The Three Brains

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Humanity is unaware of the complete potential of the human being. This is evident when we study religion, mystical traditions, meditation, primarily because we have beings and figures who manifested the greatest ideals of humanity: compassion, selflessness, wisdom, inner strength, patience, and faith. This is a type of knowledge and experience grounded in reality, not merely in belief or a theory, but from actually knowing through experience. This is the essence of Gnosticism, the Greek word γνῶσις gnosis: knowledge from experience, from one's first-hand account and direct perception of the truth.
 
So there are beings who fully manifested that truth. We call them avatars, prophets, masters, enlightened ones, buddhas, angels,  gods. These are all different names, different terms, that point towards one reality―that we have the potential to become like that: perfect, awake, aware of reality, and primarily, the origins of suffering, the origins of pain―why we go through life on repeat, mechanically, identified with all of “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to quote Hamlet.
 
For this course, we have been explaining and discussing, precisely, the means and the methods to overcome suffering, which of course relates to what we call mechanicity, the mechanics of nature. We spoke previously about the human machine: how our body is a transformer of energy, a transformer of food, air, water, but also vitamins, chemistry, principles, forces. Our human machine, when it is well, when it is balanced, knows how to maintain a state of homeostasis, of equilibrium, of health. When we get sick, when there is a break in the mechanics of that machine, we get ill and we suffer.
 
While this is a very specific example of our human organism, we also state that our thoughts, our feelings, and our will to act, are also mechanical―in most people. It is a machine. We tend to go through our day, repeating the same thoughts, repeating the same emotions, repeating the same actions without really comprehending how our own mind, our own thinking, our own ways of behaving, produce conflict.
 
The origin of suffering is psychological. It is internal. But sadly, many people do not ever question what the origin of suffering is. In most cases, we like to externalize: that yes, perhaps a system, a type of politics or machinery is imposing on us, and that can be true to a degree. But the manner by which we respond to life has greater force, greater impact, than anything.
 
When our human machine, our body, is in balance, we have health. But likewise, the mind and the heart, when they are imbalanced, when they are afflicted with negative emotions, with anger, with resentment, with anxiety, pain, fear, pride, lust, hatred, we become imbalanced beings. We are afflicted, and we go through life indulging in these negative habits, these qualities of mind, these conditions, which make us repetitive, mechanical, machines.
 
But there is a way out of suffering. This is what every religion teaches: how to cease being a machine, a mechanical being, so that those energies which come to us from nature, from our food, from the water we drink, the air we breathe, the impressions we take into our mind, those become transformed with consciousness, with attention, with awareness.
 
In that transformation, we have understanding of life. We don't go through life suffering, repeating the same mistakes, and not knowing the origin of pain. For example, perhaps at work a person insults us. The impression of that comment enters our mind and then there is a transformation that occurs in the moment. Suddenly, we have a surge of emotion, a surge of thought, that “This person insulted me.” It could be pride, but it also can be anger.
 
This is an egotistical reaction. It is a condition of mind that we typically do not question. We do not look at the origin of that process, of that mechanicity, of that machinery, so that, to that person, we respond, or better said, we react unconsciously, with anger or resentment, or criticism. And then suffering continues. This is the concept of samsara in Buddhism: cyclical existence, cycling, repetition, being on repeat, like a broken record.
 
But there is a way out of those types of situations and sufferings, to cease being mechanical. In the moment that person says a negative word, insults us, says something painful, but if we were awake, aware as a soul, as a consciousness, we can see and understand that the person who insults us is in suffering. They are afflicted with the disease which is ego, egotism, and a sense of self that is the origin of pain. By learning to understand the other person and the source of their pain―perhaps they have a tragedy in their life, a suffering, a conflict in their home―much of our own personal investment in that comment ceases, dissipates, is calmed.
 
In that way, we have peace. We have understanding. We have serenity, because if we are not aware of how our own mind reacts, and if we don't question our own reaction, we give in to that element. We call that ego, egotism, desire, negativity, conditions of mind. But in order to achieve that type of transformation, it requires a lot of intelligence, a lot of effort, a lot of will.
 
Precisely, it requires methods of transformation. There are techniques by which we can achieve that state moment by moment, day by day. But if we are content with our state, obviously we don't question where does our pain come from. This is why many people never approach a type of spirituality, or meditation or studying. But people who do, feel an inquietude, a longing to change, and that quality originates from our divine nature, which is Being, divinity, presence, which is not outside, but in the heart.
 
So the purpose of this lecture is to examine how to connect with divinity with precise methods, with intelligence, with wisdom, so that when we face specific conflicts in life, we transform them. We do so with understanding, with intelligence. We reduce our own negative reactions and transform them into comprehension, into peace. 

The Three Brains and Nervous Systems

The way that we examine this process is by examining what we call three brains.
 
As we began our meditation today, we talked about the human machine, the human body as a temple. Our body is a temple with three floors, and in some Buddhist artwork, you can see traditionally, especially in the map of the nine stages of meditative concentration, a Buddhist monk ascending up a winding path, leaving a pagoda with three floors. In those traditional paintings, this is a representation of the human machine. Three floors: thought, feeling, and action―thought relating with our head, emotions with our heart, and will with our spinal column. We call these three brains.
 
A brain traditionally is associated only with the intellect, the cranial vault, the cerebral matter, but in profound esoteric studies, a brain is defined by a type of machine. It is a processor of force, of action, of intelligence, of will. A brain processes, physically, nutrients, chemicals, molecules, processes, vitamins, foods, etc. A brain has its material component within different aspects of our body, but on a deeper level, a brain in esotericism refers to how we process thought, emotions, and will.

The first brain is enclosed within the cranial vault (our head, our spinal column. This is known as the cerebral spinal nervous system). The second brain concretely corresponds to the central medulla, the dorsal spine with all of its nervous branches (this relates with the grand sympathetic nervous system, the heart, our emotional qualities, the nerves). The third brain is not located at some specific place nor is it related to a specific organ; indeed, the third brain is constituted by the sympathetic nervous plexuses and, in general, by all the specific nervous centers of the physical organism (this is known as the parasympathetic nervous system). ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So the nervous systems in our body is a type of fluidic, material component that helps the body to transmit information. But in us, this tends to be very mechanical, unconscious. We are not aware of the process, usually of thought. This is evident in our daily life.
 
In most cases we tend to think mechanically. We are washing dishes and we are thinking of something else. We are on the “L,” we are riding the train, we are thinking of other things, and then if we were to snap to attention, in the moment, we forget what we were even thinking about. The mind was wandering. Our thoughts were elsewhere. Likewise, with emotion, the emotional brain, the heart. We are processing emotions and feelings, and sometimes we may not be even aware of why we are sad, or upset, or angry, or anxious, but that we are compelled by this mood in the emotional center without knowing why. That means that we are profoundly asleep.
 
We don't know why we think what we do, why we feel what we do, and also in relation to the third brain: the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, which is the spine, the sexual organs and the base of our head, or base of our neck―we usually don't understand why we act in certain ways, and this could be evident by extreme cases such as in a crisis.
 
In a moment, we have to act, respond to a very serious situation, but perhaps we mistakenly behave in the wrong way. We make an error and later we reflect, “Why did I do that? Why did I act mistakenly in that instant?” We may feel remorse, pain.
 
So these three brains, these three machines: the intellectual brain, the emotional brain, the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, these are mechanical instruments that can process negative qualities of mind, or if these centers are pure, can reflect divinity. And this is the essence of why we study the three brains, why we study the nervous systems, because it tells us our level and quality of being.

​Equanimity within the Three Brains

I have been giving you examples of how our own egotism, our own negativities, our conditions of mind, misuse our thinking, our emotions and ways of acting. But we have to understand too that these three brains, these machines, are receptive when they are calm, through states and practices such as meditation.
 
In most people, our thoughts tend to be very chaotic, sometimes our life. Our emotions can be up and down depending on the situations of life, and our behaviors can be conditioned or negative depending on the degree of the person. If you examine yourself in meditation, you sit down and relax. You observe your mind. Observe your heart. Observe your body. What we usually find is a lot of chaos: thoughts all over the place, wandering. Emotions surging with pain. The body tense, sick, agitated, wanting to move. There is no stillness. This means that our three brains are imbalanced. They are not operating in an optimal way, and the way that you figure that out is by observing.
 
In our meditation, we were relaxing, looking. That means that our consciousness, our soul, our Essence, our buddha-nature, is actively looking inside at the origin of thought, the origin of feeling, the origin of will or impulse―not trying to repress the mind, the heart, the body; not trying to justify what we see either: to defeat it, to strengthen it, but looking. This is the key of awareness, which many teachers like Eckhart Tolle, many Buddhist philosophers, many Muslim, Christian, Jewish mystics all point towards. They all teach that we need to observe our human machine.
 
Observe the origin of our qualities of being, so that by looking at them, we can see. Is this thought correct? Is this emotion correct? Is this action correct? And so when you work to look inside, we start to awaken perception. This is the meaning of religion, to awaken consciousness, to awaken the soul, so that by first acquiring serenity of mind, heart, and body, we learn to access types of experiences, which are not normal, not accessible to the average lay person. These are mystical experiences. These are connections with the divine, because in the meditation, we are looking to calm the mind.
 
The mind, when it is clear like a lake, when there is no rippling of thought or agitation, likewise with the heart and the body, and when you physically fall asleep, let your body rest, but your consciousness is awake, you can experience states of being in the dream state, but not dreaming, not unconscious, but to be awake in that world, so that you want to communicate with what religions called divinity, whatever the name. That way, we acquire knowledge and intelligence, understanding, experience.
 
But to do that, we have to take care of our human machine, our nervous systems. Eat well. Drink good water. Take care of our body. Exercise. Meditate. Relax the body. Relax the mind. Relax the heart. Learn to observe and be aware throughout the day at what reactions emerge in us in a relation to certain situations. In that way, we transform our state. Also, learn to take in good impressions of life: exercise, sports, soothing music, activities that help to balance these centers so that they are calm; they are serene.

​Energy, Tantrism, and the Infinite

So this trinity is very important within many religions. We have an intellectual brain, we have an emotional brain, and we have a sexual brain, sometimes referred to as the brain of action, movement, instinct, which is synthesized in the base of our sexual organs, but also the spine.
 
In Buddhism they spend a lot of time talking about tantra, which simply means continuum, and as you see here in this image of a man and woman, you find the symbol of the holy eight, the infinite, in which all the forces of these centers or parts of our machine are circulating energy properly. The energies rise from the sexual glands, go to the heart, to the brain, likewise circulating back again to the heart, then the sexual glands.
 
In Buddhism, there is a plethora of scriptures and teachings relating to how we use energy. It is one of the most important aspects of that tradition, especially, one of the highest levels of teaching, because how we use our energy determines our health mentally, emotionally, physically. How we take care of these three brains determines everything, determines a state of mind that is conducive for meditation, but also awakening within internal states, which we call the dream state, the dream world.
 
The Dalai Lama spoke a lot about the importance of energy, how we use our energy, because if we invest our energy in negative thoughts, negative emotions, negative will, we deepen suffering. But likewise, if we learn to understand how these energies work through awakening, through meditation, we learn to process those forces in a conscious way.

In the view of Tantra, the body's vital energies are the vehicles of the mind. When the vital energies are pure and subtle, one's state of mind will be accordingly affected. By transforming these bodily energies we transform the state of consciousness (we awaken. We attain states of experience which are very profound). It is vital to understand and develop the conviction that consciousness has the potential to increase to an infinite degree. ―The 14th Dalai Lama

This is paralleled in the teachings of the Christian Gospels, especially by a very famous verse in the Book of Mark, chapter 12 verses 28 to 34, in which a lawyer, I believe, asked Jesus of Nazareth, who is a great master of meditation, about what is the highest commandment. What is the highest teaching that one can follow to really obtain the meaning of religion? Which is from the Latin religare, “to reunite,” reunion with divinity. 

Regarding the First Commandment, Jesus answered, "The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: Jehovah Elohim our God, Jehovah Elohim is one.” ―Mark 12:29

So that term Jehovah Elohim is Hebrew. It refers to the teachings of Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah, which we study in this school and also in our courses. You may be familiar with what is called the Tree of Life, which is a map of the soul from the lowest levels of materiality to the highest. So that map is a means of understanding experiences in meditation.
 
As I said, you can awaken and dreams and you enter those dimensions when the physical body is asleep, so that you can converse in those worlds with your own divinity, which the mystics of Kabbalah call Jehovah Elohim: a beautiful name.

And you shall love Jehovah Elohim your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all your mind, and with all of your strength. ―Mark 12:30

So notice here, this excerpt is talking about the three brains. To love one's God with one's thoughts, one's emotions, ones will, one's energy. These are the three brains.
 
What does it mean to love God in that way? It means that when we are at work, and we are criticized and we feel anger boiling inside, wanting to react, to say something hurtful, negative, instead, we love divinity by being aware of that element and not acting on it, but having compassion, by acting ethically for the benefit of others. This is the sacrifice of one's negativity, and is the beginning of religion. We do not act on negative qualities because it harms others, but also in a basic way, it harms ourselves. We create problems. And by loving God―or loving, better said, our Being, our presence, that quality of mind that is compassion, selflessness, understanding―we deepen that and cultivate that quality.

The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these. ―Mark 12:31

So this is the essence of the Christian Gospel, “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If we feed anger, we don't love our neighbor, we instead love pain. And in that way we produce and contribute to all the sorrows of humanity. 

​The Path of Balance and Vital Currencies

So it's important that we understand that the three brains, in ancient cultures, were always cultivated, were always developed in a balanced way. For those of us here who have perhaps worked in education, might know that in the modern era there is a profound emphasis on the intellect at the exclusion of everything else. And this is a great problem with academic knowledge today. It does not take into consideration the need to balance everything: the emotions and our body in harmony. Usually there is too much emphasis placed on memorization, rote knowledge, intellect, but of course, the ancient societies and cultures knew that in order to really develop a balanced person, a happy person, all three brains must be cultivated, balanced, developed.
 
This is because each brain has its fuel, has its energy, and if you have studied teachings like that of Gurdjieff, the Fourth Way schools, they talk a lot about what is interestingly called Bobbin-Kandelnosts. This is a language from the internal worlds. It's a term that refers to vital currency, vital money―not material, but energy.

The intellectual brain has its currency, its energy, its fuel. Likewise the heart, the emotional brain. Likewise the spine, the body, our movement, our sexuality has a type of energy and fuel that it needs to operate effectively. When those values are abused or spent, then the car doesn't drive, doesn't operate well.
 
If the intellectual brain is abused, meaning, too much energy is being spent in the mind through too much intellectual activity, that produces mental imbalances, sicknesses, diseases such as schizophrenia, delusional disorders, qualities of mind that are very common in this humanity.
 
Likewise with the heart. If the emotions are churning with negative qualities, with anger, with resentment, people develop emotional sicknesses: depression, anxiety, fear, of which the medical profession is very aware of.
 
And likewise, the abuse of the motor brain, too much movement, too much exercise, that is out of balance―people become physically ill, paraplegic, incapacitated, in a wheelchair.
 
The ancient societies, whether of Greece, Rome, Chaldea, Babylon, these cultures knew in their heart, in their origins, that the three brains must be balanced, must be harmonized. Because if we waste our money, esoterically speaking, we spend too much money or vital values from our intellect, we become sick in the mind. Likewise, the heart and the body.

The great law has wisely deposited within each of the three brains of the intellectual animal a definite capital of vital values (Bobbin-Kandelnosts). ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So we explained previously in this course how we are intellectual animals. The word animal comes from anima, meaning “soul,” to “animate,” to have life. And we know from the animal kingdom that they have behaviors such as competition, pride, resentment, anger, etc. Those belong to the animal kingdom. Because we have an intellect, we rationalize, we think, we are intellectual animals with the potential becoming truly human, a perfected being like Jesus, like Buddha, Moses, Krishna.

Saving such capital prolongs life, whereas squandering such capital produces death.
 
Even if this seems incredible, the truth is that―within each person―death is processed in thirds. It has already been demonstrated completely that every illness has its basis in one of the three brains. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So we explain this how abusing the mind relates to mental illness, emotional illness, physical illness. ​

The basis of a fundamental education lies in the intelligent cultivation of the three brains. In the ancient mysteries of Babylon, Greece, India, Persia, Egypt, etc., students received direct, integral information for their three brains by means of precepts, dances, music, etc., intelligently combined. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So it's not enough just to have a hodgepodge of activities, but better said, to be used with balance and harmony. This is the origin of ancient theater, Greek theater, even British theater. Or exercise, sports, competition, music, art, painting, sculpture, etc.

The theaters of ancient times were part of education. Drama, comedy, and tragedy in combination with special mimicry, music, oral teaching, etc., served to place information within the three brains of each individual. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

This type of teaching used to be spiritual. The ancient schools of mysteries, of Gnosticism, from whatever continent, always taught a spiritual wisdom of how to awaken the soul from its state of slumber, from its ignorance. It did that in the form of art, music, sculpture, painting, poetry, etc.
 
Unfortunately in these times, much of our art, theater, dance, etc., has forgotten this, but the origins and reason why these media existed was to communicate something profound. And if you are interested in learning more of how these spiritual teachings were present in different traditions, we have a whole course dedicated to Opera, called The Secret Teachings of Opera, in which we explain the symbolism of certain artwork to communicate these ideals, these principles.

At that time, students did not abuse the thinking brain, since they knew how to intelligently use their three brains in a balanced way. ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So again, the human machine is made of thought, feeling, and will, impulse, instinct. We spoke previously about ego, egotism, desire, the mind. The word ego in Latin means “I.”
 
Of course in modern pop psychology, we like to think that someone who has a big ego is somebody who is very proud or likes to put themselves before others. But in esotericism, the word ego is more profound and in fact relates to everybody. The sense of self that says “me, myself, I: my feelings, my culture, my race, my identity, my sexuality, my beliefs, my theories, my politics―me, myself, I.” That is ego, the sense of self we have now―egotism, ego, the sense of identity we have―is conditioned, unfortunately, but there is a way to transform that mechanicity, those negative qualities into something creative, something intelligent, that is for the benefit of oneself and others.
 
The “I” operates through our three brains. Sometimes we refer to this as five centers as we explained in the previous lecture: the intellectual center, the emotional center, and then through the spinal column: the motor-instinctive-sexual centers.
 
Movement relates to our spine at the top, because if someone is injured at the top of the spine, they can't move. They can't act. They have no ability to operate well.
 
You have instinct at the base of the spine, which is related to our animal inheritance, our animal past. Animal qualities like pride, resentment, etc., survival instinct.
 
And then sexuality relating to our glands.

The Ego and the Five Inferior Centers 

So our ego:

Our "I" exercises control over the five inferior centers of the human machine. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

So as we stated, our own negativity, our conditions, our egotism, uses our thoughts, feelings, and will to operate. Of course, in those examples I provided you, when we react to life in a negative way, in a conditioned way, it is because of ego.
 
The ego is operating through our heart, through resentment, but also has thoughts. “This person wronged me,” and then the will to act, the will to behave, to respond with criticism. So notice that ego, each desire, each fault, has its own thinking, its own feeling, its own will, its own ways of behaving.
 
We also explained that the ego is not one. It is not an individual self, but it is multiple. Every defect: pride, resentment, anger, fear, lust, desire, is a multiplicity. It is a fracturing. This is very easy to see in ourselves if we are honest. In one moment, we may love somebody, in the next moment, we hate them. We like to attribute that quality to an individual identity. This is the failure of Western philosophy: to think that the self is unitary. This is a big mistake, which the Eastern religions and traditions understand is at fault, because in Buddhism, they always talk about some samskaras, kleshas, veils, conditions of mind, aggregates, defects.
 
Pride is a different ego. Fear is a different ego, hatred, etc. These are senses of self that don't have any order, and if you observe your mind, you pay attention, you can see that process in yourself. It is not pleasant to recognize that we are a multiplicity, but it explains many of our own contradictions. But of course, there is a way out, to acquire what we define as genuine individuality, which is sacred.
 
Real individuality is like that of a prophet, a self, a being that has no errors, no faults, no anger, no anger, no pride. They disintegrated the ego. And this is the meaning of the great religious battles within Christianity, Judaism, Islam―between God above and the devil below. This is not just about something external, but something psychological, because anger is a demon. Pride is a demon. Fear, resentment, the seven capital sins, whatever we want to refer to that as, is demonic. Therefore, we have to learn to eliminate those faults, comprehend them, so that we no longer go along with the mechanicity of life, suffering in those states. Because when you eliminate egotism, you extract the soul. You free the genie from Aladdin's lamp, in order to perform miracles in your state of mind.
 
Because when anger is eliminated, we develop sweetness and serenity. When lust is eliminated, we develop purity of body and mind. When pride is eliminated, we develop humility. When we annihilate anger too, we also develop compassion. So when the ego dies the soul is born. 
 
This is the Christian allegory of resurrection. When the impurities die, the soul is reborn. It is revitalized. It is new. So to get to that point, we study our three brains. We observe our thoughts, our feelings, and our will, to understand how they function.

Whosoever wants to dissolve the "I" must study its functionalism within the five inferior centers. We must not condemn the defects; we must not justify them either. What is important is to comprehend them. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

So this is a type of spiritual work, or as different traditions state, a type of warfare, in which one confronts oneself. This is the meaning of jihad in Islam, the esoteric meaning. It does not mean to kill someone who is not of your faith, but psychologically, we confront the causes of our own suffering.
 
We must not repress what we see, neither justify them. One must comprehend these elements. It is not enough just to label something and push it away, to not look at that state. And of course, it is very difficult to do. It's very unpleasant, because the mind doesn't like to acknowledge its faults. This is well known within the counseling profession, psychology, in terms of repression, where clients do not like to look at the origin of their traumas, their pain, their suffering. This is the type of resistance in the mind not to see that.
 
Neither must we justify our faults.To say, “Well that person deserved my comments, my resentment, because they wronged me.” This is also a wrong state of mind. We have to comprehend how those elements function in us. This is comprehension. This is understanding, because when you comprehend an error, you can work towards its elimination, and then we have peace, understanding. This is a the method for awakening, direct perception, awareness. ​

It is urgent to comprehend the actions and reactions of the human machine. Each one of these five inferior centers has a whole set of extremely complicated actions and reactions. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

This is very easy to see if you observe. For example, if you put your hand on a hot stove, you feel pain. You react. You pull your hand away instinctively. You move. And then you feel the emotions and the pain of that experience, where you feel anger, perhaps, followed by the thoughts that hurt: “I shouldn't do that.”
 
There are all sorts of complicated processes in this one moment in which our body moves. We feel. We think, but typically we don't observe that process. So the work of transformation is precisely beginning with awareness, self-observation: observing one's mind, emotions, etc., from a state of equanimity, of dispassion. Neither looking to judge, nor to label, nor to repress what we see, but simply gather data about our states of mind. And in that way we comprehend the origins of suffering. ​

The "I" works with each one of these five inferior centers. Therefore, by deeply comprehending the whole mechanism of each one of these centers, we are on our way to dissolving the "I.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Or to use Christian terms, dissolving satan, the lower soul.

​The Different Paths of the Three Brains 

In the process of developing the three brains, we also talk a lot about different types of paths that existed. There have been paths in the world that had become firm traditions. 

Fakirism: The Path of Physicality

There are people who simply want to develop their body, the ability to overcome pain, pleasure, sensations, impulse, instinct. We call that fakirism, and you find a lot of these cults exist today, where people are only dedicated to the body, overcoming pain, such as walking on hot coals, simply because they want to prove that they can dominate the physical body.
 
But of course, the problem with this path is that it is extreme. It is unnecessary. It develops will, but it does not develop understanding. The ability to overcome pain is not the not the primary focus of real spirituality. So in fakirism, people lie in a bed of nails. There are people who, literally fakirs raising their hand for 15 years until they lost all nerves and feeling in their arm, so that they couldn't move it.
 
The point and the question is, why do that? What's the point? Because they felt that by controlling the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, the body, that somehow they were going to reach God, divinity. Of course, this is a mistake.
 
Fakirism is very limited, unnecessary. Spirituality is not predicated on overcoming pain, physically. It is not the whole gamut of self-transformation.

​Monasticism: The Path of Emotionality

Likewise, there is the path of emotionality, of monks, monasticism, emotion. There are people who feel that religion is only about developing the heart: praying, going to church, performing rituals. They feel that this is the only way to God, divinity, but also this is mistaken, because the emotional brain by itself is not enough.
 
We have to cultivate the body. We have to cultivate the mind. And so, these traditions, which originally were very sacred and developed all three brains at once, were balanced, but unfortunately, with time and traditions, things become habitualized, mechanical.
 
In most churches or synagogues or monasteries, they only develop the heart through prayer, which is good. It is beautiful to develop that and necessary, but to only do that one thing is not enough.

​Yoga: The Path of Intellectuality

And lastly we have the path of intellectuality, of yoga, when we talk about the three brains. This is the path of scriptural study, the intellect, because when you study meditation, you have to read about it. You have to learn from somebody what the steps are, what the principles are, what the path is. Many people feel that simply by reading books and studying with the intellect is enough. But unfortunately, this is also mistaken, because people who tend to read a lot at the exclusion of the heart and the body become imbalanced.
 
Becoming a giant library or walking library still can't resolve the problems of suffering, because having a lot of intellectual knowledge doesn't make one wise. Instead, knowledge that is applied to practice is wisdom, is essential.
 
These three paths related to the three brains. These are the lower paths that relate to spiritual traditions.

Energy and the Tree of Life

On the image here we have the Tree of Life, which is the Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah. This is a map of different levels and gradations of energy, of materiality, of perception, and we use this glyph in this course and in these studies because they teach us about ourselves. It is a map of the soul of where we are and what we wish to achieve.
 
This image can be used to interpret any tradition, any religious cosmogony. It is associated typically with the science of numbers. So you notice that there are ten spheres here: three trinities and one sphere below at the bottom. If you are familiar with Christianity, we know that they are very identified with the Trinity itself, which we call Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Or to use Egyptian terms: Osiris, Horus, Isis. Amongst the Nordics: Wotan, Baldur, Thor. These are principles, not people. These are forces. These are energies that exists inside of us, which we can learn to cultivate if we know how.
 
Below that trinity we have seven spheres which are very important for our practical development. At the bottom, we have our physical body, physical energy.
 
We also have vital energy, creative energy, sexual energy.
 
We have emotional energy.
 
We have mental energy.
 
We have energy related to volition or will.
 
Then we have energy relating to consciousness, conscious perception.
 
And then we have the spirit, spiritual force.
 
The term spirit in strict esoteric language is Being, is divinity. It is the divine in us, the highest, or one of the highest forms of force, which we seek to practice and develop through our exercises that we have in this tradition.
 
It is important to remember that while we want to balance our three brains, while we want to use the energy as well, simply holding onto energy is not enough. Saving energy is not enough.
 
We talked a lot about in alchemical traditions, European traditions, how one must become hermetically sealed, according to hermetic philosophy. It is a very old tradition, which is depicted through symbols. Hermeticism means to not let out any energy at all, neither to waste energies of the mind, the body, or the heart.
 
What is important is that while we save energy, by not acting on ego, by performing spiritual action, compassionate action, we also learn to direct that energy with will, with perception, with understanding. That is the key.
 
Comprehend how the energies of thought work. Comprehend how the energies of emotion work. Comprehend how the energies of instinct, movement, and sexuality work. That is how we become a Tree of Life, a Christmas tree that is illuminated with perfection, because without energy there is no light, no force. 
 
We can say that our intellectual brain relates to mental energy, the sphere below, the fourth of the bottom. And of course, in strict Hebrew terms, these are called sephiroth, which means emanations, spheres. Sephirah is singular. So this sephirah, relating with the mind, is the fourth in the bottom. It is our intellectual brain.
 
We also have the emotional brain, relating to the left, the third sephirah from the bottom.
 
And likewise, we have movement related to our physical body.
 
We have instincts relating to our will, our impulses, our ability to act in life.
 
And we also have creative-sexual-energy. These constitute the motor-instinctive-sexual brain.
 
It is important to remember that yes, we must save energy, but we have to know how to use the three brains, which is why Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition states the following in The Great Rebellion:

No matter how much we might increase our strictly mechanical energy, we will never awaken consciousness.  ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

So that means by controlling the body through fakirism, overcoming sensation, the body, movement, one does not awaken.

No matter how much we might increase the vital forces within our own organism, we will never awaken consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

That relates to vital breath and yoga. If you are familiar with yoga, they talk a lot about pranayama: interchangeable nostril breathing, in which you circulate vital force, prana, in Sanskrit meaning life: the life energy throughout your body, your mind, your heart. It is not enough just to work with that energy, to circulate it. It is important, but it is not the entirety of what one must do to obtain yoga.

Many psychological processes take place within us without any intervention from the consciousness.  ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This relates to emotion, the heart. So notice that consciousness is not the body. It is not physicality. People like to think superficially, in American culture and also abroad, that we are the body, that our appearance determines who we are, and sadly this is what many people believe. But the reality is that we are not the body, because we operate in the body. People often look at others and say, “I wish I could look as beautiful as that person.” It means that we are not the body, because we're thinking outside of that.
 
Neither are we the vital energies that we have within in us. We need vital energy to operate, to be awake physically. Sometimes in the morning, we have more energy, or in the evening we feel tired. That relates to our vital forces.
 
And likewise our emotions, our emotional energy. We tend to invest a lot of our identity into it. We tend to feel that we are really our emotions, whether it be anger, pride, resentment, etc. However, in strict spiritual terms, our emotions are not the consciousness, the soul. The soul is even deeper than those qualities.

​So “Many psychological processes take place within us without any intervention from the consciousness.” This is something we have to discover for ourselves by observing our mind, our heart.

However great the disciplines of the mind might be, mental energy can never achieve the awakening of the diverse functions of the consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Meaning: reading a lot, studying a lot―having a lot of theory and knowledge in the mind. It is good. It is important, but it is not the totality of what we need to awaken the soul.

Even if our willpower is multiplied infinitely, it can never bring about the awakening of the consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

So it is admirable that one has a lot of will in life, to survive and to thrive, but having will is not enough. Will has to be directed by our inner Spirit. As Jesus said, "Father if it is possible, take this cup of bitterness from me, but not my will, but Thine be done." So we have the will to go up towards higher states of being, or to go down. It depends on our actions. But even if we have a lot of willpower in life, it is not exclusive of the other spheres. Willpower is important, but even that must be directed and balanced, because notice that willpower, volitional energy, is at the very center. 

It is very important, because if you take this image of the tree, you put it in a human being, you find that the top trinity relates with the head, the middle trinity relate to the heart, the lower trinity relates with our thighs and our sexual glands. The lower sphere (Malkuth) relates to our feet.
 
Our willpower can also relate to our heart, our emotions, especially in a higher sense. And so volition determines where we go. How we behave and how we act with will determines everything. That is why it is a much more subtle and refined element and very difficult to pinpoint, but something we can experience. Our will can either follow our divinity, or negativity and egotism. So willpower is not enough. It has to be directed.

All these types of energy are graded into different levels and dimensions, which have nothing to do with the consciousness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Which is the sixth sphere from the bottom to the top in the left pillar.

Consciousness can only be awakened through conscious work and upright efforts. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

So in our tradition we have a lot of practices that we use to develop the intellect, the emotions, and our body. We have yoga practices. We have sacred sounds or prayers, mantras. We have yogic positions. We have teachings of tantra, sexuality, marriage, matrimony, working with creative force, pranayama. We have exercises called the runes, which relate to the Nordic alphabet, in which we put our body into certain positions in accordance with the letters of the runic letters, in order to assimilate energy and force, to awaken the soul. We have meditative practices too, many. We use all these exercises in balance because they all take these forces and cultivate them in a conscious way.
 
Having a lot of energy is not enough in life. We can have a lot of vitality, will to act, a lot of energy in the mind, the heart, but we have to learn how to use that potential in a very intelligent way, which is the meaning of this quote.  It doesn't mean that we have to disregard these forces below the consciousness. It means that we know how to use them. Because remember the soul is like a person driving a car. These spheres, these energies relate to how our car operates, our body operates. A person can have a lot of fuel in their car, but they can be reckless with their attention and they can get into an accident. So if we know how to drive our car well, take care of the car, feed it good fuel, that is what we drive to our destination.

The Three Factors

All this is synthesized in the Passion of Jesus who came to represent, with his physical life, these principles. So one thing is the man of Jesus of Nazareth who existed, who taught humanity a very vital teaching, and one thing is what he symbolized. He represents a type of willpower, of conscious work, that is: the ability to overcome all suffering, as we saw in the Passion, of his Crucifixion. He was ridiculed, spat upon, mocked, humiliated, beaten, tortured, killed. And yet throughout that entire time, he only said “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” So he was very conscious, had no pride, no anger. And he was showing a type of work that overcomes adversity.
 
Perhaps in life we have our own passion to go through, our own crucifixion, which is very painful, where we face ordeals and circumstances that are very difficult. But by learning to develop compassion, eliminate mistaken states of mind, we balance our three brains.
 
In the Book of Matthew chapter 16 verse 24 you find the principles of the three brains represented.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” ―Matthew 16:24

We call these three factors of spiritual awakening.
 
Birth, which means give birth to the soul. Learn to conserve your energy, especially the creative sexual energy, and then learn to direct it with will. We do that through exercise of yoga, the perfect matrimony, pranayama, many exercises, to take that energy, and instead of expelling it, we learn to conserve it, transform it. It gives birth to the soul. It awakens the soul.
 
But also one must deny oneself, meaning: negate all the impure qualities of the heart, as we have been explaining extensively.

And also to follow him, or divinity. So it is important to remember that we are not predicating or pushing for the worship of the physical personality of Jesus. Instead, he represents what in Gnostic terms is called Christ, which is an energy. And if you look back at the Tree of Life, we refer to Christ as the top trinity, or more specifically the second sphere. Because above is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Jesus of Nazareth came to embody that force in his life to teach us something practical. So the top trinity can be called Christ, Krestos, which means “fire” in Greek. It is the fire of life in our body, in our three brains, that gives us life and spirituality. If we use it for divinity, it transforms us.
 
“Any man will come after me, he must deny himself,” negate his negative emotions or her negative emotions, “take up the cross and follow” him or divinity, our inner divinity, our inner Spirit.
 
The cross is a very beautiful symbol, which of course is not understood at all today. While it is a symbol of sacrifice, it is also a symbol of sexual teachings, teachings of tantrism in Buddhism, teachings of genuine yoga, the highest spiritual teachings. Because the phallus is the vertical beam, the uterus is a horizontal beam. Together, when a husband and wife unite, or a couple unites, by training their mind, cultivating the energies of love, they awaken the full potential of the being.
 
This is very well known within Buddhism, the highest teachings. Or amongst the Sufis in Islam, Marifah. Amongst the Gnostics, it is Gnosis. Or amongst the Jews, Daath, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil―symbols―that teach these truths.
 
To follow divinity is to affirm God, affirm our Being, which means to work for the benefit of humanity, not for our own selfish desires, but for others, with compassion.
 
These are important principles. We are going to talk about these three factors in more depth later in this course.

And so the Gnostic path is the balance of those three, the three brains, the three paths: fakirism, monasticism, yoga. The Gnostic path is the union and balancing of all three. It is the harmony, the synthesis, which you find represented in this image of the Rosicrucian Cross. And the Rosicrucians were a very ancient Gnostic order that once had a lot of value in life and teaching, which we study.
 
Notice that in this image, you have a lot of symbols which are very abstract. You have astrology, relating to the planets. You have the Hebrew letters circulating around a rose of spirituality. You have pentagrams, and all these intricate symbols which simply point, in their synthesis, in their representation, towards forces in the heart and the mind and the body.
 
A pentagram is really a human being standing upright―hands out, feet out, head towards the heavens. It is a symbol of the perfect human being. Meaning: the head is following divinity. It is positive, but some people have misappropriated that symbol by turning it upside down, which is an inverted image. It means that one's reason is going down into negative states called hell realms. This is the black pentagram or the pentagram of the black sabbath, which is a different path, a very negative one, in which one develops one’s conditions of mind intentionally.
 
All the letters of Hebrew which are symbols of principles from Aleph, the first letter of Hebrew to Tav, the final letter. These are symbols. These are representations of forces, which we all find synthesized in the harmonization of what we call the cross, a symbol of a matrimony, because when husband and wife cross themselves physically, they awaken spiritual energy, especially. If they know how to cultivate that energy well, conserve it and keep it sacred, in truth, they become a perfect human being. This is the secret teachings of all ages, which is now being made public since the 1960's in the writings of Samael Aun Weor.
 
This is the path of Taoism, balance, harmony.

The Tao Path includes three paths, and Tao itself is the fourth.  Much has been said about the four paths.  We Gnostics travel along the fourth path in full consciousness. During the sexual act, we transmute the brutal instincts of our physical body into willpower… ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

So this is a term that is very interesting: transmutation, transformation. This is known as alchemy: taking the brute lead of our negativity and transforming it into the gold of the spirit. It is a symbol. It does not mean that people were actually in Europe trying to turn lead into gold. There were some people who did think it could happen, but it is a symbol. You transform your lust, your desires, into purity, perfection. And you can also transform the seminal matter, and by conserving it, we can transform it into spiritual force that gives birth to divinity in us. The brutal instincts or passions of the body become will, a strong will, a profound will. Also:

…the passionate emotions of the Astral Body into love… ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

And the astral body relates to the vehicle we operate with in dreams. So people often talk about lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences, awakening in dreams. That is a truth relating to, again, higher dimensions, which we access when we physically go to sleep. So the physical body rests and the soul travels mostly unconsciously in that realm, dreaming or projecting dreams, not being aware of what is around. So the emotions of this astral body become transformed into love:

…and the mental impulses into comprehension. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

So these are the three lower paths synthesized. We don't have to become fakirs, lying on a bed of nails, to develop will. Instead we have other practices which are much more expedient and useful.

As Spirit, we perform the Great Work (which is religion, religare, reunion). This is how we travel along the four paths in practice. We do not need to become fakirs for the first path, neither monks for the second, nor scholars for the third. The path of the Perfect Matrimony permits us to travel the four paths during the sexual act itself. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Of course, this is a very high teaching, the highest ideals, because love is the greatest religion. A couple can learn to use all the energies they have, to “love thy God with all thy mind, all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy strength” (Matthew 22:37-39). Really, we get most of our strength from the sexual energy. It is what gives us life, and people who deplete their sexual energy excessively, they become weak.
 
The word virya in Sanskrit means “strength.” It is where where we get the word virility, virtue. The virtues of the soul blossom like a rose upon the cross of a marriage. So husband and wife can learn to use these forces to transform themselves and balance all three brains. But of course, we have many techniques and explanations about how to do that, which we will be talking about successively in our courses. But in synthesis, we want to state that by balancing our three brains and understanding the different traditions that have existed in the past in our humanity, we acquire understanding and harmony.

​Questions and Answers

Question: I do a lot of academic work and sometimes I do feel that kind of intellectual depletion, but then I am able to keep going through that. How does esotericism explain that second wind?
 
Instructor: Yes, so the second winds symptom relates to, basically, when you use too much energy in one brain, unfortunately that brain, because it is depleted, it has to get energy from somewhere. So what it does is that it steals energy from the other centers, and that gives one a second wind, which you feel revitalized, re-energized, you are able to get back into work to do whatever one is focused on.
 
But that type of high is, in reality, negative, because we were tired an hour ago, but then suddenly we have more energy and we become hyper-manic sometimes, where you feel like you have more energy, you have to keep working. That is because the mind, the intellect, is depleted, and it starts stealing fuel from the sexual center. The sexual energy is the most powerful. Literally, it is the ability to create a human being, to create life, but it is like rocket fuel. It belongs in its center, in its form of modality and operation. If you put rocket fuel into a car, the car will be destroyed, and so gradually people who abuse the intellect keep losing their energy, they start stealing energy from the sexual center until it finally, over time and successfully throughout their life or even other lifetimes, destroys the mind. 
 
Question: Does that work in another direction like, you know, if I deplete my sexual energy and steal energy from other centers in that way. Is that harmful too? 
 
Instructor: Yes, that is the reality too. If we lose the sexual energy and don't conserve it, that throws everything out of balance. And of course, this is the original sin mentioned the Bible―eating from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil―which has a lot of profound symbolism and hidden meanings, which we can explain. But in synthesis, if we deplete the energy that gives us life, it means that one is going to be weaker, spiritually speaking. And so that center will steal energy from the other centers.
 
But you have to think of the sexual energy like the foundation of everything that we are, because we come into existence through the sexual act, that force.
 
Now, you know the vital energy, we place a lot of emphasis on that part of in this teaching, because virya is the source of virility, virtue. That energy is literally the force that animates, and in this teaching, we talk a lot about how by conserving that energy, which can normally create a physical child. You take that same potential, and by circulating it through the vehicle of tantra―the continuum working throughout the different brains, like the image you saw with the man and woman with a symbol of the infinite―that revitalizes the mind, the heart, the body.
 
There is a lot more science coming out now. People have been studying the role of continence or chastity, which doesn't necessarily mean abstention from sex. It simply means using the sexual act in a significant, meaningful, loving relationship, with purity. Immaculate conception, sometimes people refer to in terms of the birth of Jesus. Again, another symbol. While the birth of Jesus was something physical, he represented something profound for us. We can give birth to the golden child of Christ through that very same energy. But of course, in order to do that, Mother Mary must be virgin. But the reality is that to be virgin does not mean to not have sex. It means to be pure in sex. So there is a very profound distinction there.
 
You know, Mother Mary is the matter, the mater, the matter of God, which is your body. Your body is a temple, which, when it is purified through practices, when it is made virgin and pure, it becomes holy, and then you can take that energy to create something else. That is what one wants by conserving it, transforming it.
 
We have a lot of material relating to this topic, especially. It's not my intention to talk about all the profound symbols of that path, but that is the essence of Taoism,  the Tao, the path of balance. By working with that energy that can create life, you balance all three brains. You perform a continuum of energy. Continuum is tantra, and if you study Buddhism, they talk a lot about tantric marriage, literally seeing deities in sexual union, but not with lust. With love. A very profound difference.
 
Any other questions?
 
Question: So it seems like, from what you’ve said, sexuality can be useful on the spiritual path rather than outright repression of it. That is what I get from many spiritual traditions, it seems.
 
Instructor: They avoid the sexual aspect of religion and unfortunately, that was castrated from Christianity. But Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit” (John 3:6). You can create a child physically through the act that everybody knows, but through alchemy, to fuse oneself with God, one can in a marriage, cultivate that energy in a sacred way.
 
It is sad people reject that part of their teaching, which is in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, every tradition. So I invite you, if you are interested in learning more about the symbolism of those traditions, we have different texts available. You can read them here or purchase them here, but also you can go on gnosticteachings.org, which has a lot. All the books we have here, especially The Perfect Matrimony, you can go online and read. It talks about all that. You know, we like to be very specific. That's the one part of religion that has been missing, is how to use that energy.
 
It has never been taught publicly because it wasn't allowed. It's such a volatile and powerful thing to use that energy, that it has been kept secret for millennia. But now we live in a very different era, in which this information is allowed to be given openly in accordance with divinity since the 60s, especially. The sexual revolution, interestingly enough. So I invite you to study that if you are interested. 
 
Question: (paraphrasing) That seems like that went from, when you were talking about the sexual revolution, like we are free from the repression, and it seems like you burned yourself out. I noticed that in myself. I grew up in a very conservative, church type of family... But then I was in the military and I had more choice than at home, and I discovered that there is this other side to it… Burned myself out as well.
 
Instructor: Exactly, and the thing is, that according to every tradition, sexuality is a door to liberation, but also the door to hell, because it is the most powerful element we carry. We can create life with it. It is the power of divinity to create, and so there are two ways to use that for us, which sadly, monasticism, it avoids. That tradition originally knew the sexual teachings and they practiced in secret with the nuns. A monk would train individually, doing energy exercises to learn to train themselves before they got married, and they were brought together with a nun. Monk and nun working together, but in secret, because it is such a scandalous thing for people to think about.
 
It is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense according to Peter, the stone of the Gnostic Church; Patar in Latin. So that is the teaching that has been cut out, but now we teach openly because it is the essence of religion. Literally, man and woman uniting together is a form of union, religare. If they love each other and learn to conserve that power, they can turn water into wine, and that is the first miracle of Jesus at a wedding. Husband and wife, the waters of the creative energy, could become the wine of God in your spine, rising up. Some traditions call it Kundalini. Some people call it the fire of Pentecost. Beautiful symbols.
 
Another Instructor: So when you said that there are three ways, one is to not have sex at all, to repress it, one is an overindulgence where it is abused or lustful way, and then this middle path. You know of the Tao, which you are talking about with sexual alchemy, where the sexual act is engaged in, but in a way working with that energy consciously and in purity, and transforming that energy. So there is not just two ways, but there is a middle path. 
 
Instructor: Yes. Thanks for correcting me, because in that image I had of Jesus with the “deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me” quote, relates to this teaching. There are people who like to justify all the types of animal behavior that exist in relation to sex through pornography, sadomasochism, behaviors that are really degenerate and causes a lot of suffering for humanity. But then there are people who like to repress sex saying, “Oh, that's filthy. It's all disgusting. I want nothing to do with it.” Two extremes. Neither are right. Neither of them are the path of balance. To balance the three brains, one has to know how to use that energy in a sacred way, neither by justifying lust or repressing lust, but looking at it directly. 
 
Audience: Transforming lust into love.
 
Instructor: Transforming lust into chastity as well. Chasity mean purity. It doesn't mean abstention from sex. This is a confusion created by people who hate sexuality, because they, usually from lifetime to lifetime, they go to extremes: indulging in lust, repressing, indulging, repressing. This is the pendulum that keeps people hypnotized, but in reality, religion, the middle path, the path of genuine Tantric Buddhism, is by learning to take the sexual act and make it something sacred. It doesn't have to do with going to a church or synagogue or mosque, or believing in a tradition, or being repressive. It means enjoying the delights of love in a pure way. And that is something that is very difficult to do, but is gradually developed.
 
In Buddhism, this is emphasized in his life story, the story of Buddha, how he became an ascetic. He used to be a prince in a palace with many women. He had everything provided for him. He was lustful, indulging in desire, but then he realized the reality of suffering, that he will die one day. People are afflicted by old age, sickness, and death. Therefore, he decided to embark on the spiritual path. He became an ascetic, a fakir, going to the wilderness, meditating all day, living off only off a grain of rice, until he became emaciated and nearly dying. And he was in a lot of suffering, because he thought that this would take him to divinity, to his inner Buddha nature.
 
But then what happened was that he, I believe he was near a river, in which he heard someone playing a lyre, and then he realized: you can't make the strings too tight nor too loose in order to play music. You can't go to extremes: rejecting sex, indulging in sex. Instead, he realized that one has to use that sexual act in a different way, in a harmonious way. That is when a woman came up to him with a bowl of rice milk, and offered to rejuvenate him. When he drank that, he immediately became enlivened again. He no longer was emaciated. He became whole.
 
That is a symbol of a marriage: a woman offering him a bowl of milk made of rice. That grain is the sexual seed. It is the energy that is transformed and enlivening the soul. So he knew at that point, symbolically, as a teaching, that you can't repress sex. You can't justify it. You have to look at it in a balanced way, in a spiritual way: the path of balancing the three brains, because the rice milk―milk is a symbol of semen, of energy, how you take that energy, transform it, raise it up your spine to your mind, to your heart. That is how you balance your three centers or three brains.
 
So in Buddhism, there is that teaching. Very beautifully hidden. You find that in the life of Jesus, even Muhammad in Islam, many teachings relating to different prophets who represented this alchemical path.
 
We like to be balanced. It's not healthy to indulge in desire. You can look at humanity today. Prostitution rings, all sorts of, you know, filthy practices, which are really harmful. But it's not enough just to run away from it, and it's what people do in religion. They think religion has nothing to do with sex, that they can go to church, pray in the form of the cross and then they go home to the bedroom and act like demons. That is not religion. Religion is all three brains, and the original form of the cross, one points toward the head, the heart and to the sexual organs, and then raising it up to your left arm, to your right. Most Catholics, they do the head, the heart, left shoulder, right shoulder. They ignore the sexual glands.
 
Real religion is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father, the energies of divinity, the Father in the head. The energies of the Christ, the Son are in the heart, the emotional brain. And the energies of the Holy Spirit is sex. So take the energy of sex, we do the head, the heart. When you gesticulate, then from sex you raise that energy up to your left shoulder over your heart and to your right shoulder. That is how the Gnostics perform the cross. This is what we do, because it symbolizes: take that energy, it descends from the Father, the Son, to the sexual glands, and then you consciously elevate it, bring it up for your will, relating to your left arm, in accordance with the Kabbalistic teachings, the lustful mind, bringing it to your heart and then your right arm which relates to your Spirit. So some symbology there that is very interesting.
 
Religion, yoga, is purely sexual. But of course, this topic offends many people because they either look at it with lust or as something to be repressed. But really, a marriage is one of the Holy Sacraments of the Gnostic Church and the Catholic Church too, but obviously, we try to go in more depth. 
 
Question: It always seems like a contradiction how in one point like you said, the church has castrated the teachings of Jesus: teaching that he was not married when a lot of the texts reference his relationship with Mary Magdalene, and how marriage can be elevated into such as high sacrament when they are preaching celibacy and these types of repressive teachings, and what seemed more power exertion to control people rather than the actual teachings that were originally presented. 
 
Instructor: Yes, and you find that in the Catholic Church, because the priests that do not work with the energy, they conserve it but they don't circulate it, they become very imbalanced, which is why you find, in any tradition really, people who practice celibacy, there are a lot of cases of homosexuality and molestation of children in the Catholic Church. There are documentaries, even on Netflix I believe, there is a few going―one going around, where these priests, because they don't know how to work with that energy, to cultivate it in a conscious way, that fire needs to act, but if it is not being directed spiritually or used to awaken the soul, it feeds desire.
 
Repressing doesn't resolve the problem. Pushing it away doesn't resolve the issues of lust or impurity. Instead, confronting it, take the energy, bear up the cross, deny yourself, deny your desires. That is the whole path. Monasticism only works with the heart, yoga with the intellect, and fakirism only with the physical body. But to be balanced, work with everything. Work with the creative energy. We have exercises to develop will and the heart through prayer. So balance is best, and unfortunately people don't know how to really approach sexuality in a balanced way. But obviously that is something that can be learned.
 
Question: That’s interesting because I mean, I read lot of things and have investigated orthodoxy for a period of time as well because of the greater depth of spirituality in orthodoxy. You will get a lot where they talk about the monk, the highest order of being: this is the one closest to Christ.
 
Instructor: Yeah, and it is in every tradition. Every tradition likes to say we have the knowledge and we have the way. We don't claim that we are special. We give teachings that are practical and are helpful, but people decide that on their own and can determine that on their own. 
 
Another Instructor: That is very Piscean. We talk in this tradition about the Aquarian Era, which began around the 60's and that now, teachings which used to be secret in the Piscean Age have become the era of open knowledge. The water of knowledge flowing. And so it used to be that people would go into these secret kind of schools, these mystery schools, and learn these types of teachings, as the instructor was pointing out here, about working individually as a monk or a nun, and then in secret, performing this sexual union. In ancient times that wasn't shown publicly, because it would have been scandalous, but in the Aquarian Era this knowledge became open, so no longer do we have to run off to the woods or the secret esoteric temple in the pyramids to learn this stuff. But you know many traditions cling to the way that it always used to be without the actual essence of that knowledge, the secret, the esoteric part of it still being alive in those traditions. Now, we have the shell and the forms and the empty kind of rituals, which seem beautiful and attractive to us, but always seem to be missing that fire which is, you know, Christ and the Holy Spirit―the living energy of religion which seems to have kind of disappeared from many traditions.
 
Comment: I mean I can sense it in the Mass that there is something to it in an energetic level. But then it's what do you after you leave and stuff....
 
Instructor: Exactly. Dion Fortune, who wrote a lot of esoteric books, stated that the reason why the Catholic Church has existed for so long is because it performs Mass in Latin, and those prayers in that language are very powerful, because Oatin is a sacred mantric language, one of languages of God amongst the many: Hebrew, the Nordic Runes, Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese. Many languages have a powerful element that can invoke energy. So that serves like a conduit for those masses and prayers, in which divinity comes down from the superior worlds and is present there. But the problem becomes what to do with that energy, as you said, because those priests can attract and invoke God, but because their three brains are not circulating energy well, God can't enter into them, because if they don't work with the creative energy, they can't awaken.
 
If you remember that quote using the Tree of Life, “No matter how much we increase our strictly vital energy, it will never produce the awakening of the consciousness,” because saving energy and being celibate is not enough. You can save that energy, but if you don't direct it, it goes nowhere. And in fact that energy will be misused. It will be fortified or used to fortify desire.

Your three brains are a conduit. That is how you form tantra, the holy eight ∞ in your spine. And we talked a lot about the Caduceus of Mercury in medicine, but also a symbol of how from the sexual glands, there are energetic channels that rise up from the base of our spine and our sexual glands and crisscross up to the head in order to form the wings of the spirit. 

So if you are familiar with, amongst veterinarians or doctors, they have that symbol as a symbol of medicine of healing, usually with the symbol of the Rune Hagal amongst the Nordics, a vertical beam with a cross like a six pointed star. It is a symbol of the cross, how the energies of sexuality circulate in the true master. And then, the spine with the wings of the spirit, the wings of the angels open. So when your three brains are fully harmonized and the energy of the Holy Spirit or the Kundalini rises up in a marriage, it awakens our spiritual faculties. That becomes the wings of the angel. And that also balances the three brains.
 
You have to be balanced in order to work with that energy. But when the priests are praying, they are saying, “God come into us.” Divinity is present. People, even who have a very asleep consciousness can feel that, which is why people flock to religion. They feel God there. But then the question is, “Well, what next?” The question is, you can approach the temple but your body must become a temple. Your mind, your heart, your sexuality, must become pure, so that God can enter into you, and in that way, the inner priest, the inner magician, the inner God, officiates inside of you. It gives you happiness. It is a gradual process though.