The particular beauty of this scripture is that it is practical. It teaches a very profound mystical science of acquiring information for ourselves, not merely with the senses of our physical experience, but with the consciousness. Some people have called that consciousness soul: the ability to perceive and to understand.
In our last lecture, we talked about the stages of meditation, the principles outlined such as in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which are also correlated within Buddhism, as well as Blavatsky's scriptures, or her translation of it. More importantly, what we want to understand in this talk today is the spiritual path known as initiation. It is a path in which by meditating, the consciousness develops its true potential and is able to understand mysteries beyond the senses, beyond physical experience, and beyond our common daily life. 
The name of this scripture is very compelling: The Voice of the Silence, the voice in the emptiness. In a state of serenity, we can perceive realities that are beyond mere physical sensation, but relate to higher states of being: divine realities, which we have been outlining and explaining throughout this course, especially in relation to this glyph of the Kabbalah: a map of being from more dense states of matter, energy, and perception, to the most refined and subtle and spiritual (above): the divine. This is not verticality in space. It is levels of being, levels experience.
Blavatsky titled this scripture, The Voice of the Silence, which is an oxymoron, a paradox. How is it that one can perceive beyond the senses or hear a voice within the silence of the mind? How can a voice be still? These are senses that are not merely physical, but she elaborates and what we will elaborate today is this extended metaphor about sound. These represent levels of being, seven sounds, seven degrees of spiritual development mapped by these lower seven spheres of this glyph of this Jewish mystical tradition. So, we will talk about what this all means practically for us. Purity vs. Impurity
In the path of initiation, which is the entrance into a higher state of being, an improved way of life, we learn to confront ourselves. What in our mind, in our daily life, is the progenitor of suffering? So that by understanding those causes, by looking and perceiving them, more importantly understanding them, we learn to change.
We study ourselves as self, which truly, in its full potential, is a dynamic thing. It is a range, but we must understand a distinct difference in the self of matter and the self of spirit. The self of matter is everything we are familiar with now: pride, anger, fear, resentment, impatience, greed, ambition, egotism―the self that wants to acquire, the desire for more, that is never happy. When getting our goal, we want more. It is an insatiable thirst, and really, according to Buddhism, desire is the root of all pain, this craving, this grasping at some type of external phenomenon or identity. But also, aversion: wanting to run away, and not only craving and aversion, but ignorance―not merely lacking book knowledge, but lacking real understanding of why we suffer and what we can do to change. 
We include an image here of St. George fighting a dragon because this is the dynamic that any practical meditator experiences for themselves, where you have the divine, spiritual, and pure consciousness which must go against the impurity of the mind―anger, as I said―ego, defects, and vices. The beginning of initiation and the purpose of initiation, the spiritual path itself, is understanding this dynamic and this difference, when the consciousness is free, is serene, is patient, is insightful, is compassionate.
It is that part of us that is still liberated and not conditioned by lower elements, that must do a type of work, a type of transformation, because part of us is trapped in these lower elements that we need to extract, like the genie from the bottle of Aladdin. That genie is the source of genius, real knowledge, real wisdom. The path itself is precisely purifying that which is impure, extracting the essence of what we are, so that our full potential is radiant and expresses our real human purpose in life. The Self of matter and the SELF of spirit can never meet. One of the twain must disappear. There is no place for both. ―The Voice of the Silence
Anger cannot mix with love, real love. Hatred cannot mix with serenity. Purity cannot mix with the impure, with desire. Obviously in the beginning, we are mixed, because we have part of us that wants to develop and change, but we also have a lot of baggage. But if we want divinity to really express in our full state, it is essential that the impure must die, as it is represented by all the mythologies about death and resurrection. For the pure spirit to be born in us, the impure must die.
Ere thy Soul's mind can understand, the bud of personality must be crushed out, the worm of sense destroyed past resurrection. Thou canst not travel on the Path before that hast become the Path itself. ―The Voice of the Silence
To understand what consciousness is requires that we suspend the personality and suspend the senses, and this is what meditation teaches, so that we can withdraw our focus within and clearly see the whole strata of our way of being, whether it is elevated above or layered. That path cannot be traveled upon unless we live it. That is the mystery of initiation.
The Ladder of Being
So, this path is leveled and layered. It is like a ladder. There are rungs and there are steps, and they pertain to different laws of the psyche.
Probably the most beautiful depiction of this is found in the Tree of Life, the kabbalah, which, again as I said, is a map of levels of being, states of consciousness. At the end of that path is what is known as the voice of the silence, which religions have called God, divinity, reality, truth. Obviously, the names are not important. The experience is. Obviously as beginners, we learn to taste temporary states of that perception, not as a permanent quality of mind, and that is the difference between developing practitioners and a master. In our level, as beginners, we can sense or experience a type of vacation. Maybe we are meditating. We fall asleep. We enter those higher dimensions known as the dream states and perceive what is really there. That is like a three-month visa: a quick trip to another country where we experience paradise. But then once the causes and conditions are exhausted, we come back. Permanent residency in those levels, in those states, is precisely the purpose of initiation, so that we become conscious of all of that, here and now, in ourselves, permanently, at will, not accidentally, but perfected. We see figures like Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Moses, and Krishna, prophets who manifested that perfectly in themselves, but it was acquired through patient work. They climbed the ladder of being, levels of being, and at every level, working on those imperfections so that at the end, the soul is free. There is but one road to the Path; at its very end alone the “Voice of the Silence” can be heard. The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed by rungs of suffering and pain; these can be silenced only by the voice of virtue. ―The Voice of the Silence
This is very beautiful. In life we suffer. It is fundamental that, by definition, we go through pain, but not willingly. We often just receive the sufferings of life without our desiring it, and that is really the First Noble Truth of Buddhism: in life there is suffering; there is pain. In the path of initiation, one voluntarily takes it on. This is the difference between a lay person and a practitioner. Instead of running away from pain, one faces it and takes responsibility of our own mistakes, so that by understanding our own limitations and taking responsibility for them, you change. Or as Hamlet said:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
Voluntary suffering. Those pains, as we see our own inadequacy and weakness, our own faults, is transformed by virtue. That real virtue is the reality of the soul: that which is not yet tarnished, dense, heavy, conflicted.
The Voice of the Silence warns about this type of practice because in this, one will face the reality of one's own mind, and it is not pleasant because we carry, even to use Freudian psychology, a subconsciousness: a part of us that we do not even know or even want to recognize, but in our studies, we want to make the subconscious conscious―to extract the soul from the abyss, and to know by inverting that chasm into a mountain of height, elevation, and wisdom. So, the beginning of the path requires real sincerity, which is why Blavatsky emphasized: 
Woe, then, to thee, Disciple, if there is this one single vice thou have not left behind. For then the ladder will give way and overthrow thee; its foot rests in the deep mire of thy sins and failings, and ere thou canst attempt to cross this wide abyss of matter thou hast to lave thy feet in Waters of Renunciation. ―The Voice of the Silence
Obviously as beginners, we have defects, ego. We have pride, elements of a negative type, but what she is emphasizing here is not that we have to be perfectly pure to enter this type of work. It means that we have to be sincere, because there are people who take religion and spirituality and want to keep their desires, meaning the attachments to whatever type of mistake, and that is primarily the reason why many traditions have become corrupt―high ideal, but the unwillingness to actually live it. That is the great drama that everyone of us has to face whenever we study any tradition or try to apply it, because it is lofty.
The way to do it is by purity of the water, renouncing. Renouncing “what I want, what I crave, what I demand, and what I deserve,” and give it entirely to divinity, so that we serve. We give to others, not for our benefit, but for humanity. Spirituality that is not based on self, but on others. That is how it is more practical. 
Twilight: Spiritual Dangers on the Vertical Path
She elaborates a little bit, Blavatsky, on the scripture, but I included some images here that have some correlations to some of the other traditions that can help give us some context.
So, I mentioned the Tree of Life, the kabbalah, and I mentioned levels of being in terms of superior states and inferior states, conscious ways of being and subconscious ways of being. I also included here an image of the tarot, which is very ancient and very beautiful. Each tarot card represents a drama, a conflict, a struggle, and a solution to particular moments and parts in our spiritual development that we have to understand, so that by looking at the numerology, the symbol, and what it represents, we understand what we need to do practically. I included this Twilight card here because we see two jackals howling at a moon. You have a black jackal or a wolf and a white jackal or a wolf, two pyramids: white and black. This is our dilemma. We have the pure self and the impure self, and they combat for primacy. When anyone enters initiation, they really begin to discover that we have a big black wolf inside, a demon, a monster. But there is also, to talk about the positive parts of this card, a light, but when they mix, it is twilight, and the outcome is not certain. We do not know who will win. Really, that is the great drama of any mythology, whether from the Greeks and Romans, the story of Aeneas in The Aeneid, The Odyssey, the Egyptian story of Horus, his death and resurrection. Many myths teach about this battle between good and evil. It is inside, and therefore, we should analyze what we want before partaking of something that will be very demanding. Beware lest thou should'st set a foot still soiled upon the ladder's lowest rung. Woe unto him who dares pollute one rung with miry feet. The foul and viscous mud will dry, become tenacious, then glue his feet unto the spot, and like a bird caught in the wily fowler's lime, he will be stayed from further progress. His vices will take shape and drag him down. His sins will raise their voices as the jackals laugh and sob after the sun goes down; his thoughts become an army, and bear him off a captive slave. ― The Voice of the Silence
Now I do not cite this to discourage people, but in reality, this is our mind. You know, we have anger and resentment and parts of us that we hold true as our Identity, or that in a situation or conflict, we just react. That is one thing that we want to change and transform, so that our soul is not covered and caked with mud, or keeps us stuck repeating the same problems, the same dramas―which is the meaning of Samsara in Buddhism, the Wheel of Becoming: Bhavachakra, in which our state of being determines our life.
But the potential to change is there. It is emphasized in the scripture as well as every religion. It just depends on what we want to achieve and what we want to work for.
The Seven Chakras
So going now into the actual path itself, we talk about the seven sounds, which is a metaphor for many things: seven spheres or sephiroth in the Tree of Life, as well as seven chakras.
Chakras are simply vortices. They are called “wheels” in Sanskrit (singular Chakra चक्र), and it means energy. So, we know from Chinese medicine, especially Qigong, and other types of practices like Tai Chi, that the physical body has its vital component, which we call in Hebrew, יסוד Yesod: the vital body. It is a part of us that circulates energy and is not physical, but psychic. We know we have vital energy when we wake up in the morning. We get up from sleep. We rest eight hours, maybe nine or ten, depending, but that vital vital energy gives us life. It is a life force. 
There are these channels that run throughout the body called meridians, and there are literally thousands or hundreds of hundreds them. When they intersect, they form a wheel. It is like when two rivers join and then you get a whirlpool. So, a chakra is just that. It is a vortex where two energy channels need. There are literally thousands of them in our vital body, even in our astral body, and mental body, whatever level of nature we are talking about.
But more importantly for us, we talk about seven main ones, which is very famous within Yoga and Hinduism. Those seven chakras are the main senses of the soul. So, by working with certain practices, we can activate these energy centers, because in most of us, they are asleep. I mean, they are folded, or they are not blooming. They are not awake, because there is no energy to spark them up or to wake them up, but we work with certain exercises to do that, to awaken them. We talk a lot in our studies about the nature of the divine feminine, the Kundalini, which in different religions has been given different names. In Christianity, it is known as the Fire of Pentecost; amongst the Hebrew kabbalists, שכינה Shekinah; amongst the Egyptians, Isis; Adonia; many names for that intelligence of the divine, which can rise from the base of the spine, which is where it sleeps, up to the head. In its journey upward, the chakras awaken, because they have fire and fuel to activate them when we know the methods. 
In that way, when you are lifting that fiery serpent or that bronze serpent that Moses raised in the wilderness to heal the Israelites from their afflictions (it is the same symbol), we start to awaken those states of consciousness within meditation, but also in dreams.
Seven sounds, seven chakras, and we use certain mantras related to the seven chakras themselves, different vowels.
That also correlates with the Book of Revelation as the seven churches in us. So, in this path we want to awaken that energy, to take it upward, so that when we awaken, it gives strength to the consciousness, so that the consciousness can work, because we often waste a lot of energy in life. But if we learn to save it physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, and psychically, we will have the reservoir in order to awaken the fire, the energy. Blavatsky emphasizes and synthesizes all of this: that this slow ascent of this fiery serpent must go upward to awaken all our senses in order to merge us with the truth. Let not thy “Heaven-born,” merge in the sea of Maya (illusion), break from the Universal Parent (SOUL) [divinity], but let the fiery power retire into the inmost chamber, the chamber of the Heart, and the abode of the World's Mother. ―The Voice of the Silence
This is the divine feminine such as we see with in Hinduism―sometimes Durga, sometimes Kali, a divine goddess, who is one part of our inner divinity itself (truth), the divine feminine. But then that energy must go further.
Then from the heart that Power shall rise into the sixth, the middle region, the place between thine eyes, when it becomes the breath of the ONE-SOUL, the voice which filleth all, thy Master's voice.
It is a very abstract language. So, when those energy centers are awakened, we learn to connect with our inner master, our inner divinity, our inner spirit. In that way, we become a walker of the sky. I do not know if a lot of you have ever had lucid dreams where you are flying, traveling to places, seeing things. You know, that is one definition, because this energy awakens that potential and you literally walk the waters, which are the energies that we carry within in all the levels of our constitution.
The Seven Sounds or Utterances of Christ
So let us actually dive into some of the deeper significance of these seven sounds.
We included the Tree of Life here and the crucified Christ, as well as his seven utterances related to His crucifixion: the cross. So, these seven sounds relate to seven initiations, seven levels of being, and each of his utterances can be a code for that level of development. So, we talked about these lower seven spheres. We have his seven statements: Relating to מלכות Malkuth, our physical body: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). We have יסוד Yesod relating to "I thirst” (John 19:28). We have הוד Hod, the emotions, the astral body. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), relating to the heart. "I thirst" relates to יסוד Yesod, which is the vital energies as I said, and we will unpack this in more detail. It is very interesting and intricate. נצח Netzach, relating to the mind: "Amen I say unto you, today you shall be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Relating to תפארת Tiphereth, or our willpower, which also can relate to our heart: "Woman, behold thy Son, Son behold thy Mother!” (John 19:26-27). Relating to גבורה Geburah, which is the strength of the Divine Soul, relating to Diving Justice: "It is finished” (John 19:30). And lastly, חסד Chesed, the Spirit, Atman in some religions, our inner divinity: "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit” (Luke 23:46). So, the point of this is that in the life of Christ, he was depicting stages of spiritual development and initiation that we can follow. I know some of this may be very, you know, elevated in the terms of raising what is known as Kundalini within these lower spheres, which are also not only just states of being, but also bodies in different dimensions. When you dream, you travel with what Blavatsky called the कामरूपा kama rupa: body of desires or astral body. We travel with that whenever we dream. But there are other states of consciousness in those states that relate to different levels. In these studies, we want to take that fire of the divine feminine, raise it within all those bodies, within all those spheres. The way to do that is mapped here, but while we may not be at that level, I will emphasize some of the psychological components of these principles because they do relate to how we become practitioners, how we live it. The Voice of the Silence emphasizes these seven steps in different ways in accordance with the seven sounds, which is an extended metaphor: Before thou set'st thy foot upon the ladder's upper rung, the ladder of the mystic sounds, thou has to hear thy voice the voice of thy inner God in seven manners. 
מלכות Malkuth: Physicality
Let us talk about the first level relating to מלכות Malkuth, just our physical body.
The first is like the nightingale's sweet voice chanting a song of parting to its mate. ―The Voice of the Silence
We can say this relates to the first utterance of Christ on the cross:
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. ―Luke 23:34
In our physical life, when we enter initiation, we suffer. In the necessary work of confronting ourselves, what we call karma kicks in. I talked about voluntary suffering in the sense that an initiate takes on challenges willingly, so that by facing hard situations, the worst is provoked in us. We are forced to confront the reality of our own negativity: pain, anger, defects that we may assume we do not have, but by looking and watching those moments, those critical instances, we do.
In this way, we realize that because we are so flawed, that other people are in the same boat. “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” By understanding that we in ourselves have elements that we do not typically control in a critical instance, we also learn to have forgiveness for others. We see that people are flawed. People are sick with anger, and defects, and vices, and we cannot judge them. In a sense, they do not know what they do. They have not been taught. They do not know how to control themselves. This verse is very deep too. There are levels to this. I explained some of the psychological components, but also relating to these seven degrees, we can talk about seven spheres in which we raise Kundalini up each body. There are also levels of initiation that are very high, connected to this too, relating to serpents of light, which is a whole other level, if you are familiar with what is called the Venustic initiations. In the Book of Matthew, when Christ was crucified, you had the soldiers who are gambling and betting over his vestures, wanting to acquire his garments because he was a bit of a celebrity: And they crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them and upon my vesture they cast lots. ―Matthew 27:35
In a sense this pertains to a level of a master, such as like Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, in which they have reached such heights of development and they approach their death, and then suddenly you have the followers fighting among themselves: “Who will now wear the vesture of Jesus? Who will now be the authority of the movement? Who will now be the next patriarch of the Gnostic Church?” You find this infighting even in the Gnostic movement―people casting lots, trying to claim spiritual authority, and this is all pride. It has nothing to do with spirituality, but it happens in every movement. It happened even with our founder Samael Aun Weor with his students and disciples trying to gain ownership of a lineage or tradition.
This is why in our studies we are very specific. We do not follow lineages. We follow our inner divinity, and we verify things for ourselves. People do not need to claim allegiance to any group. Whatever group people follow, that is good. If it helps, great. Personally, it does not matter to me so much. What matters is that we are working to forgive. “Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they do.” That is also a danger in the spiritual work itself: initiatic pride, because we see that we are having spiritual experiences like in dreams or meditation, and then we build a sense of self, like, “I know what I am talking about.” Or this pride that says, “I know about these truths.” That is a wrong attitude too. Pride cannot exist with divinity. It has to be eliminated. The spirit and self of matter cannot mix. But that vesture, symbolically speaking, the clothes we wear to impress people, but also spiritually, relate to what is called the bodies of the soul, which I kind of touched upon. Those vehicles of a being like Jesus are very pure. They have a lot of light. They transmit the light of the divine. That is why they have a lot of power, as well as their teaching and their instruction that they gave in their life. It is a strange dynamic. People are attracted to the spiritual light of a master, of an initiation, of a religion, and yet, they are also repulsed by it. It is a weird thing, because the pure recognizes that “this is divine,” and the impure says, "I do not want to change. I do not want to die," and fights, resists. This is somewhat related in the Gnostic Bible, which is The Pistis Sophia Unveiled, in which Jesus of Nazareth relates to how all the beings and the different levels of nature in the Tree of Life, the different dimensions, are agitated by the light because it is so intense and profound: And all the rulers and all those who are in the Fate, were thrown into agitation and fell on one another and were in exceeding great fear on seeing the great light that was about me. And they gazed on my vesture of light and saw the mystery of their name on my vesture and fell into still greater agitation, and they were in great fear, saying, “How hath the lord of the universe passed through us without our knowing?“ And all the bonds of their regions and of their orders and of their houses were unloosed, they all came at once, fell down adored before me and sang praises all together to the interiors of the interiors, being in great fear and great agitation. ―The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia
Very beautiful. I mean literally... personally, when I have met certain masters, what has been truly humbling and alarming is the intensity of their being, their expression, their insight. That is how, in terms of prophethood, what any person feels before those hierarchies are those levels. So, people want light, but also it is important that we eliminate the darkness, so that we gain, in our own “interior of interiors,” that light for ourselves. This is why it is emphasized in Psalms, chapter 22, verses 16 to 18, reiterating all these points about attachment to power and pride and authority:
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. ―Psalm 22:16-18
Dogs, right? Again, going back to the image of the jackal: Arcanum 18: Twilight, the card of the Eternal Tarot.
יסוד Yesod: VitalityThe second comes as the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis, awakening the twinkling stars. ―The Voice of the Silence
This relates to יסוד Yesod, which is our vital body, but also relates to what is known as the sexual energy, the creative energy, the energy of life.
We have here an image of Jesus talking to the woman at the well. In that parable, she asked about acquiring the kingdom of heaven, “What do I need to do?” That well is a symbol. The body is of the earth. The well, and our sexual energy or waters, are the waters of life, the waters of renunciation, because initiates learn to take that power and rather than create a physical child, by conserving and elevating it through a certain ritual and practice, it purifies the psyche. It is also why Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding: turning water into wine, because a married couple can harness that power in a matrimony and make it sacred. This relates to יסוד Yesod, and the Dhyanis, relating to ध्यान dhyana, “meditation” in Sanskrit, “to perceive.” This awakens the twinkling stars. Really, the stars are a symbol in the dream state of spiritual elevation, higher levels of being, wisdom, clarity of mind. In this verse, Christ was saying “I thirst,” when he was on the cross, a very deep symbol. All of us, as we are striving to work, to transform desire and lust, in reality, the mind thirsts and craves. The passions that we are trying to understand and eliminate fight like the jackal. They want to be fed. Also, the soul thirsts for divinity, and this is accomplished through the work of the creative energies. So, all these symbols in the Bible relating to water relate to how by working with that force, we can transform our mind. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” ―John 7:37-38
That water is in us. It is our creative force. There is a way to transform the energy and make it divine. It is living water because from the living waters come all of us, our body. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit” (John 3:6). We all know about birth through physical means, but in the the act of a divine matrimony between husband and wife, those waters can learn to give birth to something different―not merely through passion and desire, but there is something else.
Christ, in a sense, is synonymous, as an energy, with that life force, which can give life to our soul: For this cause have I said unto you, “I am come to cast fire on the earth” ― that is: I am come to purify the sins of the world with fire. ―The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia
In a way, in our sexual waters is fire. Obviously, when a couple is together in passion with the fires of love, the fire is in the water and in the energies, and it stimulates all of the body and the psyche. It stimulates the consciousness, but it depends how we use it. What will we do? That fire can purify. That water can cleanse when the energy is pure, transformed.
So he elaborates a little bit on the Samaritan woman at the well and how he tries to explain to her that, really, if you wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you need to be born again, in a sense. That birth, spiritually, is a sexual trope, which relates to how we take the force of life from the well of our body and learn to use it for the spirit. And for this cause have I said unto the Samaritan woman: “If thou knewest of the gift of God and who it is who saith unto thee: Give me to drink, ― thou wouldst ask, and he would give thee living water, and there would be in thee a spring which welleth up for everlasting life."
A lot of symbols here talking about spiritual birth, sexuality, and also the eucharist in the Christian faith: the transubstantiation. That transubstantiation is a symbol of how, really, we transform our body into the spirit. We take that which is carnal and passionate and make it pure and divine. Desire becomes love. It is alchemy: the transformation of the base lead of our personality into the gold of spirit. These are all symbols of the same thing.
Rather than thirsting for the next sensations or pleasures or desires, one can thirst for the spirit. But it depends on what we want, and also our situation. If you are married or not is another thing. Water into wine. The cup of wine, the waters of life that give intoxication of the spirit, because that energy, when it is harnessed for the spirit, it is what creates the intoxication of the soul, those mystical, beautiful states we talked about, and that relates to the second sound related with יסוד Yesod. And for this cause they have also thrust the sphere into my side, and there came forth water and blood. “And these are the mysteries of the Light which forgive sins,” that is to say, these are the naming the names of the Light. ―The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia
Those waters of renunciation are precisely what purified the psyche. Obviously, this is a very deep topic. We can relate to some sources if you are interested in knowing about The Perfect Matrimony, but we synthesize it here briefly. We touch upon it.
הוד Hod: EmotionalityThe next is as the plaint melodious of the ocean sprite imprisoned in its shell. ―The Voice of the Silence
You see Christ looking up crying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)"
Anyone who enters the spiritual path feels abandoned at some point, because we have moments in our life in which we are tested and tried to see what we want. What will we do in a crisis? What will we do in a challenge? So that verse is very interesting. It is like a melodious sound of the ocean sprite trapped in its shell. That is really how all of us will feel when we are trying to change and we see that we are making our efforts to radically improve our life, and yet. we face challenges and feel that we have been abandoned. That is really the cry of any initiate on the cross, who is working diligently in this science, who feels that “I am showing good faith and practice, and I feel stuck.” This is a normal step. It relates to הוד Hod, the emotions, the astral body, the heart, because that pain is in the heart, the feeling of “I have been left alone.” But in reality, we are not left alone. It is just a test, in which divinity extracts or withdraws to see: what will we do? Will we have faith? And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over “I N R I” Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaerum, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. ―Mark 15:25-26
INRI is a beautiful acrostic, meaning “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” but also In Necis Renascor Integer, “In death I am reborn intact and pure.” So, he lived with his body, his spiritual drama that we all face, whether we will overcome our pain by eliminating our own defects and therefore resurrecting as a soul, meaning, the soul is born.
And when the sixth hour was come and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And in the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calls Elias. ―Mark 15:33-35
אֵלִיָּהוּ Elijah, Ἠλίας Elias or λιος Helios in Greek, meaning the “Sun.” Christ is often related as the Son of God or the Son of the divine, meaning s-o-n but also s-u-n, the light of divinity, the truth.
From the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness, and if you study numerology and kabbalah, 6 + 9 = 15, and 15 is the devil, the temptation, where we are on our cross, feeling pain and saying, “What will I do? Will I overcome my own inner devil, my own faults?” But “With patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19).
נצח Netzach: Mentality
In this fourth step, we find the crucifixion of Christ by the two thieves.
And this is followed by the chant of Vina. ―The Voice of the Silence
This relates to נצח Netzach, the mind.
Vina is an interesting Hindu or Eastern instrument. It is like a guitar, almost, like a sitar, which pronounces certain vibrations that can help, often with meditation especially. You find it in a lot of Hindu music. What is interesting is that this is related to the chant of Vina, and it is a vibration or sound that helps with concentration of the mind.
In the path of initiation, we want to learn how to control the mind. The mind is a thief in its real essence. The mind, in a lot of us, steals attention. Sometimes we steal attention, not just physical things or money, but energy, desire, focus, other people's reputation, other people's work. The mind, which calculates and wants for itself, is a thief. But we also have a good thief. The thieves represent something side-by-side, by any initiate. There is the soul that knows how to steal the fire from the devil, meaning, the energies of our life force. Rather than giving in to passionate desire, we take it and give it to the spirit. We transform it. That is the good thief. The bad thief states: “If thou be Christ save thyself and us.” The good thief replies: “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing amiss. Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” And Jesus said unto him, “Verily I say unto you, Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” ―Luke 23:40
The bad thief is that desire that says, “I do not deserve this. I should not suffer. This is my faith. Pain came to me without my will. I do not deserve this!” We all do this. We all have this innate desire that says, “I do not deserve this.” We are like Pilate who wants to wash our hands clean, right?
Or, Caiaphas, the high priest who feels justified in tradition and beliefs, and in turn, crucifies Christ in the heart. Judas, who was an apostle, who loves God, as a symbol, represents anyone who loves religion, but loves desire more (silver coins, desire, passion, money). We all have this inside, and that is the thief that steals the energies of divinity. But we want to steal the fire from our own inner demon, right? That is why Jesus says, "Truly today you will be with me in paradise," because if we conquer our mind, really, we make great advancements, because the mind is an obstacle. Especially if you study meditation, you have tried it, you see the mind wanders. It goes from thing to thing. It is like a thief that steals our energy and time because we are not focused. That is the principle of this level of spiritual work. 
תפארת Tiphereth: VolitionThe fifth like sound of bamboo flute shrills in thine ear. ―The Voice of the Silence
This is related to תפארת Tiphereth, which is our willpower.
Our willpower needs to be liberated. “Thy will be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42). Our will needs to follow divine will, but we obviously have that autonomy and freedom so that we can prove our caliber, because divinity is not a tyrant. Why like a bamboo flute―this sound, this level, this initiation, this specific moment in the path? Bamboo is a reed, and the reed is the spinal column. In our spinal column we have seven notes, seven chakras. That wood is hollowed out like a channel so that the energies can rise up the spine. When that energy rises up our spine, we play divine music. Our ways of being are more elevated. This verse or this moment relates to when Christ speaks to John and the Virgin Mary to become family and to lead them: When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then he saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. ―John 19:26-27
What is very interesting is that the Virgin Mary represents, again, this divine feminine, the Divine Mother Kundalini. John could represent the pure soul, that is really the purest parts of Christ. Parts of our soul, which in us, are undeveloped here in מלכות Malkuth, in our body.
“Behold thy son and behold thy mother.” Become family. The Divine Mother, really, should be united with John, which is the divine verb, compassion in us. John, the terrestrial man, the human soul, must be united with the Divine Mother through the work of willpower. These are principles that relate to our psyche in our development, not merely just historical figures in terms of scripture. But that path, obviously, when we perfect our willpower, we submit to the will of God. Khalil Gibran mentioned in The Prophet―he is a famous poet―how in the work of perfecting our will, we face pain. In a sense, voluntary suffering is necessary in order to be able to play the melodies of the soul, the purity of the consciousness, the divine: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? ―Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Christ is dying on the cross and he says to the Virgin Mary, “Behold thy son, mother, and son, behold thy mother.” In a sense, it is a form of radical acceptance that he will die, or in this path, our identity will die, and therefore, what is left is the divine feminine and the Verb: John, the truth. That “Voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3).
John is the Verb. His name is even a mantra. His seven letters, Iohannes, I E O U A M S, which we talk about has seven vowels, seven sounds that relate to the spine, because those are the mantras that relate to the chakras that awaken them. So, through willpower, by working with the seven sounds (such as in the seven runic vowels), and John as a symbol, we learn to perfect our will. But there are a few more. 
גבורה Geburah: ConscienceIt changes next into a trumpet blast. ―The Voice of the Silence
This is interesting. The trumpet as the sound relates to גבורה Geburah, and astrologically, גבורה Geburah, which is divine justice, relates to Mars. This could explain a little bit why Wagner in his operas, like the Ring Cycle, such as the Valkyria, Die Walküre, which is the famous motif he plays a lot from that opera, utilizes the trumpet, the call to spiritual war:
…which is a march of the warrior women who are fighting in the way of God, of Votan, Wotan, which is the divine.
Wagner knew these teachings. So, the trumpet is a very martian sound that relates to the justice of the spirit, very militant, but not militant in the physical sense, but spiritually, a spiritual warrior. In this way, in this level of this path, we face the severity of divinity. We face sufferings. It is like a trumpet, because it is calling the soul to a spiritual war. It was also at this point when Jesus received vinegar. They give a reed, again another symbol of the spine, and a sponge full of vinegar. He says, “I thirst,” and they give him the sponge and then, obviously, if you are familiar with the story, he is very bitter and painful. That is a symbol of when we are working with our energies of our spine, that we face bitterness. It is painful. It is painful to change because we have a lot of karma, a lot of debts and defects. Also, the symbol of Golgotha, as you see, Golgotha means “place of the skull.” So, it is all these symbols relating to initiation like the reed of the spine, Golgotha is the skull, and we are trying to raise the fire, the energies of the divine feminine up the spine to the head, to the place of Golgotha, but it is a bitter process. And when they were come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. ―Matthew 24:34, 48-49
So that finality is when we pay, according to Buddhist language, karma. We have paid our spiritual debts and deeds that need to be fulfilled. We receive the actions and consequences of our former actions, and it is like vinegar because as good as we are in this life and what we are doing, we still have to face the bitterness of our own mistakes. Therefore, he says, “It is finished.”
חסד Chesed: SpiritThe last vibrates like the dull rumbling of a thunder cloud.
He died. In this level of חסד Chesed, the spirit, in order to have perfect union, all the impure psyche needs to die. It is like thunder, lightning. In dreams, thunder and lightning is a symbol of the Son of Man. “The Son of Man cometh with clouds” (Revelations 1:7). You know, the lightning is a symbol of Christ, the energy of the divine, which strikes the soul or enters the soul when the soul is prepared, but no ego, no defect must be left. The soul must be pure. That sound swallows all the others because it is finished. The work is done. One has achieved the goal of initiation.
The State of MasteryWhen the six are slain, and at the Masters feet are laid, then is the pupil merged into the ONE, becomes that ONE and lives therein. Before that path is entered, thou must destroy thy lunar body (Kama Rupa, relating to the astral vehicle), cleanse thy mind-body (known as the Inferior Manas in theosophy) and make clean thy heart. ―The Voice of the Silence
In this way, one becomes a master. Obviously, it is a very elevated and gradual process in the path, but the way that we overcome it is by understanding, we can say, five impediments, to kind of synthesize some of the things we already talked about:
Thou art acquainted with the five impediments, O blessed one (the knowledge of misery, truth about human frailty, oppressive restraints like egotism and desire, and the absolute necessity of separation from all the ties of passion and even of desires. The Path of Salvation―is the last one, which is the actual steps of the path mentioned in all religions in different forms)."
Really, we have to say that the real teacher of any master is the Being (divinity), not the personality, not the name or the face or the race or the culture or the language. It is the Being. So, divinity is the real teacher of any student, especially within oneself.
Lastly, at the end of this section of The Voice of the Silence, they emphasize: Behold! thou hast become the light, thou hast become the Sound. Thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy search: the VOICE unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE.
The mantra: OM TAT SAT!
Conclusion
So again, this is an extended metaphor. Obviously, not merely just a sound that one hears, but symbols of states of being (the verb, the consciousness), because the sound is an expression of our internal psychological content. When we speak our mind, our state is what communicates through sound, and likewise, with the level of divinity, we have perfection. So, in this work, the whole point of initiation is that we return to divinity and that we reach that state of being that is not mixed or changes with time, but is eternal. It does not mean that it is a static state. It is something that has an infinite quality, that has infinite potential and levels.
So, at this point in time, if you have any questions, I invite you to ask. Questions and Answers
Question: So, we have the image of the Tree of Life, of Allah, up there, and different phrases of Jesus that he uttered. How is it that the misinterpreted phrase: "My Father, my Father, why has thou forsaken me?" ― (which clearly does relate with the heart as you mentioned) ― how is that also to be interpreted as being the original Mayan as Master Samael says, “Now, my Father, I now merge myself into the pre-dawn of your presence”?
Instructor: It is interesting. His words that are often translated from Hebrew have a Mayan origin. "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," which in Mayan means, "I return into the golden dawn of your presence." Some people have mentioned that during the undocumented years of Christ throughout the Middle East, he traveled to many places and had knowledge of even the Mayan cultures and mysteries.
As he said, “Be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16), the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl amongst the Aztecs, or Kukulkan among the Mayans. A lot of the Mayan mythology can be used to describe what Christ taught. So, we say that he spoke Mayan because that phrase is Mayan. Now, obviously amongst the Jews, it was translated as "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," and there is that level of application, but in the opposite, there is, "My Father, into the dawn of your internal presence, I return."
Those two interpretations reflect the kind of quality of the practitioner, the state of mind one is in. A lot of times, we feel abandoned. Maybe we feel abandoned, you know, “Why have you forsaken me?“ But there are initiates who have a lot of faith. They may be suffering the maximum, but they know that this is a necessary process, and so they are patient. "My Father, I will return to the golden dawn," meaning, one will succeed. But it depends on our mind, right? I know the tendency for most most people or most of us is to maybe get dejected if we do not get the results that we want, but the proper attitude is, this is a necessary probation, “to see whether or not I will qualify.” So that is the dichotomy between the two parallels if I answered that correctly or addressed it. Question: Yeah, would it still be related with הוד Hod, that phrase? Instructor: Yeah, because it relates to הוד Hod because astrologically speaking, הוד Hod relates to the Moon, and that moon is our own mind, meaning our own desires, better said. The Moon relates to emotion, the lunar sphere. We say that the Moon is a symbol of the mechanicity of life. We know that the Moon controls many elements in nature: gestation, pregnancy, or you know, menstruation as well for women, as well the tides. Our Earth is very much bound to the Moon, and it is a symbol of our own mechanicity, the habits and desires we constantly fulfill and enact all the time, and which keep us trapped. We say that in the astral dimension, it has a lunar quality, because for most of us, because we have desire, we go to the inferior astral state, because there are two levels of the astral dimension: lunar astral / solar astral. These dimensions have a polarity: there is good and there is bad. It is positive and negative. The lunar astral is where we tend to dream most of the time. In fact, Dante called it Limbo: the first sphere of hell. We tend to go there when we dream because that is our level of being. But if we are working to change our state of mind, we can perceive the solar astral dimension, which is where only divine beings go. It is still an astral state, but it is not polarized within ego, kama, desire, rupa, the astral body. So that is the duality between the two phrases: "My God, why have you forsaken me?" It is suffering under the Moon, right? Karma. Whereas the solar aspect of that sphere of הוד Hod, we can say, "I return into the golden dawn of your presence." But how we go into those states depend on our level being. Question: In your example with Christ on the cross with the good thief and the bad thief, did the bad thief end up in the same place spiritually, even though they were on different sides? Instructor: So, you know the Bible has some ambiguous parts, right? There are some things that are just not explained. That is kind of the hard part with interpretation too, right? I think in the literal narrative, I mean, it does not say whether he goes to heaven or hell. I mean, it is implied that he is a bad thief. He is a bad thief, and I think, do not quote me, but I am not sure what the Catholic theology would say where the bad thief would go because of his selfish actions. But we know the good thief, obviously from Christ's utterances that, you know, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” meaning, when our mind is no longer lunar, mechanical, a bad thief, we transform our our mind from a lunar vehicle to something solar and pure, meaning spiritual. That is a mind that can go into heaven, because you cannot pour new wine into old wineskins (Matthew 9:17), in a sense, parabolically, right? It is like, you want to have this kind of spiritual insight. We have to transform what we are into something different. You need a new flask, a new mind, that can really receive those spiritual truths from our inner divinity, and not just from a lecture or from a book, but from our experience, because the mind in us is habitual, conflicted. It is a bad thief. But we strictly state that the bad thief does not go to heaven because he does not belong there. The bad thief is our desires that relate to these inferior spheres, which is called קְלִיפּוֹת Klipoth in Hebrew, which is the infernal worlds. It is hell, the way that our mind is now. You look at society and our mind creates the society that we live in. It is a place of suffering. So, if we want to go to heaven, we have to get rid of the garbage and create a new mind. 
This is kind of the symbol of even The Wizard of Oz story. The scarecrow needs a new mind. Carlos Collodi―no it wasn't Carlos Collodi, I do not remember the author who wrote the actual books [Editor: L. Frank Baum], but he encoded in that folktale: you need a new heart (Tin Man) you need a new mind, נצח Netzach (scarecrow), you need courage, new will (the lion). It is a children's story, but it has a deep myth to it, right? But yeah, in synthesis, the bad thief cannot go to heaven, only the good thief. Steal the fire from the devil, the devil has no power. We go up.
Question: You mentioned in there the wine and the blood. I remember in the scriptures, it says, “Drink of this wine, for it is my blood,” and I have a couple of questions too actually. The blood is drank from a chalice, is that the Holy Grail? And the other question is, isn't drinking blood, satanic? Instructor: Symbols. Question: Why do they have it in the Bible and why do the Catholics and Orthodox always drink? Whenever I go... this is a satanic ritual. Why am I being a part of this? (laughter). That is what is in my mind. Instructor: It is a symbol. Question: So are we actually supposed to drink blood. Is that it? Instructor: No. It is a symbol of something higher. People interpret it literally, and it can become absurdities, but symbolically, the blood of Christ is the Christic energy. We have the energy in our blood. It circulates in our body, especially if we are married and aroused, the fire is activated. But will we turn that blood into the wine of Christ? Meaning, the blood activates the sexual energy in the couple, and it does not mean that the symbol means drink the [physical] blood of Christ. It is a symbol of, in taking the the energies from the act itself. Transform a base substance into something pure. Transform the lead of the personality to the gold of the spirit. It is alchemy. Question: And that is the Holy Grail? Instructor: The Holy Grail is the woman. The Holy Grail are the sexual organs of the woman. The spear that pierced the side of Jesus is the phallus. Those two symbols are present at the crucifixion of Christ. Because a man and a woman, if they know how to work together and be pure, transform their act into the sacrament of Rome (amore)? You transform, literally, the energies in your body, which is like blood, into the light. Water into wine. It is energy, not literal. You know it is the energy, right? You circulate it and it is like your soul consumes the forces that you first conserve, but then transform, and that gives you power. That gives the power of a real priest, because the power of a real priest, coming from the Indo-European word: magush, magushan, magician. A mage is a real priest. A real priest has power, and that power is when they are saving their energies and elevating them. [We also accumulate Christic force by performing the Eucharist in our homes, officiating as priests and priestesses of the Gnostic Church.]
[We also accumulate Christic force by performing the Eucharist in our homes, officiating as priests and priestesses of the Gnostic Church.]
We do not preach abstinence. Obviously, that is a whole other thing. But how do you not only conserve the energies but transform it? That's the thing, and then really, those rituals like the Eucharist or Communion, really those rituals will have power if the priests have their energies present and they are circulating it and working with it daily. But unfortunately, we know, a lot of priests in our modern era do not know anything about these mysteries. They do not respect or work with the Divine Mother, the creative force. Yeah, not literal… Question: So, going back to desires causing suffering. Is it possible to have desires to accumulate for the benefit, like to serve humanity... amassing it so you can become stable enough to serve? Is it possible? Instructor: Yeah. It is easy to develop good egos. Honestly, it is like in the beginning of our path, we try to eliminate the bad: anger, pride, resentment, fear, lust. But as we are really working in a spiritual tradition, what happens is that our own desires take on the flavor of the mystical, and that is where a big problem occurs. The desire for like, “Oh, because I am teaching this kind of science or helping other people understand it,” we feel pride, and it is wrong. But in a sense, one can still be doing good. We have good egos, good defects in a sense, but they are still not God. We can have a sense of charity and kindness and giving, but it is still there. Maybe not deep down in these lower depths, but it is still on the surface of Limbo. Then there are egos, defects we have, that are like Caiaphas: a big priest, but a demon. He is a priest. He loves his tradition, loves his Judaism―or could be anyone from any religion that loves their faith and could be doing great work for humanity, giving to others and serving the communities―but is a pharisee. We all have that. So, the solution is, do not stop doing those good things. Still do what you are doing, but observe. Is it my pride acting here? Is it my inner pharisee? Does my mind want to impress others? What does the mind want? That is part of the delicate analysis of good thief / bad thief. Are you going to let the bad thief win? The bad thief is really subtle. Our thief is very refined, and that is the most dangerous because at that point we see ourselves doing good for people and then we do not question ourselves. When somebody comes to criticize us, “Hey, you are actually being pretty proud here,” we get mad. We get offended, angry. Caiaphas, you remember in the story, becomes enraged. When Jesus said, “I am the Son of God,” Caiaphas ripped his vesture because he was so offended. That is a symbol of a something that is inside of us, because when the real Christ principle manifests in an initiates' deeds, the mind cannot take it and rebels. That is why the whole crucifixion happens, and it is an essential process. But yeah, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does. The left hand is symbolized, especially in the Middle Eastern tradition, the Qur’an, with the infidels, which are the egos, defects, vices, errors. The right-hand path is the path of the saints. So if you do good, you will do even better good when those egos are dead.
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