The Path of Balance
The Path of Balance
The Path of Balance
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The physical world and the physical body are the kingdom of Pluto / Hades. The
physical world and the physical body are the world of sensations. Because of falling
into identification with desire through sensations in the physical body, our
consciousness, Persephone, falls into the lower worlds: the consciousness falls asleep,
into darkness.
Stated simply, we do not have a Heaven in our body, but we can, if we know how to
liberate Persephone: our consciousness. So we need to know how to save
Persephone. How do we bring Persephone out of the darkness of hell? That is, how do
we bring our Essence, our consciousness, out of the prison that it is in now?
One level of meaning in the story of Persephone relates to the transmigration of souls.
In the myth, Persephone eventually reaches a point at which she can escape the
underworld temporarily, but has to return later. She gets a break periodically, so she is
able to leave the underworld and go back to Heaven, but she is not free of the lower
realms. This is because of karma: cause and effect. Most scholars interpret this as a
symbol of the changing seasons, because they are not initiates of the secret teachings
hidden in the myths. This symbol represents the situation that our soul is in. Our
consciousness descends into a body (the lower worlds) and suffers for a time, until the
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body dies and the soul is freed for a brief vacation in the superior worlds. At least, it
used to be like that.
Life and death - the migration of the soul between two worlds - exists because of a
cimplicated history of actions and consequences. The history is not our concern now:
we want to know how to change our present and our future. For this, first we have to
realize that each action we perform has consequences. Even a thought has energetic
consequences. Therefore, we are bound here by cause and effect, by laws of nature,
not by the tyranny of God, but by the consequences of our own actions. We are here
in these bodies suffering because we produced the causes that created our situation.
Our consciousness, our Essence, became hypnotized by desire a long time ago, and
is still hypnotized by desire, and that is why our suffering persists. So because of that
hypnosis, we are bound into the transmigration of souls, where we enter into physical
bodies, experience a physical life, then we die. Sometimes, if during life we have
produced a lot of good results, our Soul (Essence) gets a vacation, and is able to
enjoy a period of bliss in a superior realm, but this is rare nowadays, and becoming
more and more rare.
In ancient times, it was common because the souls were not so burdened with desires,
but now it is very rare. Now, most souls are reborn immediately, or accrued so much
karma that they do not get to take a body again; they are taken directly into the lower
realms, to be cleaned of their impurities. That is what is happening now. Since the
1950s, many of the souls that die do not come back into physical bodies, because
their karma is too heavy, and nature takes them to recycle them; when nature takes a
soul to purify it through the infernal worlds, it takes thousands of years of suffering and
pain, until at the end it emerges clean, ready to try again.
The process of migration is like a great spiral, and our Soul is trapped in that by cause
and effect. What we need to understand is the practical method to change our course.
I have found a sentence in one of Samael Aun Weor's books that captures the
essence of that method. So today were going to talk about that single line, within which
the entire teaching is condensed. In his book Fundamental Education, Samael Aun
Weor wrote:
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extremely specific, and to understand them you have to investigate the meaning of
each of these terms in Gnosis.
The Essence
I already explained that the Essence is our consciousness. Essence is our Soul; it is
not the mind, the heart, the body, or the personality: our consciousness is beyond all
of them. Our Essence, our consciousness, does not need to think. Our consciousness
does not intellectualize. Our consciousness does not have emotions in the way we have
emotions right now. Emotions work differently in the Essence, thoughts work
differently, cognition is different. The Essence is beyond mere intellect, beyond mere
emotion as we know it. Our consciousness is beyond sensation as we know it. Our
consciousness can experience any of them, but it is beyond them.
The Essence, the consciousness, simply is. It is the state of Being, it is the state of
existence, and understanding this will remain elusive to your mind until you have
experienced it - and you can, if you learn to meditate. Through real meditation you can
have experiences where you taste, know, feel, experience pure Essence. The sanskrit
word for that experience is Samadhi. A true Samadhi is an experience beyond the "I,"
beyond the ego, beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond feelings or sentiments. In
that state, you can experience thought, you can experience emotion, you can
experience sensation, but not the thought, sensation, or emotion of the body or the
personality of this time or age. They are experiences that are beyond time, that belong
to eternity; such an experience is something different. You may have experienced
something similar in a dream, a very rich, deep, profound dream, when you were not
who you are now. And then when you come back to your physical body, you become
confused, and you think, "Wait a minute, I was not this person with this name and this
job and this burden; where was I in this dream? Who was I? I was somebody else."
You may have been seeing and tasting a past experience, a future experience, or even
your real nature. These kinds of experiences illustrate the Maya, the illusion that is
woven around us by the consequences of our own past actions.
Perfect equilibrium is the point of this sentence that Samael Aun Weor wrote. So let us
understand what equilibrium means. The first two elements that he mentions here are
personality and Essence. Essence is our consciousness. Personality is a mask that
the consciousness uses.
Each time we are born into a new body, we develop a new personality. Those of us
who took bodies in the Roman Empire built a personality in the Roman Empire. We had
a Roman personality that spoke Latin, that had Roman culture, Roman morals, that
liked the food of that time, that liked the music of the time, that liked the clothes of that
time. In other words, that personality was Roman. It was made in Roman times and
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could only function in Roman times. The personality is not eternal, it is temporary. A
personality lasts only as long as the body lasts, and when we are reborn again, we
build a new personality.
The personality is just a mask. That mask has a name, a history, tastes, and many
unique characteristics related to where and how we grew up. All of us have a
personality. Unfortunately, most of us think our personality is our true identity, but it is
not. Your name, memories, family, history, culture, tastes, and interests are all
personality. The color of your skin, your accent, the language you speak, your politics,
your taste in clothing, food, and music, and all cultural things are personality. They are
temporal; they belong to time. They are not permanent. They are not eternal. They do
not belong to your Soul; they are not your Soul.
So, just with this understanding, we can see that the vast majority of what most people
think is "myself," is an illusion. What we think is me actually is not real, it is an
illusion. What we think is me is something that we build in each lifetime in order to
function in a physical body and relate with others, but in reality it is an illusion. The
personality dies. The personality is not part of the Soul; it is not part of the Being. We
need to make that distinction.
Much of what we consider so important is actually completely meaningless. We fight
with each other, argue, and struggle over things that will soon cease to exist. We work
day after day after day to make money to feed our personality, to get the clothes that
make us fashionable and fit in, to make others admire us or envy us, to get the music,
to go to the clubs, to go to the shows, to go to the movies, to have the toys and gadgets
and house and car and all the things we think we are supposed to have, but which
spiritually are really meaningless, empty, pointless, even damaging. Most of our time
and energy is invested into pursuits that have no lasting value, but we tend to spend the
majority of our lives chasing them: social, political, and religious theories, doctrines,
and dogmas are all related to personality. The political and religious views of one
hundred years ago do not fit in with those of today - that is, all of them are dependent
upon time. In other words, they are not eternal. They are not lasting. How many
political, social, scientific, artistic, or other cultural trends, have faded into
uselessness? Well, be aware that all of those that we an entranced with today will also
fade into uselessness. Every political party and religious trend will also fade into
oblivion. Why then become so entranced by them? It is better to root ourselves in the
truly eternal.
Many of us have been born into a religious household, we adopt that religion as the
true religion, but it is personality. We go to church every week, we give our donations,
but we do not move spiritually. It is just habit. That is not spiritual, it is personality. It is
false. It is a lie. Real spirituality is not a habit or rooted in trends or what is socially
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The intellectual brain is a psychological machine that merely transmits the contents of
our Mental Body, which is in the fifth dimension. Thoughts are matter and energy in the
fifth dimension, which reflect into our physical brain.
Our intellect is not a Self. Our intellect is not the Soul, or an identity, it is merely a
machine. We have had a intellect and a physical brain in every one of our physical
bodies, and in every one of our physical bodies, our intellect has been different. The
intellect changes from life to life, because it is rooted in our physical and vital bodies,
which change from life to life.
The intellect is just a device; all it does is compare and recall. The intellect has a
certain capacity of memory, and it has a certain capacity to compare different
elements (usually not very many at the same time).
Our intellectual brain does not work at its full capacity. We have not learned how to use
it properly. Instead, we abuse it continually, and usually ruin it in different ways, either
by over or under use, or by destroying it with alcohol, drugs, or other chemicals, or by
filling it with garbage that causes it to malfunction or fail.
Emotions, feelings, are related with our emotional brain. The emotional brain is just a
psychological transformer, a machine that transmits the contents of our Astral Body,
also known as the emotional body. In our physical body, the emotional brain operates
in the region of the heart, solar plexus, and other organs and glands in this region. The
emotional brain is not physical but it uses physical matter to transmit its energy. The
emotional brain receives and transmits emotional energies - love, joy, hate, anger,
happiness, sadness, all the different types of feelings that we experience, sentiment,
attachment, resentment. All of those are emotional energies, psychological energies, in
our Astral Body, that are transmitted through our emotional brain.
It is very important to understand what these two brains are they are and what they are
not. Let's illustrate this with a quick example. Right now, there are many energies
flowing in you. You feel some kind of emotional quality, and thoughts are emerging,
and your personality is functioning, and your physical body is functioning, but can you
discriminate between all those different components in yourself? Can you see the
differences between each part? Most of the time we do not. Most of the time our
consciousness is so weak and distracted that we just go along with the flow of all the
different forces that are inside of us and outside of us, without really paying attention to
them. Yet, this is a fatal mistake. Without cognizant awareness of all of these energies,
we are without real awareness of what energies are acting and therefore what
consequences will emerge from them. We are trapped in suffering, ignorance, and
spiritual darkness precisely because we ignore what is going on inside of us.
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sex. Even between emotion and thought, many of us get very confused. We try to use
the psychological tools we have inside of us in the wrong ways. Our psychological
world is completely out of balance.
As the many energies are flowing in and out of our three brains, they are modified by
our personality, and we become hypnotized; that is, our consciousness is asleep. This
is where the Narcissus flower emerges. The Narcissus flower is not a literal, physical
flower, it is a psychological symbol. Do you know the symbol of Narcissus? In Greek
mythology, Narcissus became entranced by his own reflection. The flower that
entranced Persephone is called Narcissus because it is related with ourself, our mind.
The flower represents the illusion of self-identity that hypnotizes our consciousness.
The flower hypnotizes us through sensation: through personality and our three brains.
Thus, it represent how our Essence, Persephone, becomes entranced and then
trapped in hell, but how does that work in us, here and now?
Don't let your mind take you into extremes and think it only happens when you are
trying to lose weight and then you are suddenly offered your favorite meal. Yes, it
happens then, but that is not the only time it happens. And likewise, do not think it only
happens when suddenly you have an extra thousand dollars and can afford to buy
whatever it is you have been desperate to buy, and you feel that temptation. Yes, it
happens then as well, but that is not the only time it happens. It also happens when
someone merely looks at you.
What happens when someone looks at you? Do you see the psychological phenomena
that emerges in your mind? It is subtle, but there is a whole series of reactions that
occur that you are not aware of. When someone looks at you, there is an evaluation
that happens in you. This is not intellectual, it is much too fast for the intellect. In the
split second of your eyes connecting with another persons eyes, a whole series of
evaluations occurs, similar to these types of questions, What do they want? What are
they thinking of me? Is this person judging me? Do they like me? Do they not like me?
Am I in danger? Do they lust for me? Do I lust for them? Do they respect me or not?
And much more. This does not happen as a series of thoughts, so it is not intellectual.
Eventually, such questions may emerge in the intellect, but generally these process is
far to rapid for the intellect. Very quickly, a powerful evaluation of sensations occurs.
Everything we see, hear, feel, and sense is processed and evaluated without our
conscious awareness. A reaction emerges automatically from our subconscious mind.
A reaction emerges from our ego. If the person we see is beautiful, that reaction is
interpreted by our lust, our envy, our pride, even fear, or some other aggregate. Each
time we notice that someone else is looking at us, a very complicated and very rapid
evaluation happens that we are totally unaware of. Moreover, this is happening
thousands of times a day, and this is only one example of a single instance. We are
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also processing enormous amounts of data related to everything else that happens to
us, both from sensations that come from outside, and those that come from inside.
The psychological processing that is happening in us is what creates our suffering.
You see, when someone looks at us, and our consciousness is asleep, for example, if
that moment is interpreted by our pride, then were going to take that experience of the
person looking at us and transform it in accordance with pride. So the pride says, "Do
I look good? Do they think I look good? Am I handsome or pretty? Do they think that
I'm handsome or pretty? Do they like me or not?" And again this is not intellectual, in
the form of thoughts. Sometimes the thought comes, but usually it is not; there is a
rapid transformation of impressions that we have no awareness of.
This is how significant this sentence by Samael Aun Weor is. It is pointing towards a
radical reevaluation of our psychological habits: radical. We talk a lot in these lectures
about self-observation, self-remembering, meditation, chastity - we have to have all of
those factors engaged in our psychological environment. But the reason we must have
them engaged is so we can learn about our three brains: so we can observe and watch
the energies that are flowing in us constantly.
You see, when that person looks at us in that instant, there's a huge transformation of
energy that happens, below our awareness. So when someone looks at us, and we
quickly read their glance, posture, or attitude, and then we assume that we know what
they are thinking or feeling. I was recently talking with a young girl who has a little
crush on a boy, and she said "He wouldn't talk to me. He doesn't like me," and she felt
terrible. I am an adult so I know a little better; I know that the boy does like her and that
is why he does not talk to her: because he is terrified of her. All of us are making the
same kinds of assumption all the time: we listen only to what our ego is saying. Her
pride was feeling threatened because she was feeling an attraction towards him, a little
crush, and she felt doubt, "Maybe he does not like me," so her pride continued with
"Maybe I am not good enough. Maybe he does not like me. Maybe I am not pretty."
Then when he did not talk to her, she felt devastated, not because of him, because of
herself. Her feelings emerged because of her interpretation of the event. Of course, as
a child she does not see that, but adults do not see this either. All of us are proceeding
from moment to moment in an environment of self-created interpretations that actually
have no valid basis. Do you see how you are constantly generating thoughts and
feelings in your mind, imagining events, replaying memories, interpreting impressions?
Do you ever question the content of that psychological stream? You should. We create
an illusion about our lives, and we believe it is real. Yet, it is not. It is just a stream of
egotistical fortifications.
Thought is related to the intellectual brain.
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The center of movement is where we process our physical habits: instinct, such as the
sexual instinct, the preservation of life, digestion, the way our nerves function, the way
our bodies function, all of this is related with this third brain.
In each center, we transform and process energy, so each center is like a little
machine. Each one has a certain amount of energy available to it, and it can only
process certain kinds of energy. So if we were to assign scientific values to them, we
could see that the intellectual brain only processes energy related with the intellect, at a
certain vibration, at a certain speed. Likewise, the emotional brain only processes
energies related with emotion, and so on with the other centers.
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Problems emerge for us when we try to use these centers in the wrong way, when we
try to communicate with each other without using the right centers, without having
equilibrium in our three brains. Simple examples can be very obvious sometimes. You
may have a close relationship with a person and yet never be able to get your point
across, and get so frustrated because you think you are making yourself so clear and
the other person just does not understand; thus, you get more and more irritated. Can
anyone here can relate to this example? [laughter] Everybody? Ok, observe yourself
when that happens, and also put yourself in the shoes of the other person and pay
attention, because I can tell you what you will find is this: one of you is using one
brain, and the other one is using a different brain.
This is very common in romantic relationships. Let me give you a stereotypical
example: some men tend to be too intellectual, and some woman too emotional. This is
obviously not always case, but it is a common occurrence. So, as an example, during
a problem in their relationship, the man is trying to solve the problem with intellectual
reasoning, saying "It is logical that A and B equals C." The woman is trying to solve the
problem emotionally, saying "But it feels wrong! I do not like it, it does not feel right!"
They cannot understand each other at all, because neither one has their three brains
in balance. The man is seeing only through his intellect, while the woman is seeing only
through her feelings, thus they cannot communicate, and the result is that they fight.
Everybody can relate to that. This type of situation is happening with us all the time,
because we do not use all three brains in balance.
Gradually, over the course of our existences, as we become more and more entranced
with our pride, lust, envy, we build habits and tendencies psychologically, as ego.
Likewise, in each lifetime we build habits and tendencies in the personality. So over the
centuries, in some cultures, the focus may have been very intellectual, and in another
culture the focus can be very emotional. Right now, in North America and Europe for
example, the focus is extremely intellectual. In some countries, the focus is emotional;
they are attached to the feeling of their country, or their culture, etc. Yet, it is very rare
to find any culture that truly develops the powers of the heart; you can find this in a few
remote places, or in traditional cultures that still emphasize a strong presence of
compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and other values. The modern countries
and culture only value these as words or ideas (intellectually), but not in practice
(emotionally and in action in the body).
It is extremely common to find people that over-develop the intellect. We can see this in
our schools now; how are our children educated? They are merely forced to stuff their
brains with a lot of data, and they regurgitate that data a couple times a year for tests,
and that is all. They do not really learn things through their emotional brain (as
comprehension) or through their motor brain through practical use. Modern schools do
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not require comprehension, only repetition. Our educational system just wants kids to
be able to repeat facts. Do you know who repeats facts? The intellect, not the Soul. The
intellectual brain can store facts and repeat them. It is a machine. Now we have game
shows and contests where people who can repeat totally useless facts are considered
geniuses. They are not geniuses, they just have an intellectual brain that is sharp. That
is nice; that is a great quality to have, but at what cost?
Equilibrium implies many things. When you over-develop the intellect, you deplete your
other centers. We only have a given quantity of energy to use. If, let us say, today I
give you a hundred units of energy, observe your day: how do you use that quantity of
energy? Do not assume that you use it smartly; watch yourself. Watch what you do
with it, watch your behavior. How much of it is spent in repeated habits? Habits are
related with the motor brain. For example, we always put our pants on the same leg
first. We always hold the cup the same way. We always open the door the same way.
When we come home, we do the same procedure. When we leave in the morning, we
do the same procedure. These are the superficial habits, but we also have mental
habits, and we have emotional habits. We have habits in relationships with others, and
with ourselves. Habits are not conscious. Habits are mechanical. Many of our habits
are a waste of energy. Some of us have the habit of spending hours wandering around
the internet or through television channels. Many of us have the habit of chatting
endlessly about completely useless topics. Some have the habit of playing video games
for hours and hours. Some have the habit of shopping all the time for things we really
do not need. All of us waste enormous amounts of energy in useless habits.
Moreover, what is our job? Let us say we work in a factory, and we do the same job
everyday. Do we do our job consciously? Do we consciously take this widget and this
watcha-ma-call-it and assemble them and move on down the line? No. We might do it
consciously the first five or ten times, but after that it becomes routine, habit. So we
can do it and not even think about it, right? In other words, while our body performs the
motion, our mind is somewhere else. This is a state of psychological sleep. Our mind is
off thinking about some T.V. show, or a memory, or a craving or desire, while our
motor brain is doing our job.
So, how do we use our energy? What is our wisdom in the use of energy? We need to
analyze that, we need to know that, because really, we should be using these three
brains in balance, in equilibrium, each day. The problem is we have tendencies, we
have habits that develop over time, psychologically speaking.
Some of us are not what we would call "intellectual." Maybe our memory is not so good,
and we do not really like to study, and we tend to be attracted to things because of how
they make us feel. Perhaps certain types of art, or jobs, or types of people, make us
feel good, so we like that, and that is what were attracted towards. As for the intellectual
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part, we do not really want to think about that, we do not really want to use our intellect.
That type of person will tend to overemphasize the emotional aspect and deplete the
intellectual.
There are other types of people that like to get in situations where they repeat
themselves, because it gives them security. Some people love factory jobs, and they
love religions where all they have to do is repeat a certain practice ten or fifteen times
a day and that is it, that is all they have to do; they love that: it givens them security, it
gives them a sense of safety. That type of person is very much in the motor brain.
Each of us has a tendency to be over-reliant on one brain or another, while underusing or even ignoring the others.
Why does this matter? Gnosis is about developing the complete the human being, not a
machine. Our whole society is only interested in creating machines. Big corporations
only want us to be consumers; they just want our money and our energy. Governments
are the same; they only want us to be cogs in the wheels of the great machine of
society. They do not want us to be cognizant of what is really going on, to be
conscious, self-aware, self-reliant. The religions are the same; religions just want
followers, believers, people who will not question authority, people who will just go
along. We see that everywhere, and we all have the tendency that we want security, we
want to be loved, to be liked, to be respected, to be noticed, to be appreciated, and for
that, we want to fit in. So, we all develop a tendency or psychological habit related to
one brain over the others, that emerges in us gradually over time, but we are unaware
of it. Then, when we take that into our religion. Yes, our psychological habit influences
our religion. Thus, in the world we find three primary types of spiritual groups. There
are three primary types of religions - not in the core sense of where the religion came
from, but rather, what we have made the religions into. There are three paths that we
are attracted to, based on our own idiosyncrasy.
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We have seen the Sadhu who had his arm raised towards God for thirty-five years
without lowering it; he is a fakir. We have heard about the monk who has been sitting in
silent meditation without eating or drinking for months or years; he is a fakir. A fakir is
a person who is developing willpower through the center of movement. This applies to
any religion, theory, belief, doctrine, or person who believes they can reach God solely
through willpower. In yoga traditions, this includes those who only practice Karma
Yoga: they believe that only through service to others they can reach God. They do not
bother to develop their intellectual culture or emotional center. Yet, there are people on
this path is in every religion. Personally, I have encountered many such people. Many
of those who are devotees of Hatha Yoga are really following the path of the fakir,
because they think that through physical exercises they can reach spiritual
enlightenment. I have met many people who believe that by sitting in a meditation
posture for extended periods of time, forcing themselves to stay in that posture, that
they will reach spiritual development. I have also met many people who believe that by
repeating certain mantras or phrases, or by performing certain actions or spiritual
practices, that they will awaken consciousness. Some say, If you do this mantra in
this posture one hundred thousand times, you will awaken a certain chakra. Or if you
do it a hundred million times you will be merged with God. Yet, these beliefs are not
true. What they do develop is willpower, which is good and useful. They develop the
brain of movement. They develop a lot of will over sensation, will over the body, but they
totally neglect the powers of the heart, and the powers of the mind. People on the path
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of the fakir in any religion focus primarily on developing willpower; they have
intellectual theories and emotional beliefs, but their primary focus is related to the
motor-instinctual-sexual brain, and they neglect the development of their other centers.
Moreover, they do not work with the consciousness. So then they become a person
with a lot of willpower, but with no understanding of their emotion or how to use it, no
understanding of their intellect and how to use it.
The second path we can call the path of the monk, and this is just a term used for it; it
does not mean that all monks are like this. We call it the path of the monk because
many monks practice a devotional path, a path of belief, of devotion to God. This path
of the monk would include devotees of Bhakti Yoga.
Bhakti Yoga is popular in India and is the path of the devotion to God. In their spiritual
practice, a Bhakti Yogi only sings praises of God, always remembers God and sings
the praises of their deity, who may be the Divine Mother, Krishna, or Shiva. They sing
a lot of songs, mantras, bhajans and aratis (devotional religious songs). We find this
same path in Christianity (Pentecostals are an example), in Judaism, and in any
religion. These types of people just want to feel emotional ecstasy. This type of person
has a great deal of what they call faith, but it is really just belief. They believe
fervently, which is good, but unfortunately they neglect the intellect and the center of
movement. This type of person will typically say, "I do not need to study the scripture; I
have my faith, my belief, and that is enough." They say, "I do not need to do
complicated practices. God accepts me because I merge with him in my heart. I love
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God." These beliefs are in every religion. So, the monk is a believer. Such persons
have ideas and theories in the intellect, and may read a little scripture, and they may
do some practices related to the motor-instinctual-sexual brain, but ultimately they do
not develop the three brains in balance. They focus almost exclusively on emotion.
The third we can call the path of the yogi or the scribe. Of course, this person studies
intensely, memorizes scriptures, can quote perfectly from the sacred books, is an
expert at debate and applying logic to spiritual concepts, but they abandon the
development of the heart. In yoga, this is Jnana Yoga: the path of the intellect.
Intellectual types can be very cold and cruel. They do not develop the fires of the heart.
They only care for intellectual concepts and structures. They also generally ignore the
center of movement, so they have little willpower or self-control. They just have a lot of
theories and ideas. Samael Aun Weor called them "walking libraries." This type of
person studies a lot and builds very beautiful models of God in their mind, but has no
experience of God. This is because to experience God, to experience the Divine, to
experience religion, is impossible through the intellect.
It is possible to have experiences of God through the path of the monk, which is
through the heart, or the path of the fakir through willpower. That is why we can find
fakirs or monks who have had experiences, who have tasted something of a superior
realm, who have experienced a Buddha or an Angel. But you will never find an
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intellectual with those experiences. The scribes have a lot of ideas, and they can
explain all those experiences to you and quote scriptures, but they have never had the
experience themselves.
So here is our challenge: every one of us is one of these three types of people. Yes,
every single one of us Gnostics is on one of these three paths. We all call ourselves
"Gnostics," but you only become a true Gnostic when you have balanced these three
paths as one path in your everyday life. That is: you use your intellect for religion, you
use your heart for religion, and your center of movement for religion. You see, Gnosis
is the fourth path.
In the staged arts of long ago, the individual would receive information in
his three brains: motor, emotional, and intellectual. In the schools of today
however, only the intellectual brain receives information. Neurosis and the
sick states of the mind are due to this. Mental disequilibrium is avoided by
balancing the three brains. - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
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Gnosis is a path of equilibrium, but to enter that path is only possible when you have
created that equilibrium in yourself. Otherwise, you will never enter it. You cannot enter
the path of the balanced way if your own inner house is out of balance. If your
psychological state is out of balance, it is impossible to enter into real Gnosis. You find
Gnosis within: "Know thyself."
So then our task is to discover, How am I out of balance? We have to observe
ourselves: how do we practice? How do we use our energy? What are our tendencies?
What are our habits? And once we see our habits, we have to break them.
Most of us do not want to break our habits. When we find this teaching, we see "Wow,
there is a lot of information that I can study with my intellect. There is a lot that I can
believe in my heart and many mantras and practices that I can use to really connect
with God emotionally. There are hundreds of practices I can do to develop willpower
and unite with God." Do you see those three aspects? Intellect, emotion, and
movement.
So the person who has the tendency of the fakir comes into Gnosis and starts doing a
lot of practices, but they do not like to study the books or to develop their heart, so they
do a lot of practices - they may meditate for 8-10 hours a day, do mantras, runes, all
kinds of esoteric exercises, but if you ask them "What are the three brains? Or, What
are the three minds?" They say, "I'm not there yet! I'm not studying that yet. I'm not
ready for that." They do not know even basic things. And when they practice, they look
to have physical results, like sensations or experiences defined by sensations. They
tend to expect that samadhi is ecstatic sensations in the body, and that awakening
consciousness, kundalini, or chakras is measurable through physical sensations.
The emotional types believe in Gnosis strongly. They may focus on mantras, prayers,
and group events. They want to be part of a big movement and feel connected with the
Gnostics. They believe in Gnosis and want to help humanity very sincerely from their
heart, but they do not want to study (because they say the teachings are too
complicated), and they do not really practice very much. That is, when they practice,
they look to feel a certain way. They do not go beyond feelings. They may believe and
have good intentions, but they do not know the doctrine in their intellect, and they do
not know the doctrine in their conscious experience, because they do not practice
consciously with the three brains in balance.
Then we have the yogis or scribes, the ones who really, even deeply, understand the
concepts of Gnosis. They may memorize the books and teachings, they can quote at
length, and they grasp concepts and can explain them very beautifully, but emotionally
they are cold. Emotionally, they are empty. They suffer from a lot of doubt: doubt in
themselves, doubt in the Masters, doubt in the teaching, doubt in the instructors, doubt
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in the movement. Doubt is why the intellect gets so out of hand. The intellectual,
suffering from doubt (a lack of faith), try to find faith through the intellect. Yet, the
intellect cannot have faith. It is a machine that compares; that is all it can do. The
intellectuals are disconnected from their heart, and are searching for emotional
connection through intellectual pursuit, but they will never find it there. This is a
personal sadness for me because people I have known and loved went too far trying to
find faith and belief by studying intellectually, and never developed their hearts. In the
end, they became great cynics, very critical, and became enemies of Christ, because
they never developed emotionally. They never brought the teaching into their heart,
they never brought the teaching into their body, and therefore they could never make
the teaching conscious in themselves.
You see, that is the goal on the balanced path:
1. you study intellectually to to learn the concepts and the doctrine
2. you work with the powers of the heart through ritual, mantra, practice, prayer, meditation, you
open your heart, you develop compassion and love, patience, true virtues - all these virtues are
in the heart, not the mind.
3. you develop the powers of movement, by perfecting all the exercises and practices, through
sexual alchemy, meditation, transmutation, mantric practices, runic practices, many
techniques that harmonize the body, that activate the chakras.
Only when these three aspects are all in balance with each other IN YOU can you
enter the Fourth Way. Why is this so important? Because if you do not achieve this,
you can never enter the Major Mysteries.
Psychological Equilibrium
This is the domain of Persephone, as we explained in the previous lecture. Persephone
as a Goddess, as a symbol, represents the Divine Mother who tests us in the Minor
Mysteries. The Minor Mysteries are about establishing psychological equilibrium. This
type of equilibrium does not mean we have perfected our three brains, and it does not
mean that we have united with God through the Minor Mysteries. It means that we have
proven that we comprehend how to balance our psyche.
To fully balance your psyche, you have to resurrect. You have to die, and resurrect.
Only a Resurrected Master is a fully equilibrated human being. Until you have become
a Resurrected Master, you are not fully equilibrated, because the ego is still alive.
Any ego is disequilibrium in nature. A single ego is enough to create disequilibrium.
Every ego has three brains. When we observe ourselves, we watch our three brains.
Why? To learn about the ego, to see how our ego works through our three brains, to
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they are dumb, because they have not studied. They have not worked on the
intellectual aspect, moreover they halt their own development, they misinterpret.
Let me give you a simple example. I had an experience many years ago, when I first
came into Gnosis. I had an experience in the Astral Plane in which I saw Al Pacino
threatening me, very violently, and I was scared, because he was like a terrifying
gangster. I was really scared from that. So after I had this experience, I was thinking to
myself, "I have karma with Al Pacino, and he hates me!" I was really worried because I
lived in a place where I could potentially run into him. I was thinking, "Oh man, I am
going see that guy and he is gonna hurt me," so I was really worried about that for a
while. But luckily, my Gnostic instructor was teaching me Kabbalah. Eventually, after
having more experiences and study of the language of Kabbalah, I started to realize,
"That dream was symbolic. That was not literally Al Pacino. That was a symbol." Then
later, when analyzing other experiences I had, I realized that symbol of Al Pacino was
pointing to a person I was dealing with in my physical life, who was acting like that.
This person was acting like a gangster and was very angry with me, but hiding it.
Physically, I could not see it, but my Being was showing me in the internal worlds,
"Watch out for that guy, he is really angry and dangerous." Luckily, I understood
before things got really out of hand. I was able to get out of that situation before he hurt
me psychologically or spiritually.
What that example illustrates was: if I had not been studying the Kabbalah, if I had not
been studying Gnosis, I would have continued to interpret the experience literally, and
ended up in a bad situation. I would still be thinking that I have a karma with Al
Pacino. I would probably be telling people stupid things like, Al Pacino and I are
connected from past lives, as if I knew him. I would have started talking like an idiot
and saying stupid things like a lot of people say nowadays. We have all heard it. We
have all heard that such and such a person is a great Master, or I have karma with
this guy and this guy and that guy, and this and that. In every spiritual group there is a
lot of nonsense, because people do not study the teachings, and they misinterpret
everything, and they do not understand their own experiences, much less their physical
lives. Thus, it is very important that we balance the three brains in ourselves.
Otherwise we will get stuck.
It is easy to misinterpret our experiences. We have given many examples in these
lectures of how easy it is to misinterpret. You may be a great meditator, you may have
great abilities through your heart to project in your Astral Body, and this is one of the
benefits of developing the heart. We have met many emotionally-habituated students
who, for them, astral projection is easy, because they have emotional energy to do it.
Their energy is accumulated around their heart; that is the energy that lets you use
your Astral Body, the emotional body. So for them, it is easy to have astral
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experiences. The problem is, when they have experiences, they do not understand
them. They do not know how to interpret them, because they have not developed their
intellectual culture through study. They do not study Kabbalah, they do not know the
symbols, structures and laws, so they are confused easily. Usually, they go to others
for help interpreting their experiences, and the ones they ask are usually intellectual,
who have memorized a lot of symbols, but because they have no emotional
development they have no intuition at all, so their interpretations are wrong.
Conversely, a person who is very intellectual may read all the astral projection books
and memorized their contents, but cannot get out of their body to have an astral
experience. They may have memorized Kabbalah, or can tell you the meanings of
every single Tarot card. Or they can quote scriptures, and they have a lot of
conceptual understanding, but have zero power in the heart, because they have put all
of their energy and effort into their intellect. Do not become such a person. That is a
dead end, and very painful. Sadly, there are many people in that position who will not
admit it. There are even spiritual instructors like that, but they will not admit that they
cannot get out of the body, they cannot have experiences, they have not tasted
Samadhi, they have not experienced God, so they suffer privately. On the surface,
they look like great instructors of any religion, but inside they have nothing, no
experiences at all. This is very sad. Do not walk that way. Develop your heart and mind
in balance every day, not just once a week, every day: use all three brains in balance
with each other. But to do this, you have to observe yourself, and correct yourself
continually.
There are mantras to aid the harmony of mind and heart:
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problems emerge in life, you can see "I am really being too intellectual about this," you
can see were starting to try and make decisions and we start over-thinking it, or we
don't want to think about, we just want to feel our answer, right? What feels right, this
is just emotional brain. Or then we try to solve things instinctively, but that's just instinct,
animal instinct. You cannot solve your problems through the three brains unless the
Essence is active and using them. This is the issue: if the Essence is asleep, who is
using the three brains? If you are not paying attention, if you are not cognizant, if you
are not awake, who is using your three brains? Your ego. How often are we awake? I
mean awake, cognizant. How often are you fully aware of your body? How are often
are you aware of your eyes that see? of your heart that is beating? of the sensations
of your environment, of the air, the atmosphere, of your digestion, of your breathing, of
the electrical impulses in your brain, of the pumping of your blood, of the rise and fall
of emotion, and the trickle of thought? Are you aware of that? ever? That is Selfobservation, and admist that, do you remember God? Do you feel the presences of
your Innermost, of your Divine Mother? Right now? That is Self-remembering. If those
qualities are not present, you are asleep, and if you are asleep, then your ego rules
your house: habits, desires, laziness, pride, shame, all of those discursive elements
that constitute "the myself."
Gnosis not easy. It is not automatic. It is not mechanical. It has to be provoked,
continually, by will, conscious, cognizant will, a will of awareness, a will of openness. A
will that is relaxed, and vibrant. Here is how you do it: in each moment, remember your
Being. This is so fundamental, but so easy to forget. It is not just to think in your
intellect, to have the thought in your mind: God. That is not remembering God, that is
a thought. It is not have a feeling in your heart: God. That is just a feeling. It is also
not to forcibly produce a chill in your spine, or little goosebumps "gasp, God is here."
That is just sensation. Self-remembering is not in the three brains, it is beyond them.
To remember God is conscious. It is the action of the Essence, which is beyond the
three brains. As beginners we all struggle with this part, trying to learn self-observation
and self-remembering, but we tend to do it from our old mechanical habits.
Intellectuals try to do it in the intellect, their always thinking, "I have to observe myself, I
have to observe myself, I have to observe myself." That is not self-observation, that is
repetition, that is just the intellect. Self-observation is not intellectual.
The emotional ones are trying to feel self-observation, "I feel like I am observing
myself, it feels o.k.," emotionally, "or it feels weird," emotionally. That is just emotion.
Self-observation is not emotional.
The ones in the center of movement try to manipulate the body and position the body to
somehow remember itself. I knew a guy who when he was trying to observe himself,
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you could tell, because he would get this look on his face, a very sort of tense look,
and all the students around him knew, "Oh, he's observing himself now." [laughter] In
fact, other students were imitating him, thinking that was how to observe oneself. In
reality, it does not work like that. That is just a fakir habit. Self-observation is not
physical or dependent on positions or sensations.
How do you really observe yourself? You activate your consciousness. It does not
mean you change your behavior, or your thoughts, or your mind, you simply look at
them, equally.
To be observant is to just observe. It is to just observe, but to do it being aware that you
are observing. So right now, become aware of how you are sitting. Feel everything
there is to feel about sitting. Feel your whole body, and just observe it. Do not change
anything about yourself. Do not modify anything. Just become aware. Self-observation
is an act of observation. You do not have to think about your body, or feel an emotion
about sitting, "Do I like it or not like it? or does it feel good or bad, or do I love this, or
hate this?" It is not emotional; you are just sitting. Neither is it dependent on any
sensation, good or bad, you are just sitting, and you are observing how you sit. Now,
also, observe the thoughts that trickle, any emotions that might be trickling, and retain
that awareness, and underneath all of it, do not forget what gives you the ability to be
this and do this and experience this, is your Innermost, your Inner Being, who is
ALWAYS there. Feel that. It is not emotional feeling, an intellectual thing, or a
sensation in the body, it is something that you are cognizant of. You see, to do this
takes effort, right? You have to work at it, and you are just sitting still.
Later, try to do this in every moment, such as when you are in conversation with
someone; it is a lot harder. The instant you get out of this lecture, all your habits are
going to re-emerge. You will resume worrying about what people think, how they see
you, how you look, etc. We are always worried about so many things, trying to
impress, and we get into a conversation we totally forget ourselves, we totally forget our
Innermost, we totally forget our Divine Mother, and are just in the thread of the
conversation, maybe it's an intellectual conversation, maybe it's an emotional
conversation, maybe it's instinctive. What is an instinctive conversation? Something
that is indulging in instinctual behavior: sarcasm, lust, anger, pride. We all have friends
that we start talking, maybe we talk in very intellectual way, debating a little bit or
comparing ideas, and enjoying that discussion of ideas. Some of us talk emotionally, "I
felt this and he felt that." The rest of the time, we wallow in very instinctive, bestial
topics. The same happens with the television that we watch, the movies, the books, the
magazines, all that psychological food: we forget ourselves, we do not pay attention to
what we are doing with our three brains. So all of our energy is being utilized in
negative ways.
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on to the Major Mysteries. That does not mean that you have to be conscious 24-hours
a day (although that would be great). To pass the Minor Mysteries, you have to show
that you know how to balance your three brains. The more you do it, the better. When
you have demonstrated that ability, then your Divine Mother says "Let us take you to
the next step," because you are saving enough energy to enter the Major Mysteries. If
you do not have any energy, then there is no point, there is nothing to transform, there
is nothing to transmute.
In this process, you face a lot of ordeals, a lot of tests. It is difficult, very challenging,
and everyone is tested according to their own idiosyncrasy. We do not receive the
same tests in the same ways. We get the tests according to our psychological habits.
The intellectuals are tested intellectually, to see if they can work with that aspect and
save energy in that aspect. The intellectuals are tested emotionally, to see if they can
use their heart, and they are tested in the center of movement, to see if they know how
to properly use their body. We are tested in all three brains, but according to our
idiosyncrasy. An emotional person is tested in different ways, an instinctual or motortype person is tested in their own ways, but all of us are tested. So it is our
responsibility to learn about our three brains and learn how to balance them.
Look into yourself and see, what are your habits, and break them. I am not talking
about the habit of always putting the towel on a certain side of the towel rack. You want
to break that one, fine, but it is not going to bring you closer to God. The habits you
need to break are psychological habits: the way you think, the way you feel, the way
you act. You have to go against yourself. This is the hardest part. We feel that our
habits our good, that our habits are who we are, and let me tell you a little secret: that
thing that you think is your greatest virtue, it is the reason you are suffering. That is a
painful thing to see. That quality in yourself that you think makes you so special and
such a good person, such an upright person, is your worst defect. We cannot see it,
and we do not want to see it.
I will give you a second clue, equally distasteful. Samael Aun Weor said in The Great
Rebellion, this beautiful statement, which really can help you a lot in this, listen
carefully, he said this:
A general Gnostic rule in the Gnostic esoteric work is that when we do have
a point of contention with another person, we can be certain that this is the
very thing against which we must work on within ourselves. Whatever it is
that we criticize so much in others is something which lies on the dark side
of ourselves, and which we neither know nor want to recognize.
What we do not like to see in others is what they show us about ourselves. So if you
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know somebody at work that really irritates you and you say, "That guy is so arrogant,
he drives me crazy," you know why? Because YOU are arrogant, and you do not want
to see it, and he is like a mirror to you. When you feel a strong repulsion towards
somebody or a certain quality, look at yourself, and keep looking; you won't see it the
first time. But if you keep looking, you will see it, and when you do, you will be
devastated, you will feel horrible. But then, if you persist, if you do not run away from
the facts of your what is in your mind, you will come to discover the greatest joy of the
real Gnostic: the single greatest joy is when you discover a defect.
Yes, we have joy when we see God, when we talk to God, and we have joy when we
have experiences in the internal worlds, these are beautiful things, and we have joy
when more people come to the teachings, and when new schools open and new
instructors teach, these are all joyful occurrences, but they are nothing compared to
finding a defect that you have never seen before in yourself. It sounds strange, right? It
doesn't sound joyful to us right now, because we only know our pride, we do not know
our Essence, but when you are centered in your Essence, in other words, when you
have psychological equilibrium, you have a center of gravity in your Essence, and
when you see that defect, you feel an unimaginable joy, because that is an aspect of
your cage of suffering. Now that you see it, you can kill it - not overnight, but now that
you see the enemy, you can vanquish him. If you do not see your cage, you are just
trapped, suffering.
So this is the work. I love this little passage because it embraces all of that. Everything
is in this.
What is the fundamental education? It is the education of the consciousness. The
consciousness can only be educated as to what is right and wrong if we control our
personality, if we awaken our Essence, and if we cognizantly balance thought,
emotion, and movement, and we act from revolutionary ethics (conscience). When that
phrase is actualized in our day to day life, we become different, very different, life
changes.
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So, what can you do to help yourself to remember yourself? You can use tricks like
an alarm clock. I have known people who have like written little notes to themselves and
hidden them around their office, so they will open their a drawer and see a note,
"Remember yourself." That might work once, and it might work when you look in the
drawer again a year later, but it is not going to work everyday. Those little tricks are
just ok, but they are just modifying the external circumstances, not the internal cause of
forgetfulness. To modify the internal cause of forgetfulness is very hard. It is not easy
to do it, and it will not happen overnight. The only way to remember yourself is to
remember to do it. There is no trick or shortcut. You have to make effort, and make
consistent effort; keep trying.
This is very similar to when we learn to meditate. When start our meditation, we have a
great intention, "I am going to meditate now for ten minutes." We get about five or ten
seconds into it and then we begin dreaming. The ten minutes go by, when we suddenly
realize, "Gasp! I totally forgot I was supposed to be meditating!" We feel bad, but keep
trying. Eventually you reach the ability to retain mindfulness of what you are doing for
two or three minutes before slipping away into distraction; then you remember "Oh, I'm
supposed to be meditating, so let me concentrate again. Then a few seconds go by
and you fall asleep again, and then another two or three minutes go by and "I should
be meditating!" Everyone goes through this when making effort to learn meditation: you
catch yourself repeatedly getting distracted and losing attention. This is also what
happens during the day when trying to observe yourself. The effort is the same: to pay
attention consciously: to not be distracted by our mind. The more effort you make, the
more often you catch yourself wandering away. Do not feel defeated when you
realize you have been distracted. It is wonderful to catch yourself being distracted.
That is a triumph! The Buddha said that if you meditate and become distracted a
thousand times, and catch yourself a thousand times, that was a perfect meditation, a
beautiful meditation, because you realized you were distracted. You restored your
consciousness to being present and attentive. If you didn't remember it at all, then you
need to work harder. Eventually, gradually, the stronger your consciousness becomes,
the more attentive it becomes. Then you are able to remain more cognizant for longer
periods, but the challenges change, they become something different, more subtle, still
hard,but more subtle. We can talk about that in another lecture. For now, keep trying. It
takes a lot of willpower.
There is a chart used in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, often in the antechamber, of
the steps of concentration, called the nine stages of tranquil abiding. It illustrates the
stages of developing conscious attention. The very first step shows a monk with a rope
and an axe, and next to him is a huge blazing fire.
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Those two implements, the rope and the axe, represent the tools of mindfulness and
observation. The fire represents how much intensity you have to put into your
willpower, to be cognizant, to be aware of yourself. It takes A LOT of energy, a lot of
willpower. An enormous blaze is next to him, but if you look at the painting, as it winds
up towards higher states of concentration, the flame gets smaller, until at he top there is
no flame. The reason is, as he ascends that path, developing more cognizance, it takes
less effort; the consciousness becomes trained, the mind becomes trained, the three
brains become trained, it becomes easier to remain self-aware, then the challenges
are different after that. So that's basically the point: keep making the effort to be
mindful, A LOT of effort.
You will have to sacrifice other things. Earlier I used the example of us having a
hundred units of energy. In the morning, most of us probably only have ten units,
because we wake up tired, because our mind is wasting energy all night long. So, let
us say you have those ten units of energy. Well, to awaken, you need a lot of energy,
so if you are serious about your spiritual work, you should stop engaging in activities
where you waste energy, actions that do not help you spiritually, and that may even
harm you spiritually. Some examples are to stop listening to negative music, stop
watching negative television or movies, stop reading harmful materials, books, the
internet, websites, etc. Stop any behaviors where you waste energy. Sometimes it
means you have to take a break from friends, from social events, from family. It may
mean you need to change habits that you have had for your whole life. Do it: your very
Soul is at stake. This is not a game. You need energy to awaken your consciousness.
You need energy to manage your three brains. You need energy to be cognizant. If
you are wasting your energy, that is your choice. So, evaluate your life. Look to see
what you can change. Find areas where you can save energy. No matter which
tendency we happen to have, whether we are more intellectual, emotional, or a motor
type, we each waste energy in all three brains, we just tend to do it one way more than
another.
Part of it also is restraining our senses. When you see a billboard or an advertisement,
or you see a person dressed in skimpy clothes, you have a choice of whether to look
or not; when you look, you expend energy in the transformation of those impressions.
If those impressions stimulate your lust or envy, then you have invested energy into
those egos. When that show is coming on tv that has questionable content, turn off
the tv, spend time with your kids, do something useful with your time; don't waste your
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time. These actions that seem insignificant add up rapidly. One of the sutras says:
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with each other. The difference is that, the ego uses the personality and makes the
personality big and fat; personality becomes this grotesque thing. We all worship big
personalities; rock stars, movie stars, leaders, politicians, celebrities. They all have BIG
personalities, very dominating personalities. But when we deal with somebody who
does not have that, whose personality is passive and under control of Essence, they
have a completely different feeling. For example, Samael Aun Weor has a strong solar
personality, which is something else; we have lunar personality. Or another Master,
such as the Dalai Lama, for example, he has very powerful, conscious presence. So,
personality is always there, even the highest Masters have personality, but it is a solar
personality being controlled by the Spirit.
Audience: [unintelligible]
Instructor: Equilibrium is when our moment to moment activities are managed by the
consciousness; that is to have equilibrium. In The Revolution of the Dialectic, Samael
Aun Weor talks about a Permanent Center of Gravity or Permanent Center of
Consciousness; that is equilibrium. Instead of being centered in our intellect or
centered or in our heart or centered in the motor-instinctive or sexual centers, the
person in equilibrium is centered in the Essence. And so when that person faces
challenges, situations, they are centered in the Essence, managing the three brains
consciously, and do not get swept away by emotion, or swept away by conceptual
things, or swept away by instinct; they are conscious, cognizant. That is the platform
from which you can transform impressions; that's another level. But without that center
of gravity, you cannot do the work
Audience: [unintelligible]
Instructor: Not necessarily, it depends. We talked about five centers today: three
related to the body, and then the emotional and intellectual, but there are two more:
superior intellect and superior emotion. These centers are related with the heart and
the brain, but they transmit a superior type of force, a superior type of energy related
with the Being. Any one of us can receive influences or impressions from those
superior centers; for example, you might have a vision or an awakened, conscious
experience out of your body; you might have some kind of powerful, spiritual
experience with your Innermost, even while in your physical body. Those are related to
the superior centers. But, because we tend to waste so much energy and we do not
have control over our three brains, such experiences are generally accidents or
something provoked by the Being to push us. The two superior centers become fully
active when we have created the Soul; when we have the Solar Astral Body and Solar
Mental Body. When we meditate, we are looking to have experiences or get information
from those centers. We can have it, but it is not easy for us; we do not have the
energy, we do not have the equilibrium, and may not have those bodies internally.
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Audience: [unintelligible]
Instructor: Well, this is the whole challenge, it is exactly that. Samael gave a great
lecture that partly explains it. He gave a lecture called "The Taste of Life, and the Taste
of the Work," to illustrate that we have to get to know the flavor of our psychological
experiences and our spiritual experiences, and this is something that takes a long
process of study. Not merely study in the intellect, but study in the heart, and study in
the body. It is part of the reason we need to be in a balanced form in our practice. I
was talking about yogis or monks who may have experiences of Samadhi; because
they do so much practice, they easily have Samadhi and they go out and talk with the
Gods and have experiences with elemental forces of nature, and so they think that they
are enlightened. They interpret those experiences as if they are liberated. Then they
come back to the body and they say, "Hey everybody, I am a Master!" But they are
wrong. They are lacking study of the higher aspects, the metaphysics (Kabbalah) of
those experiences. So the short answer is: in order for you to accurately interpret your
experiences, you need a lot of study, a lot of patience, and you need a lot of selfcriticism; you cannot take any experience at face value. Kabbalah is essential on this
point. The whole purpose of Kabbalah is to be able to interpret our experiences; that is
why we study it. It is not just to have a theory, it is to be able to interpret accurately
what we see and experience internally and physically. We have the example of the
other instructor, who, someone came to him in the internal worlds and said, "You are
Moses; we know you are Moses." Of course, from studying, he knows that he is not
Moses. Moses is symbolic. But if he had not studied Kabbalah, he would be now
claiming that he is Moses. So when we get information through the superior intellect or
superior emotional center, we have to know how to discriminate and understand in
context; we have to understand the symbol. Everything in those experiences is
Kabbalistic,.
Audience: When we live in society, real world... the real world is what were talking
about here... to find that balance between equilibrium... putting your life together...
very, very fine line... talk about the balance so...
Instructor: It is a challenge, but that is part of the beauty of the Gnostic teaching: it
does not demand that you change your physical circumstances to go to the woods or a
monastery. Gnosis is a path of the Fourth Way, which any person, in any
circumstance, can utilize and change their circumstances for the better. So the simple
answer is: do what you are doing, but do it consciously. Do what you are doing, but do
it from your heart, consciously. We all need jobs. We all work. We all have
responsibilities with family, kids, with our different activities we are involved in. The
practice Gnosis does not mean we have to stop all those things, by no means; we need
all that. Our life is our karma; that is where were going to learn about ourselves. Our life
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is our mirror in which we can see who we really are. So we do what we have to do, we
eliminate what we do not have to do, and we learn how to do our activities better. Be a
better person in your day to day life. If you have a job, do your job from your heart.
Turn your job into a spiritual practice. Turn your family life into a spiritual exercise.
When you go to work, take it as your Gnostic path, instead of taking it just as a way to
get money. Your daily life is a way for you to learn about yourself. It is a way to
contribute to your community, your family, your environment, and to the people around
you. A job is necessary in this day and age; we need it. We need to be able to survive,
and it is the only way we can survive right now. So, do your job, but do it as a spiritual
practice. If in every interaction with others, in every moment, we seek to extract what is
useful, to make it conscious, to make it of benefit to others, and we get rid of what is
not useful, discard it, your life then has incredible meaning and value. This is not easy,
but it can be done; I give you my personal testimony of that. I have had jobs that are
very difficult, and I suffered, and I still suffer, but thanks to Samael and the help I get
from the Gnostic teachings, I have learned how to transform, whether easy tasks or
difficult tasks. I do not do it perfectly, but I am learning. It can be done, that's what I
can tell you: it can be done. Whether you are a janitor or a president, it doesn't matter;
what matters is to be conscious. Do what you do consciously; act from your
conscience. If you have a conflict with your job, if it bothers your conscience, then
change it, but if you can do your job in good conscience, then do it, and do it to
benefit your coworkers and the clients you serve. Do it as a service to humanity, then it
becomes a beautiful sacrifice. Instead of just doing it to get money, you are doing it
because you can sincerely do something to benefit other people, to help them. Then
your job becomes a great vehicle for transformation. The same opportunity exists with
your family. We all have challenging family karma, but if we can take that as an
opportunity to serve, instead of just as a source of suffering, if we can turn our job and
our family and our community responsibilities into opportunities to serve each other,
then each one becomes a very powerful tool to transform our mind and to help
transform the lives of people around us. It is just a matter of shifting our attitude. It is
not easy to do, but we can do it, and that's by training. That is why this tradition is
called mind training. In Tibetan it is called lo jong. We train ourselves to be better
people. The fruits of that training do not come overnight, but through patience,
persistence, and learning a little bit more each day.
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