Kabbalah, if you're not familiar, is a map of consciousness from lower levels of experience (matter, energy, and perception) all the way to the highest. The most rarefied and most divine. I saw my Being and all those aspects, the ten spheres. I was at the very bottom, meaning the physical body. I had that experience and then I was looking in the books, I was trying to validate "What did I just go through?" Then I read about it, which gave me more faith, especially things that give you a lot of certainty about this knowledge. Our inner divinity is the one who has to create a psychological space within us.

​Inner Judgment in Meditation

This is an image of The Last Judgement of Christ judging humanity. It is a symbol. One important symbol is that it relates to our daily meditative discipline. We have to judge ourselves. 

We have to judge our faults. First see them and then when you are meditating, concentrate on a certain event in your day. Try to perceive and understand and see the root causes of your afflictions. By developing comprehension of each fault that you witnessed, you ask for your inner divinity to eliminate and to judge.

Our inner Being is the one who gives us a sense of order in our psychological house, because I said to you, we tend to be afflicted by multifarious elements. The egotism of our desires is precisely the "I," the “me”, and the “myself.”

We must clarify that a radical difference exists between the ego and the Being. The "I," (the sense of self we grasp onto), can never establish an order in psychological matters, as, in itself, it is the result of disorder. Only the Being (the divine), has the power to establish order in our psyche. The Being is the Being and the reason for the Being to be, is to be the Being himself. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This is light, presence, intelligence, wisdom, cognizance, order in the work of self-observation and judgment. In eliminating our psychic aggregates, meaning our defects and our desires:

Order in the work of self-observation, judgment, and elimination of our psychic aggregates gradually becomes evident through the judicious sense of psychological self-observation. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The path of meditation is very specific and very methodical. First, we observe ourselves and get data about our defects.  When we see them in a certain experience of life we go home and we meditate.  We judge them. We ask for comprehension and understanding.  By comprehending them, we pray to our inner divinity to eliminate and that is how by breaking the shells of the ego, we extract consciousness so that the soul is unified with God, with the Being.

​The Divine Mother and Elimination of Defects

The one who helps establish this order in us is known in the Greek myths as Athena. She is known as Minerva amongst the Romans. She is the feminine aspect of divinity inside of us, represented in Hinduism as Durga, Kali. She is also known as the Virgin Miriam in Christianity. The word Miriam in Hebrew literally means to raise, to elevate. She is that part of our divinity that elevates us from the depths of despair and our demonic qualities to the very heights.

We work with her every day in our meditation disciplines here. She is the one who helps to eliminate. Notice on her shield, she has the Medusa whose head has been decapitated, because she is the force of divinity in us, that power that gives birth to the divine in us who eliminates.

She is the warrior who aided Odysseus in the Greek poems. If you remember from The Odyssey, he returns home from the battle of Troy after twenty years of being at sea in order to find that his home has been invaded by suitors trying to marry his wife. They have taken all his food, his crops, his money, and his wealth. They squandered it. That is a symbol of how we have been exiled from our own inner divinity. When we return home, we find that our house is a mess with all these defects. These suitors trying to marry Penelope, his soul, his consciousness. They are trying to take everything from him, so who helps him is Athena. Athena is the one who gives that hero the means and the method in order to kill the suitors. It is a very beautiful poem. I won't spoil it if you haven't read it, but it has a very beautiful teaching. This defines for us the path of illumination.

Athena is our inner divine Goddess who is really part of our consciousness. And she is the one who helps us from the very beginning of the path all the way to the end. There is an order to how we eliminate defects. She is the one who establishes that path in us.

As we progress in our inner work, we can verify for ourselves an interesting order in the system of elimination. One is astonished when one discovers that there is an order in the work related to the elimination of the multiple psychic aggregates that personify our errors. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

​The word aggregate means “pile, heap, or conglomeration.” Each defect is an aggregate which traps our consciousness.

What is most interesting about all this is that such an order in the elimination of defects comes about gradually and is processed according to the dialectic of consciousness. The dialectic of reasoning will never surpass the formative work of the dialectic of consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This has to do with our daily discipline in which we are learning about ourselves, acquiring more wisdom, and knowledge, whereby we understand certain defects emerge in certain situations and we work on them gradually―day by day until by comprehension and profound works, our defects become pulverized. Eliminated. They become smaller and weaker, because we are comprehending them until finally the Divine Mother can decapitate them.

The dialectic of reasoning will never surpass the formidable work of the dialectic of consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The dialectic of consciousness is your work in which you are comprehending yourself more and more until finally the ego is dead.

In time, the facts show us that the psychological order in the work of eliminating defects is established by our own profound inner Being. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

From the very beginning of the path to the very end of self-realization of enlightenment, this is guided every step and every moment by our divinity.

The Gnostic Esoteric Work

As I mentioned to you, she works in three ways. In the Gnostic esoteric work, the Greek word gnosis means knowledge, self-wisdom, and understanding is divided into three sections.
​
Here you see an image here of Durga, from Hinduism, slaying a demon, a monster. She is riding upon a Lion of Judah, which reminds us of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Or יהודה Jehudah, יהוה Iod Hei Vav Hei, Jehovah. We can also say Yeshua, which is a representation of what we call Christ, which is an energy.
​
She is slaying this element, which is psychological. We have discovery, judgment, and execution. First, we observe ourselves. We gather knowledge about our faults.  Then in meditation we reflect in the screen of our imagination what we experienced and what we saw. Therefore, didactically by focusing on each defect we learned to comprehend them. Execution refers to prayer. We pray to our inner Divinity to eliminate because we cannot eliminate defects on our own. We need our inner Being who is the source of order and of knowledge. 

​Work Memory

​Lastly one thing we will mention is something that is pertinent to the discussion of this dialectic of consciousness. This is self-understanding. It is important to reflect on what we were years ago. Reflect on who we were. The ways we thought, felt, and acted before we were led and inspired to approach this kind of study, what is known in this teaching as psychological photographs.

When we begin this work, we learn to transform our psyche gradually and then we reflect after a time upon what we were in the past, in terms of a psychological image. Of who we were before we sought to study any type of knowledge of this type. It is useful as Samael Aun Weor writes in The Great Rebellion to reflect on oneself constantly and to analyze: What are we doing successfully? What are we doing that is wrong?

The establishment of the consecutive order in the different parts of the work, related to this extremely serious subject of eliminating the psychic aggregates, allows us to generate a work memory. This is quite interesting and even extremely useful in the question of more inner development. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Work memory has to do with understanding the process by which we are working psychologically. This is something that is developed by practice. We develop a type of understanding and comprehension of who we were before we began this work and what we have become now.

This work memory can certainly give us distinct psychological photographs of the different stages of our past. As a whole, it will bring to our imagination a vivid and even repugnant imprint of what we were before beginning the radical psycho-transforming work. There is no doubt that we would never wish to return to that horrifying image, that vivid representation of what we once were. From this point, such psychological photography is useful as a means of confrontation between a transformed present and a regressive, stale, clumsy, and unfortunate past. The work memory is always recorded on the basis of successive psychological events registered by the center of psychological self-observation. ―​Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Again, this myth of Perseus teaches us many things, because by using the reflection of our consciousness in the shield, which is the armor of the soul, we learn to work gradually little by little on our faults so that by reflecting on this process, we develop more stamina, awareness, and more inspiration. ​

​Questions and Answers

Question: Why should we lose our anger? Confront it, I understand. Why should we lose it? I think it’s a highly good thing for us. It gives us persistence. It helps us to escape slavery to the conditions we are in. I really find when someone talks about it as a negative thing. I think there are certain things I don’t understand or that they are wrong.

Instructor: Anger is a negative emotion. In its true sense is a frustrated desire. It wants something from the external world or from a reality that it can't get. Now, there are certain psychological states such as indignation, or a sense of moral and social righteousness, where something has been committed and it is wrong. Naturally, we feel a sense of indignation and that this is horrible and that we don't want that to exist. That type of sentiment is natural. It is a conscious quality where we feel that truly we see the state of humanity and we feel a sense of urgency―the consciousness that really is indignant, that is a sense of severity that says this is wrong. That this should not be tolerated.

But anger is a psychological element and it is something different. Anger is a negative emotion that wants to harm others, but even when people are committing harm the best way to resolve that is not by responding with anger, but instead severity. The consciousness is not complacent with wrong. When there is harm committed, naturally we can say that we should channel the forces of judgment from the Being, because divinity or God is not complacent with wrong. There is both mercy and justice in divinity. They find their balance within our heart.

So naturally feeling a sense of indignation towards what has been going on in the media or on the world is natural and we should feel driven to want to change that. But doing it with negative emotions, especially when we see how that ego acts and relates to others, it tends to exacerbate the condition rather than resolve it.

Instead, you can learn to be patient. Not in the sense that you are just tolerating the wrong and letting it continue, but instead you put your foot down and don't allow it. That is judgment. It is a conscious quality. Love does not necessarily mean complacency with wrong, because when you eliminate anger, you develop true love, which knows how to judge, how to act, how to behave, and how to help others. Not to perpetuate that mistake. That is real judgment.

Comment: To help answer her question better, what was it that Christ felt when he flipped over the table of the money lenders?

Instructor: Good, that is an example of the severity of the consciousness, of divinity. God isn't just some figure that punishes humanity blindly nor is God stupidly compassionate, you can say, or complacent with wrong. When Jesus was throwing the tables of the money lenders in the Bible, it refers to how we as a consciousness have to go against the moneylenders in our psyche. This is a symbol because those money lenders that have prostituted the temple of God is psychological. It is inside of us.

Audience: He didn't do it out of anger...

Instructor: He wasn't angry, but he was demonstrating something psychological as a parable. It is something symbolic. Now psychologically we have to go into our temple which is our mind and to get rid of the money lenders, that is, those defects that have taken our temple of God are in our psyche and have polluted it. We have to confront it.

Question: What role does fear play with our relationship with God?

Instructor: The word awe is a quality of the consciousness. With the Bible it is referred to as fear of God but it has been misinterpreted to mean something egotistical, like the fear that we typically feel is negative. It really debilitates conscious action. The word awe of duty, if you look at the Judeo-Christian tradition or the Hebrew Bible, you find the word fear of God known as Pehad, which means awe. To feel awe in reverence.

The word awe is something of the consciousness that feels respect for the divine and its power and respects that divinity within him or herself, because you feel awe of duty when you refrain from negative action and negative ways of being. You realize and you remember that your inner divinity is with you moment by moment. Is with you and is a part of you. To act in negative ways is to infringe on that relationship with your inner Being. That is why one feels an awe, a reverence, because if we are about to get into an argument with someone or do something violent or negative, and we refrain from acting that way, we are practicing awe of duty. The divine is peace, compassion, understanding and to not be observant of divinity in us, our mind stream, and our actions produces suffering.

One thing I'll mention is that the Being is with us here and now. Your inner divinity is always present, but the problem is that we don't have consciousness of that. As the Qur’an teaches, "Truly we are closer to you than your jugular vein." This is the divine speaking into the words of that prophet. Divinity is with us here and now and when we feel awe of duty, it means that we are not acting negatively in certain situations so that we learn to deepen our connection with the truth.

Any final questions or comments?

Comment: Just one comment about a point you brought up earlier. It’s one of the names of Geburah, which is that sphere of justice, representing that whole, left pillar of the tree; and it’s sometimes the destruction, the waging war against everything that holds us back from the inner divinity.
​
Instructor: Geburah is the quality of the divine consciousness as we teach in this tradition and mercy is the Spirit known as Chesed in Kabbalah. If you go to our website, we are going to be on the tenth lecture [of The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah] pretty soon and it talks about the Tree of Life and death.  Geburah is that sense of conscience that says this is right and this is wrong. It is severe in enacting that type of discipline. The way that we get that strength in ourselves is by meditating. Because the power of Geburah and judgment occurs spontaneously in us when we are willing to reflect and look within us to see: what are our faults? What do we need to change? By extracting the consciousness from those elements we develop true judgment and true mercy.