- knowledge, perception, skill
- discernment, understanding, wisdom
Daath, the Doorway to Knowledge (1)
- Transcription from: Daath, the Tree of Knowledge Course
- By a Gnostic Instructor
The doorway to knowledge is what we seek when we enter into a religion, or any kind of spirituality, that doorway of which Jesus spoke in the Gospel:
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” – Matthew 7:7-8
To knock on that doorway, we have to know where it is, and to aid us we have many religions in the world, many mystical teachings throughout all the different groups and ages of humanity. Contained within them all are the clues that can guide us towards that singular door which does not reside in only one religion or in any force or group outside of us. That door is not in any book. It is not in any priest, preacher, or master. The doorway is within ourselves. This is why the ancient Greek oracle said:
“Know thyself.”
The doorway that we need to knock upon and pass through is within us.
We call the synthesis of all the religions in the world by the name Gnosis, which is a Greek word that means “knowledge.” This synthesis indicates a practical science to discover and utilize that doorway by conscious will. It is not a matter of belief or theory. It is something that we have to perform consciously, psychologically, and spiritually in ourselves. The discovery of that doorway is up to us. All who study religion or mysticism do so in order to receive the guidance and instruction to discover that door. We can only find it if we make the effort, if we actually do our part.
Daath: Knowledge
In Hebrew, the word for knowledge, or gnosis, is daath [דעת]. It is usually spelled in English as daat, da’ath, or daath. This is a kind of special knowledge that is unique to the consciousness. It is not related to the intellect. It is not related to belief. It is not in the form of thoughts, words, ideas, concepts, theories, dogmas, books, etc. Rather, it is a kind of conscious knowledge related to the soul, that has to be put into practice so that this special, internal knowledge can grow and build upon itself, and elaborate the creation of the soul.
When we look for the doorway to our own real knowledge, our own real gnosis, if we come from a Christian or a Jewish background we find that doorway symbolized in the book of Genesis, or Bereshit, the first book of the Bible. That doorway is symbolized in the Garden of Eden as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil [עץ הדעת טוב ורע]. The Tree of Knowledge is Daath. It is the tree of Gnosis, the Tree of Knowledge.
“And the Lord God caused to sprout from the ground every tree pleasant to see and good to eat, and the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.” – Genesis / Bereshit 2:9
In Kabbalah, when we study the Tree of Knowledge it is symbolically represented in the great void between the first and second triangles on the Tree of Life.
When the Tree of Life is superimposed over the body of a man, Daath corresponds to the throat. In Genesis, God creates through the throat, using his Word (Logos). This is symbolized in every religion:
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. – Genesis / Bereshit 1:3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John (Christian)
I (Osiris) brought my own name into my mouth as a Word of Power, and I forthwith came into being under the form of things which are and under the form of Khepera (Creator). – The Book of Knowing the Evolutions of Ra, and of Overthrowing Apep (Egyptian)
In a year he (Prajapati) desired to speak. He uttered ‘bhurbhuva svar’. ‘Bhur’ which means earth; ‘bhuva’ which became figment and ‘svar’ which became the sky… with his mouth he created the gods. – The Satapatha Brahmana (Hindu)
This is the beginning of the ancient Word… the potential and source for everything done. – The Popol Vuh (Mayan)
Creation occurs through Daath.
In Hebrew, דעת Daath is spelled with three letters: ד daleth, ע ayin, and ת tav. The twenty-two Hebrew letters symbolize and encode the entire path to awaken the consciousness and to have the direct experience of God, the entire path to become a fully-developed soul, what someone might call a buddha or an angel.
Daleth: The Door
Daath is the doorway to God, and we know that is true because the first letter of Daath is daleth [ד], which symbolizes a door. Daleth is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and carries the value of the number four. It is also a symbol of a doorway.
It is through the Tree of Knowledge that Adam and Eve were expelled from of Eden. They went through the door of Daath. They made a mistake. They disobeyed the commandment of Jehovah. Because of that, they did not take the benefits of Daath that were intended for them. Instead, they reaped pain. They ate of the forbidden fruit and went through the doorway of Daath, but into the wilderness, into suffering and death. They descended to a low state, a state of existence burdened by death and suffering.
The first letter daleth summarizes what Daath is all about. It tells us that this special knowledge is a doorway. This doorway is like any door: you can go through it in two directions. It depends on how you enter and what your will is: how you use the doorway. That is why Daath is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because there are two potential outcomes of using this door.
Here we have to clarify that the words good and evil in the context of Daath are not as simple as the dualistic notion of right and wrong, or good and evil, in the way we always think of it. It is not limited to that sense of duality. It is much richer and deeper than simply “good” and “bad,” like the way a child thinks of good or bad, or the way we think of our morals or ethics as good or bad, or the good and bad guys in the movies. That form of thinking is very limited. It is dualistic, it is intellectual. It does not encompass how nature actually works. Nature in itself is not good or bad, it just “is.” Nature functions according to laws, and Daath is the same. Daath expresses certain laws, and by application of the knowledge (Daath), we arrive at certain consequences, or results.
Ayin: The Experience
The second letter of Daath is ayin [ע]. Ayin is the sixteenth Hebrew letter, and it symbolizes “to see, to know, to experience.” It symbolizes the eyes and how we perceive.
Tav: The Covenant
The third letter tav [ת] symbolizes a covenant, a seal. It is the twenty-second letter, the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So, it is the seal or completion of the twenty-two letters. The twenty-two letters contain all the knowledge in symbolic form, and the tav is the synthesis of them all. It is the completion, the end, the seal, the covenant. When you sign a contract and somebody seals it at the end, that is tav.
The letters of Daath say: daleth is the doorway, ayin is the way to see, and tav is the end of the work. The word Daath contains a message. Through the knowledge you can arrive at the vision, the insight, the perception of the complete path, of all the work, of all creation. The twenty-two letters symbolize and encompass all the laws that manage everything that exists. Daath is the science to perceive it, to access it.
The doorway can go two ways. That is why in Jeremiah it says:
“Thus saith Jah-havah, ‘Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.’”
This explains the good and evil (Tob and Ra in Hebrew) of Daath: the way of life and the way of death. This is a better way to think about good and evil. We tend to think of evil as a guy in a red suit carrying a pitchfork. That idea has nothing to do with reality.
In Gnosis, we use the term evil to describe devolving forces. Anything that we would call evil is something that is degenerating, something that is descending, something that is antithetical to the Spirit. We call good that which elevates the Spirit, that which is ascending. But, there is another path that is beyond good and evil. This is something beyond the limitations of that dualistic notion, and Daath can lead us to that which is beyond both: but only after completing the path of Tob (good).
In the Hebrew word Daath, we see this character ע ayin in the middle, which has two Iods at the top of its shape, and those two Iods look like a pair of eyes. That symbolizes the duality of the potential outcome of Daath: two kinds of vision, two kinds of perception that result from knowledge. In the Bible, the result of that doorway of Daath is symbolized in two kinds of people: prophets and diviners. The prophets in the Bible have the vision of God. They see purely what God shows them. But the diviners see impurely. They see “through a glass darkly.” They see, but they see a lie. There is a difference between them, but the diviners do not see the difference. That is the scary part: someone who has awakened the consciousness through the knowledge of Daath, sees, but do they know how they see? This is where the science of Daath becomes the Path of the Razor’s Edge. It is something very delicate. This why we need to study the science very deeply.
Adam and Eve Within
When we study the story of Adam and Eve, we should not take the story literally. It is an initiatic story. It is symbolic: it is psychological, it is spiritual. When we apply the story of Adam and Eve to ourselves in order to understand how we can access the doorway of Daath, and how we use knowledge now, we understand that Adam symbolizes our brain, and that Eve symbolizes our sexual organs.
These are related to two energetic channels that are wrapped around our spinal column, symbolized as the two serpents on the caduceus of Mercury. In India, they are called Ida and Pingala, and in Kabbalah they are called od and ob. These are two forces, energetic channels, which relate to Adam and Eve. One is masculine, one is feminine. One is Adam, one is Eve. Adam relates to the brain and Eve relates to the sex.
In the story of Adam and Eve, Eve is tempted by a serpent to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The man and the woman were warned to not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. They could enjoy all the fruits of the garden, but to not eat that fruit. Then the serpent tempts Eve. To understand that, we have to go deep into the Hebrew letters to know what these symbols contain, to understand how this applies to us.
Eve falls into temptation and eats that fruit, and gives it to Adam, which means the sexual organs take something that was forbidden and passes it to the brain, which likes it. The result is that Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden.
Eden: (Hebrewעדן
) bliss, pleasure
By eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve are cast out of that ecstasy, or bliss, of Eden, the pleasure of bliss. Because of that, suffering begins. This happens to us every day. We persist in these mistakes in ourselves because we do not understand the Tree of Knowledge in ourselves. This is the whole point that we need to grasp. We have our own Adam and Eve inside. We have Eve, the sexual organs, and we have Adam, the brain. They are constantly being tempted by the serpent who is Lucifer, the sexual force, that tempting power, that fiery force that resides in sex, and that tempts us to eat that fruit, to indulge in that fruit. When we do so, the result is passed to the brain, which becomes identified and attached to the sensations of the fruit. And because of that, Adam and Eve both are cast out of that pleasure into suffering. This has many levels of meaning – physically, spiritually, psychologically.
After they eat the fruit, the scripture says that their eyes were opened.
“Their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked.”
This is ayin, the central character in the word Daath. ע Ayin relates to the eyes. In other words, through sex Adam and Eve have their eyes opened. They see something different. In the story, Adam and Eve realize that they are naked and they feel ashamed. Then they feel afraid. We pass through that. When we are young and the sexual hormones begin to become active in us, we pass through tremendous uncertainties and anxieties about sexuality, and when we begin to experiment with it, we start to feel shame, guilt, and uncertainty, and we want to hide what we are doing. We do not want it to be open. We do not tell our parents. We might boast to our friends, but in the places where we are the most intimate, like with our parents or our true loved ones, we feel shame. This relates to our own Adam and Eve, and how our own Adam and Eve abuse the Tree of Knowledge, sex. This is something that we need to get very realistic about. It is the root of our suffering. It is the root of why we cannot see God. You see, the way to use ayin, which is in Daath, to see God, to see like a prophet, is also through using sex, but in the way that God teaches, and the way that is in accordance with scripture, with the way nature should function in us.
Adam and Eve had their eyes opened and they saw that they were naked. What this really is saying is that when they abused the Tree of Knowledge, they inverted the power, the fire of sexuality, and abused that commandment, and so, being naked, they lost the protective innocence, the protective power, of a consciousness that is in harmony with the divine. The protective covering was the light of the Shekinah. That nakedness is the feeling of not having God within. It is a feeling of vulnerability that most of us know very well. It is a feeling of being spiritually naked, consciously vulnerable, weak, afraid, ashamed. It does not mean physically naked. It is not literal nakedness: it is psychological and spiritual.
We need to learn how to use this doorway of knowledge in the right way, to be like David. David in the Psalms, sang,
“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law.”
David prayed for the help of God to use Daath to open his own eyes and see the Law, symbolized by the letter tav.
The door to that vision is the same door that Jesus mentioned, which is one path, one door. There are not multiple doors to God. There is one doorway. None of the prophets, including Jesus, said there are many paths. Jesus said there is one path, and it is narrow, and it is difficult, and it is hard to find.
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” – Matthew 7:13-14
Many people go the easy way, which means they use Daath, sex, and become hypnotized by the serpent within them, and they follow that path to destruction. Very few conquer temptation and take the narrow path, which is difficult, but is the path to life.
To understand that path, we look to the two words for good and evil in Hebrew.
Tob: The Path of Goodness
The Hebrew word for good is טוב Tob, which has three letters.
Teth: the Serpent
The first letter of ט Tob is teth. Teth represents a serpent. In its shape you can see a curled serpent. That is the tempting serpent. It is also the healing serpent of Moses:
“And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” – Numbers 21: 6-9
Remember that Daath is related to the throat, thus when the people “spoke against God” they used the door of knowledge in the wrong way. They were falling under temptation of their own inner serpent and suffered for it.
The serpent is always present in relation to the Tree of Knowledge, and heals or harms according to our relationship with it. Teth, this letter that represents a serpent, is the ninth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. If you relate that to the sephiroth of the Tree of Life (Kabbalah), you see that the ninth sphere, counting downwards, is Yesod. When you place the Tree of Life over your body, you see that Yesod is sex, and Yesod is related to ט teth, which is the serpent. This is where we are tempted by the serpent: in sex.
Vav: The Spine
The second letter in Tob is a ו vav, which is a straight line. The vav represents the spinal column. The vav is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This is also significant.
It is through the spinal column that God creates. You remember in the Bible it always says, “And God said, ‘Let there be light’… And God saw that it was good… And God created.” ו Vav means “and.” So in Hebrew, Good and Evil, is טוב ורע “tob veh ra” – the veh is a ו vav, which means “and.”
It is through the spinal column (vav) that God creates. It is through the spine that we are tempted by the serpent. It is through the spine that we can be healed by the serpent.
“Make thee a fiery serpent (ט
teth), and set it upon a pole (ו
vav): and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh (ע
ayin) upon it, shall live.” – Numbers 21:8
When we conquer the temptation of the serpent, the energy of sexuality will rise up the spine, which is what makes what we call “the second womb.” This is how the soul is created in us.
Beth: Creation
The third letter in טוב Tob is ב beth. Beth is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which represents a house, the house of God. Beth is the creative power of the Divine Mother Shekinah. Beth is related to the powers of creation. In Hebrew the first book of the Bible is called Bereshit, which refers to creation. The first letter of Bereshit is beth, and it is through that beth that the rest of the Bible emerges. It emerges from that letter beth.
The word טוב Tob has the serpent (ט), the spine (ו), and the house (ב) where creation occurs. Tob means “goodness.” So, “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good.” The good is first. Through Tob, or this goodness, the upright creation can occur, the creation of the real man, or the reestablishment of Adam and Eve in Eden.
What we need is to follow the path of Tob, the good path, the upright path, in order to recover our place in Eden, so then we can go further than that and become a fully-developed soul, beyond good and evil. Returning to Eden only fixes the mistake. Then we have a whole other work to do after that.
The three letters of Tob relate how God creates the real man. It is good because it is related with our own goodness, which in Hebrew is Gedulah. Gedulah is a name for the sphere on the Tree of Life called Chesed. This is related with our own inner Spirit, who in the Bible is the Ruach Elohim, the spirit that hovers over the waters in the process of creation. The first six days of Genesis symbolize how our own Spirit, the Ruach Elohim, our goodness, creates the real man in us, creates Adam in other words, the Adam that belongs in Eden. So, in other words, if we follow the path of Tob, we utilize our sexual forces to empower our own inner Spirit to bring us back into Eden.
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve do not follow that path. In the Bible, in ancient times, this happened on a macrocosmic level, with humanity as a whole. But it happens in us psychologically on a daily basis, because daily we allow our own inner Adam and Eve to abuse the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, to abuse the energy, our own sexual force. Instead of following the path of Tob, we follow the path of Ra, which in Hebrew means pollution, or evil, or that which is harmful.
Ra: The Impure Spirit
The result of abusing the sexual energy is that Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden and they give birth to Cain and Abel, which is the arrival of murder, jealousy, and all the problems that are described throughout the rest of the Bible.
The Hebrew word רע ra has two letters: ר resh and ע ayin. Resh symbolizes our head, where we have the brain, Adam. Ayin represents our eyes, or how we see and experience. When we fall into the temptation of the serpent, we awaken the ayin, the vision within the head related to the pineal and pituitary glands. But God is not there. There is no letter for God there. In our head is just ra: pollution, evil.
It is written, ‘And God saw that theרע
of men upon the earth was great and all the imaginations and thoughts of their hearts were onlyרע
continually.’ (Gen. vi., 5.)
Said Rabbi Jehuda: “‘Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee’ (Ps. v., 5). Observe that he who gives way to the temper and suffers himself to be led and guided by it, defiles not only himself but also those with whom he comes into personal contact. As already stated, though the wickedness of the antediluvians was great and their evil deeds were many, yet was the Holy One unwilling to destroy them, but long-suffering towards them, notwithstanding, and their shameful propensities and heinous practices, of which it is written ‘that they were only evil continually.’ Their evil actions are denoted by the word (Ra) (pollution). Of Er, the eldest son of Judah, who was guilty of this sin; it is written that ‘he was wicked in the sight of the Lord and the Lord slew him.'” – Zohar
In the Bible there is only one line written about Er.
“Nowער
Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.” – Genesis (Parshah Vayeishev) 38:7
It is interesting that the name Er is spelled with the same letters as רע Ra: ayin-resh. The definition of his wickedness is not stated explicitly, but when you analyze this, you see that it was fornication. As a son of Judah, as a son of the tribe of Israel, as an initiate, he abused the Tree of Knowledge.
Said Rabbi Jose: “Is not this sin synonymous with what is termed rashang (wickedness or wrongdoing)?”
“No,” replied Rabbi Jehuda, “for rashang is applied to intentional evil ere it becomes an actuality, butרע
Ra refers to him who defiles himself by the dissipation of his vital powers [fornication, abuse of sexual energy] and thus gives himself up to the unclean spirit calledרע
Ra. He who thus renders himself impure will never attain unto the Divine Life nor behold the face of the Shekina, whose disappearance from the world previous to the deluge was owing to the vice termed Ra. Woe unto him who indulges in it, for he will never experience the joy of living [Eden] in the presence of the Holy One, but will drag on through life as a degraded captive and miserable slave ofרע
Ra, the unclean spirit…
That description sounds like us, this humanity, because we are slaves of רע Ra. We are slaves of the unclean spirit that is within us. In Gnosis, we call that unclean spirit “the ego.” The ego is a multiplicity of desires: pride, envy, jealousy, fear, anger, gluttony, laziness. The ego is constituted by all of the psychological attributes that utilize our energy in the wrong way. They all have their root in sexual energy. The unclean spirit, or Ra, is within us. It is not outside.
“…so true are the words, ‘The fear of the Lord leadeth to life, it bringeth peaceful nights free from visits of the impure spiritרע
‘ (Prov. xix., 23). And therefore it is written, ‘רע
(Ra) shall not dwell with thee’ (Ps. v., 4). Only the pure in life and thought and deed can say, ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid ofרע
, for thou art with me and causest me to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'” (Ps. xxiii., 4-6.)
The Zohar, this mystical text that explains the Kabbalah to us, is very clear. Only the pure in heart, thought and deed can claim to be free of the spirit of רע Ra, that impure spirit. In other words, we must eliminate the ego. There is no exception to this. Those who have this impure spirit within cannot come into the presence of God. The scriptures are unequivocal. There are no exceptions. There is no way around it.
But unfortunately in these times there are many, many teachings, many rabbis, many new age people, many Gnostics, who are teaching methods or theories that suggest that you do not have to dissolve your ego. Many of them teach how to use the sexual energy. Many of them teach about transmutation, meditation, and astral projection. They may teach about Daath. They may talk about the ego, but fail to deliver the practical knowledge of how to actually eliminate the ego every day, that impure spirit רע Ra remains alive in us. That is a great danger, and it is very sad that so many teachings avoid giving the full knowledge. There are some groups who actually teach (and who are very popular, by the way) that if you simply stop paying attention to the ego, it dissolves on its own. You will see this talked about on television now. It is very popular, but it is a lie. What these groups forget, what they do not understand, is that matter and energy are interdependent.
The ego is a crystallization of sexual forces that are not physical, but that are emotional and mental. Those crystallizations are within our own mind. We can call it the unconscious, or the subconscious, or the infraconscious, or we can just call it hell. We can call it klipoth. But that level of our own psychology has matter. The ego is matter, but not physical matter. It is matter in a lower dimension. It is a formation that traps energy, and until that matter is removed, the energy that corresponds to it remains imprisoned. You can ignore your egos all you want, but they do not go away or dissolve on their own. This is the great mistake that these groups make. They believe that there is a way to extract that energy and leave that matter behind. This is impossible. That energy and that matter are synonymous with each other. In order to free the energy, the matter must be destroyed. It is simple as that. This is a basic function in physics.
In other words, what these groups teach is how to awaken this ayin in our resh, in our head, and develop insight, powers, clairvoyance, vision – but through the ego, רע Ra, impurity, pollution. This is what we call a diviner, or a seer, someone who has developed powers, but with the ego still alive. This is what we call a demon, in other words. They might look like a regular physical person, they might think they are a regular physical person, but their soul is becoming demonic because the consciousness is awakening inside the ego, and God is not there. We can also call these people “baalim,” which is a sort of respectful term that means “sirs.”
The way this awakening occurs is through our use of our own energies, through will. From moment to moment, constantly, our whole organism, psychologically and physically, is receiving and transforming energy. We use that energy according to how we use our consciousness. Wherever you place your attention, you are directing forces, energies, and there is a reciprocal event that occurs. When you begin to pay attention to something, you are putting energy into that and you develop a relationship with it. This is natural. It is part of how nature functions. Thus when you choose to invest your energy into being angry, or to being lustful, or to feeling a desire, or indulging in a desire, you are falling under the temptation of your own serpent, Lucifer, who is tempting that energy. You fall into that and become hypnotized by your desire.
That energy creates a formation in your mind. It is matter, it is real. It is something that exists in the mental plane, and emotionally in the astral plane. But it is a false creation. It is what we call an ego, or a shell. This is where we get the Hebrew word klipoth. This is a word that refers to the lower realms below Malkuth in the Tree of Life. Klipoth means “the world of the shells.” That world is the subconscious, unconscious, and infraconscious levels of our own mind, those areas that for us are darkness. We do not see them because at the moment we are blind to their true nature. We are blind to all those things internally because we have not utilized the power of Daath to awaken our eyes.
The function of this all occurs through the letter vav, which represents the spinal column. The letter vav is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. If you have studied the the arcana of the Tarot, you know that the number 6 relates to Indecision. It is represented in the graphic of that arcanum as a man trapped between two women, a virgin and a whore. He has to choose between them. This is where we are all the time when the serpent in us is tempting us to choose. Do we choose to use our energy, our time, our mind, our heart, and our body to serve the virgin, our own Divine Mother? Or do we use those energies to serve the whore, Lilith, Nahemah, Jezebel, who is in us? We choose in each moment according to how we behave, how we think, how we feel, how we use those energies.
That process is happening through vav, because that is our own spine. What happens in our spinal column? Eve is at the base of the spine, which is where the creative energy resides: in the sexual organs. The root energy of our whole organism and psychology is in our sexual energy. When our inner Eve is tempted and uses sexual energy to feed her desire, she uses that energy and sends it up the spine to Adam, and infects the brain with the taste and lust and desire for sensations of pleasure, even if those are not explicitly sexual on the surface.
It may just be, for example, that we have a situation with someone we are envious of, and we indulge in that envy in our mind and heart; that indulgence is a usage of sexual energy, but we are unaware of it. The brain becomes addicted to that sensation of envy, and we become used to it, we start to like it, even though it is a form of suffering. This is what happens with drug addicts and alcoholics. This is what happens with people who are manic, people who are depressed. They become habituated to sensations and they start to like it. The same happens with people who are undergoing torture, who are put in jail. They become used to it, and they start to think it is normal, and they start to crave it. This is what has happened to us. It sounds weird, and the mind says, “That cannot be,” but it is true. And when you really become honest with yourself and you start looking into your behaviors, you start to see things that you know you shouldn’t do but that you like to do. We all have them, and we each have our idiosyncrasy. Some of us really like to feel afraid, to feel insecure, to feel anxious. I bet you that most of us, even though we would not admit it, actually like to feel stressed because we have become used to it. Now when we feel stressed, we feel like we are doing something, like we are part of life, we are on the path to success because we are stressed out. When we feel relaxed, we feel uncomfortable, as if we are not doing our work, we are not doing something. Have you ever noticed that? When you start to really relax, you start getting worried and anxious because you are not stressed? Why is that? Because we become habituated to these harmful states of being.
The end result here is that we suffer. We use our energies to cultivate and strengthen all these unconscious and subconscious and infraconscious desires, fears, anxieties, cravings, aversions, all of that impurity that surges the mind, about which we do not know because we are in darkness. We are blind; we do not even see ourselves. Instead, our eyes are only opened to our desires. We see everything through our desires and in relation to our desires. We are so enslaved by our inner impurities that we do not even realize it. For us, life is just the pursuit of desires. That is why we suffer.
However, if we have learned something about Daath, if we have learned something about tantra, and about how to consciously use this energy, the sexual energy, then the stakes go up. Then, the game is really on. The problem is that many of the groups and movements who teach about the transmutation of sexual energy do not teach about the elimination of the ego. So, the students begin to practice karma mudra, maithuna, tantra, taoism, – there are many techniques to restrain and utilize the sexual energy. But because they are not eliminating the ego, their own inner Eve is taking that energy, and feeding it to Adam, the brain. All of that energy is moving up the spine (vav) through the nervous system. There is a creation that is occurring. But, the creation is related with רע Ra.
All of that energy begins to stimulate and activate the pituitary gland and the pineal gland in the brain. The sexual energy is a very powerful, potent force. It is the very force of being. It is the force of life, and when that energy suffuses the brain, saturates the brain, the pituitary and pineal glands become activated. In most of us, they are completely atrophied because we have drained them of all their energy. When those glands become activated by being suffused with energy, those glands awaken the chakras related with clairvoyance or the power to have inner visions. If we are not aggressively eliminating our ego, the result is that we become a diviner, a clairvoyant, but someone who sees through the filter of the “I,” the ego. This is how demons are made. This is how suffering is deepened.
In other words, through this method, the eyes (ע ayin) are opened in רע Ra. But those eyes are opened in hell, in klipoth. This type of person who has this experience is able to see clearly in klipoth, their own subconsciousness. To them, it looks like heaven, because it is a world of their own desires. To them, it looks like they are with angels and gods, because they are seeing through the filter of their own subconscious mind. They are seeing the projections of their own mind, not the truth. And the problem is, all of us who learn Gnosis, who learn transmutation, will face this because we all have ego. Even if we are working to eliminate ego, and we are trying to harness the sexual energy, we start to awaken our own inner sight, our own ayin, the ability to see, but then: are we seeing in hell or are we seeing in heaven? But we get so excited because we see something in meditation or out of the body that we immediately think it is in heaven. We lack discrimination. This is a very serious problem that the students face.
In synthesis, those who do not eliminate the ego, following whatever path, whether they are transmuting or not, if they are using energy and not eliminating ego, they are following the path of Ra, the impure spirit, even if they think they are a holy one, even if they are a priest, even if they are a bishop or a lama. It does not matter. What matters is the actual works that are performed consciously in the soul. The result of keeping the ego alive is symbolized in the Bible. Adam and Eve, having been cast out of Eden, have children, Cain and Abel. Of course, we know the story. Cain murders Abel. This is the beginning of all these problems, jealousy, murder, and suffering.
While the ego is alive in us, the inner Tree of Knowledge of that person, the Daath within them, does not bring forth good fruit. The result of using the fruit of the sexual energy does not bring forth good fruit. The result is that this tree within that person is fruitless in the eyes of God. To the person it seems bountiful because they seem to be having all kinds of spiritual bounty. But in the eyes of God it is not. And that is why Jesus said,
“And now also the axe is laid unto the root (Yesod) of the trees (of life and good and evil): every tree (every person) therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit (from their sexual organs) is hewn down, and cast into the (devolving Klipothic) fire.” – Luke 3: 9
This is what Jesus was referring to, that Tree of Knowledge in us.
The way it brings forth good fruit is when we follow the path of Tob, the path of good. And this is by following chastity. But the path is not mere transmutation. Mere transmutation is only part of the equation. Be very clear about that. Many people study Gnosis or tantra and think transmutation is the sum of the teaching, and that is the whole thing. It is not. The main aspect is the death of the ego, the most important. You can transmute all you want, but if you do not work on your ego, you are going on a mistaken path. This needs to be very explicit in your mind. This is why in the Gospels also Jesus says,
“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”
This eye (ayin) that he is referring to is not our physical eye. It is our consciousness. The consciousness is what gives us the ability to perceive. Perception can occur in any of the levels of nature, symbolized in the map of the Tree of Life. We see physically, through the physical eyes, because we have consciousness, but what we see is filtered by the conditioning of our consciousness. That is something you really should consider. What you see is not what is actually there. You see the impressions created by your senses and mind, not the thing in itself.
Until your consciousness is completely awakened and your ego is completely dead, you do not see the truth. We do not have right view, the view of prajna (Sanskrit; the eighth step of the Buddhist Eightfold Path; the view of the two truths simultaneously) until the ego is one hundred percent dead. A person who has acquired that is a person like Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, or Mohammed. Not us. We are not like that. So, let us not listen to those groups that tell us we are already gods, angels and buddhas. This is all a lie. This is all self-deception, based in fear. You see, these groups are so effective now in telling these lies because we are all so afraid. We want to believe in something that makes us feel good. So it is very easy for us to listen to these ideas of, “You do not have to eliminate the ego. You are already an angel. You are already a buddha. All you have to do is realize it.” This is a lie. It contains a truth because we have the potential in us to become a buddha or an angel, but not while the ego is alive. No way. Impossible. The ego traps that inner buddha. That buddha is in hell, not because of God, but because of us. No one else did this to us. We cannot blame God, we cannot blame angel Sakaki, we cannot blame a Lucifer outside of us, we cannot blame a Satan outside of us, because we have Satan within. Our own ego is the devil who created suffering. So, do not blame anyone else for your pain. Blame yourself, and now solve it.
The way to solve the problem of suffering and death is to use your energy wisely. This is why Jesus says, “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Who is “thee?” Who is the real “thee” within? It is God. It is Gedulah. It is our goodness, our own Spirit. In other words, if the vision (the ayin) of our eye offends our Spirit, pluck it out. Kill that ego. Destroy it.
But it is not as simple as saying it, or as simple as saying, “Well. I am not going to listen to that ego anymore.” This is just repression and avoidance. The way you dissolve an ego is through very deep penetrative consciousness of that ego. You have to know yourself. You have to know very deeply all of the impurities that are within your mind. This is the only way you can stop being fooled by your own mind.
You know that old saying, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer?” The meaning in that is, you need to know very well what your enemies are doing. Your friends, you can just leave them be. But your enemies, if you ignore them, you have committed yourself to failure. If you ignore your enemies, they will get you. Because they know you are not looking. Then you are an easy target.
Unfortunately, we are an easy target, because we choose to ignore what is within ourselves. We start hearing about this talk about the ego, and Adam and Eve within us, and lust and pride, and we do not want to hear it. We want to hear how good we are, that we are all angels, that we are all prophets, that we are all on this ascending arch of evolution, and humanity is about to enter into a big golden age. And we all want to feel good. This is all a lie. None of that will happen as long as the ego is alive. There will be a golden age, but no ego is allowed. Zero. If your ego is alive, that ego cannot go there. And if you want to go and be a part of some heavenly realm, you have to vibrate in that level. You have to belong in that world. Right now, we do not. So, if our eye offends our own inner spirit, we need to pluck it out. We need to eliminate that ego.
In the Gospels, Jesus says,
“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” – Matthew 6
When we close our eyes to see what is within ourselves, or when we sit to pray or meditate, do we see light or darkness? When we close our eyes, when we imagine God, do we see light or darkness? Usually we see darkness. Usually, when we look to see what is in us, we do not see anything. We see darkness. When we want to resolve a problem in our life, we do not see solutions. We see darkness, psychological darkness, spiritual darkness. Not literal darkness. To be in the dark means to not know which way to go, to not be able to see your way around. To not be able to navigate through life. This is our case. None of us know where we are going today or tomorrow, our karma, what is coming for us, when death is going to arrive, whether tomorrow will be good or bad. We have no idea. We are completely in the dark, and that is because our own insight is blind. We are blind.
Jesus says, “The light of the body is the eye.” But when you look into the Greek, it is more accurate to say, “The illumination of the self is the vision.” This is what the Greek says. That is totally different. It is not talking about the physical body. He is talking about the way that you become illuminated, and see your way, is through your ayin, through your inner vision, which is here in the midst of Daath. Directly between the door (daleth) and the completion of the work (tav) is ayin, that vision.
He says, “If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Let us put this back to what the real Greek says. It says,
“If thine vision be singular, pure (not multifaceted and divided into a billion egos, but is one light from God), thy whole self will be full of light.”
Moses is always depicted with rays of light from his head, and it is said that he radiates so much light it is hard to look at him because his face is so bright with consciousness. Jesus is the same. This is not physical light, not literal light, but conscious light.
In other words, Jesus is saying, “If thine eye offend thy spirit, pluck it out. It is better to have one eye.” This is how we enter into the path of life. That one eye, that one vision is the pure vision that we can reach through Daath, through knowledge. That singular eye is the divine clairvoyance, pure clairvoyance, or pure inner vision of the prophet. If the ego is alive, our vision is filtered and impure. So that phrase that theologians have been arguing about for centuries is actually very simple. When you look to the Hebrew and the Greek, you see what is actually written there.
[By our actions we] Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. – Matthew 12:33
We have to make our own Tree of Knowledge good. We have to convert our Tree of Knowledge and make it fruitful. Remember, God says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” He is not talking about physically, He is talking about spiritually, to make Daath bear fruit, spiritual fruit, conscious fruit. And that is why He says this, “Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit.” That means that our own tree, our own Daath inside, is known by the fruit that we ourselves create.
And so, what fruit do we have in our lives? This is the question for us. He says, “Every man is known by his fruit.” What is the spiritual fruit of our life? What spiritual fruit do we have to show? The truth is that spiritually, we are in darkness. Do we have the ability to meditate and see God face to face and receive the guidance that we need? If not, we need to make our own tree fruitful, to water that tree and nourish it, by following the good path. And the way we do that is we follow the guidance that is encoded in this tradition. We have to learn how to stop breaking the Law, and instead follow the path of Tob, goodness. This starts withour own power to create, which is in our own Daath within, related to our sex and our throat.
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy [wrong use of Daath] shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost [Binah] shall not be forgiven unto men.
And whosoever speaketh [through his actions in Daath, sex] a word against the Son of man [the prophets], it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh [through his actions in Daath] against the Holy Ghost [the power of God in sex], it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
[By our actions we] Either make the tree [of knowledge within] good, and his [sexual] fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
O generation of vipers [fallen serpents], how can ye, being evil [ra: impure], speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh [for you commit adultery and fornication in your heart].
A good [tob] man [respecting Daath within] out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things [fruit]: and an evil [ra] man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak [through their own Daath], they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
For by thy words [of your own Daath] thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
It is very interesting to see how that path is presented in different ways in different religions, but always contains the same essential tools. I started by telling you that what we want is to enter the doorway into real knowledge. To see for ourselves. To have Gnosis ourselves, to see God, to get guidance from God. Not from a book or a person, but inside. The way we do that is by using this doorway in Daath. That doorway is inside of us. That doorway is in our own letter resh (our head), but that resh has to be made pure. Resh is our head. That doorway begins in Yesod, in sex through the serpent, the first character of Tob. It ascends up the spinal column (vav). As we utilize those energies in the right way through transmutation, and through conscious will, it is created through the letter beth of Tob. This is how we initiate Genesis within ourselves, to create the real man.
In this way, we start to utilize these forces and pass through a series of tests and initiations that help us to see the ego and remove it. This is the great help that Lucifer provides to us. The tempter has his place. He serves God.
“…the angels of God came to stand beside the Lord, and the Adversary, too, came among them. […] Now the Lord said to the Adversary, “Behold, all that he [Job] has is in your hands; only upon him do not stretch forth your hand.” – Job 1:6, 12
That tempting serpent is here, the first letter of Tob is the letter teth, in us, who tempts us. And that is the temptations we pass through in the stages of initiation as we raise that energy up the vav, the spinal column. This is a slow process, and is not easy. It is symbolized in the book of Revelation, believe it or not, by the seven churches in Assiah, not Asia. Assiah relates to the physical body. It is the first kingdom, the first world of kabbalah.
The first few books of Revelation detail the process of working through the seven churches in Assiah, which are the seven chakras of Hinduism and Buddhism. Those seven chakras are energetic centers along our own spinal column, through which that energy must pass as we raise each serpent of the kundalini. Each process is a process of psychological examination, within which we have to see our “I,” our ego, and conquer it, little by little. This is the role that Lucifer plays, guiding us in this, presenting us with temptations. We have to overcome them. But what is very interesting is when we arrive to the head, the two primary chakras, or churches, that we need to know about are related to the pituitary and pineal glands.
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia (which is the chakra Ajna, related to the third eye), ‘These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David (the key to the door), he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth. I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door.’”
This is the first place the door is mentioned in Revelation, the door of daleth, the first letter of the word Daath, knowledge. That door is in the pituitary gland, related with clairvoyance, the door to vision, ayin.
“I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.”
So, in other words, the person is starting to show a little perseverance in the path, but they do not have much strength yet. And it continues to explain what is needed to go further, which is patience, and to hold true.
A little bit later, it says,
“I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.”
“I know,” is Daath, knowledge. In other words, God knows what we are, who we are, and what we are doing. And it says a little bit later,
“Behold I stand at the door, and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”
The throne is the pineal gland. This is the crown of life. This is where that energy rises all the way to the spine, top of the spine, reaches the pineal gland, and divine sight is opened. This process is a combination of these two churches, Philadelphia and Laodicea (Ajna and Sahasrara in Sanskrit). When those two churches, or chakras, are awakened, clairvoyance and polyvoyance are awakened. This is the divine sight of the prophet who sees by the power of God in Daath – without ego.
The full completion of that process, when that process is fully accomplished, which is many stages, is symbolized in the six days of Genesis to create the complete man. If you read the sixth day of Genesis, this is the only day that God says is “very good.” The other days, He completes the work of that day and says, “And God saw that it was good.” And God saw. The “and” is the vav through the spine. But on the sixth day He says, “It was very good.” It was tob me’od. The word “very” in Hebrew is written with daleth-aleph-mem, the same letters as Adam. In other words, on the sixth day, when the completion of creation is done, Adam is restored back to Eden. And we have then a complete man.
So in synthesis, what we need to do is to perform that creation in ourselves, to return to the Tree of Knowledge, but to not eat the fruit. To enjoy the aroma, to enjoy all the benefits of it without eating it, which means to not indulge in it, but instead to restrain the senses, to control lust, to not be tempted by the serpent. When we accomplish that, day by day, we need to use that energy to eliminate our psychological problems, not outside – inside. It is these problems that filter our vision. We do not see the facts of our life, the truth of what is around us, because our perceptions are filtered by our resentments, by our memories, by our desires, by our fears. We only allow ourselves to see according to what we want to see. We do not want to see the truth, and that is why we are blind.
To see the truth, we have to awaken our consciousness. This is possible for anyone to do, but we cannot do it alone. We have to follow the steps exactly, but we need help, and that help comes from inside. It comes from our own goodness, Chesed, Gedulah, but it also comes from Christ. You remember here in Revelation, it says at the seventh church,
“These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.”
This Amen is related with the upper triangle of the Tree of Life: Kether-Chokmah-Binah. This is the cosmic Christ, that illuminating force of light, the Ain Soph Aur, which illuminates everything. For us to see the light, to see what actually is, we need the help of that light, which is Christ. Christ is not outside. It is inside. That is something that we earn. We earn it by our works, by our deeds.
That help is symbolized here in the book of John. Jesus here represents Yeshua, which is the savior Christ. It is not Jesus the person. This story is symbolic.
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind (of the mysteries of the Sabbath) from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”
The meaning is:
“And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth (Blind because of the abuse of the Tree of Knowledge. Blind like Samson, who is seduced by Delilah, the night, Lilith, and who because of lust lost his strength, his power). And His disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus (Yeshua) answered, ‘Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’”
If we know that karma, cause and effect, is the basis of everything, this man is blind, so why would he be blind if not for consequences? Jesus says he is not blind because of any sin, but that God’s work might be shown through him. The answer is, this man already eliminated the cause of that sin. He is blind, but he eliminated the ego, and so he is awaiting Christ to illuminate him. So it says,
“I (Christ) must work the works of him that sent me (and that is the Ain Soph Aur), while it is day (when the Son, the Christ, is there). The night (or Delilah) cometh (in Klipoth), when no man can work (for one cannot be on the path if in hell). As long as I (Christ) am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Do you remember Jesus says, “If thine eye be single, thy body will be full of light,” that is the world. When Christ is within, then we see and we have illuminated vision.
“When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said unto him, ‘Go wash in the pool of Siloam.’ He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”
The ancient community of Siloam was built around the “serpent-stone”, Zoheleth. The stone is related to Yesod, which means the foundation, and is the foundation or sorner stone mentioned in the Gospels. The serpent is within the stone, and awakens through transmutation of the sexual energy. Thus, Jesus tells the man to return to his sexual work.
Jesus healed the blind man’s sight, but with a very beautiful symbol. When Jesus spits on the ground, He is taking that sacred water from the mouth where the word emerges, the logos. That water is Shamayim, the superior waters of the upper Eden, which are related with Daath. If you remember from other lectures, there are two Edens, Daath related with Shamayim, which is usually translated as “heaven,” but means “fiery water” and the Mayim, or lower Eden in Yesod. That spit emerges from Daath through the throat of Jesus. This is the transmuted sexual fiery water, the guidance of Christ for an initiate, for someone who transmutes. That spit, that liquid fire, He places in the earth, adamah (which means ground, earth in Hebrew) and this is where Adam is created.
Adam comes from the dust of the earth. This is how the soul is created, this is how Adam is created. That fiery water mixed with the earth, and then is extracted and heals the man’s sight. Do you see the beautiful symbolism? Completely kabbalistic. If you do not know kabbalah, the story does not make any sense. Why would He spit on the guy’s eye with dirt? It doesn’t mean anything. But when you know what the kabbalistic symbols are, it is beautiful. It is showing this deep relationship of why these waters need to descend to the earth and rise again. This is the process of the path.
The path is hard, but only because we have made it hard. The aid of Christ is there for us if we take it. The path is only hard because of our own ego, which we made. And the more we delay, and the more we avoid it, the harder it becomes.
If we ignore the ego, we cannot control it. If we are ignoring what is happening in our subconscious mind, our unconscious mind, our infraconscious mind, then we are not in control, so we are blind: ignorant.
To receive the aid that this blind man received, we have to eliminate the ego. Jesus said it is not due to his sin, because that sin was already absolved. That man did not have any sin within himself anymore. He had done his part, and then Christ comes to illuminate him. This is possible for any of us, if we do our part.
Questions and Answers
Audience: …great descriptions of egos these days… new groups… New Age schools. They describe ego as illusion, and the antidote…is also illusion. And they say, “Why should we even bother?” And they seem to start, they say, “I will start from this point on to the future with upright thoughts, upright feelings, upright actions, compassion, love.” And they say, “Why should I care about what I did in the past if that is also illusion…is illusion in the past.” And to me it seems like the point that is missing there is that illusion in the past had a cause and effect, and it is stored in the subconscious because of that, and to somehow…ego, where it is subconsciously stored, is not beneficial to…
Instructor: It seems to me that their whole point of view is an illusion. You cannot dispel an illusion with an illusion. People who say that the ego is an illusion are people who lie to themselves and other people, who are not being sincere, and looking into themselves to see the causes of suffering.
There is a very important aspect of our tradition that I think deserves emphasis, which is that we do not make stuff up. Our point of view in studying this teaching is to analyze the most ancient teachings of this humanity, and to discover that practical truth that is within all of them. If you applied the same rigorous analysis to a lot of these New Age teachings, they would completely fall apart. They do not stand up to comparison to our ancient scriptures. They are revealed to be what they are, which is just marketing. Most of these New Age teachings are just clever marketing, that is all that they are. They contain no truth. They contain no ability to generate and sustain true change.
So, when we study Gnosis and we analyze this teaching, and we try to understand this teaching, it is in light of teachings that have been around for thousands of years, and teachings that have been not only delivered by great initiates, but utilized by great initiates, and proven. These new ideas that are coming out in bookstores now, nobody has proven them. They just sound good, but when put to the test, there is nothing there.
The fact remains that every great religion is explicit in its symbolism about the destruction of the ego. It is only nowadays that you have these groups saying that the destruction of the ego is not necessary. They are saying that because it sounds good. The thing is that people now are suckers for anything that sounds easy. We think, “If it sounds easy, and it sounds comfortable, I will do it, sure. Only $29.95, right? And if the talk show host is doing it, it must be good, right? We can believe talk show hosts because they know.” I am sorry, but for me personally, I would rather rely on Jesus or Buddha.
The Dalai Lama talks explicitly about eliminating the ego.
Audience: He says it is illusion.
Instructor: It is illusion, but it is real, too. This is the problem, and this is the same problem that certain Tibetan schools propagate. Yes, the ego is illusion, it is maya, but that does not mean it is without matter or energy. This is the fundamental problem that happened in Buddhism centuries ago, and in Hinduism, that caused a great split in various schools. This is this intellectual debate about truth. The problem is that when you analyze the scriptures like Vedanta or Madhyamaka or certain tantric scriptures that talk about the nature of maya, or illusion, they state very clearly, especially in the higher schools like Dzogchen, that “the ego is illusion, so it does not exist. It is not real. Therefore, we should just awaken consciousness and disregard the ego.” So a lot of these modern groups are taking that as their evidence.
What they fail to realize is that the teaching about the illusory ego belongs to the ninth yana, the highest tantra, and to reach that you have to have first comprehended all the previous yanas (vehicles), which state that the ego is real and must be eliminated. So, how do you resolve that apparent contradiction? True Dzogchen, Mahamudra, or Taoist practitioners do not ignore the ego. Someone who has genuinely consciously reached the level of working at that level has developed right view, which is the capacity to perceive prajna, wisdom. Prajna is the ability to see the two truths simultaneously. That person recognizes that conventional truth exists and so does ultimate truth. In other words, you have a physical body, but it does not exist. And there is no contradiction. You do have a physical body, but it is mostly empty air. The ego is the same. You have an ego, but it doesn’t exist.
Audience: It is impermanent.
Instructor: Well, it is impermanent, but avoiding it does not cause it to cease to exist. This is the misconception. There are certain tantric Buddhist groups who teach this, that you do not need to worry about the ego. They say you just awaken your consciousness, and do not worry about the ego. The result is they all awaken their consciousness but in the ego, and they do not realize it. They awaken their consciousness, but as demons, as devils.
Audience: The Dalai Lama said that the medicine is illusionary also, so it is like a magician that covers one illusion with another…
Instructor: It is true, but you have to see it at the level he is talking. He is talking about the highest tantra yoga, Dzogchen. From the perspective of Dzogchen, it is true. It is true, but until you can consciously with awakened consciousness perceive that, you are wasting your time. This is why, in all the ancient times, throughout centuries, those teachings were hidden, because we who are asleep cannot understand it. We who are asleep, who are blind, who have no spiritual vision, hear that the ego is illusion, we think, “Oh, good. I am ready to go to heaven.” No. We are asleep, and those teachings were hidden because we cannot understand until we awaken our consciosuness and can see consciously what those teachings mean. When we awaken, we can understand it a little bit, but it is not easy. Dzogchen and Mahamudra and the teachings that relay that profound knowledge are very difficult to grasp, even with the consciousness. With the intellect it is impossible, impossible. Unfortunately all these groups now are using those sacred teachings to mislead people.
Audience: On the flip side, can you tell us about the… groups who are saying that the teachings given here… are illusions themselves, they are not real, that it is just to control people, so that… give the excuse to continue… fornicate, continue to get angry, continue to… full of pride, continue to be envious, etc.
Instructor: The bottom line with both these cases is beautifully summarized in the conclusion of the book, The Perfect Matrimony. Samael Aun Weor had a very emotional and troubling experience in the internal worlds, through his awakened consciousness.
“I remembered the lecture halls of some professors of occultism, always filled with thousands of people. I remembered the temples of the world, filled with thousands of human beings. I remembered the lodges that call themselves Rosicrucian with their millions of affiliates. Nonetheless, here, now, in the midst of an authentic temple of the White Lodge, the few who were present could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Then I understood everything. At first, many people came to our esoteric meetings. As time passed, the number who attended notably decreased, and now only a few thirsty for wisdom and love were coming to us. When I understood this, I spontaneously exclaimed, “The temples, lodges and schools of the world are always filled with many people, because Satan has enticed them. However, only few are those who come into the temples of true divine wisdom.” This is how I spoke, with a voice that did amaze me; thus, when I spoke, I noticed that the Superior of the temple was nodding in approval. Then he added, “Thus, this is how it is, Satan has enticed them.”
Only a handful of people genuinely reach the light. It is not because of some Satan outside of us, it is the Satan inside of us who keeps us in darkness. We all have a billion reasons and justifications for why we avoid the real teaching.
All these groups have beautiful, intellectual, logical, very reasonable concepts behind their point of view. If you approach the teaching logically and reasonably, you will believe them. That is because the most dangerous demons work in the mind. The most dangerous forces that we face outside of us work through our mind, tempting our mind and getting our own mind to say, “Yeah, that makes sense. Why should I bother with all this stuff that Gnosis says? It is too hard.” This occurs because our own inner Satan is whispering, repeating what those outside sources said. So we tell ourselves, “Ego is illusion, I will just forget about it.” Sounds easy. It is easy. You will awaken consciousness that way, I guarantee it. If you avoid your ego but transmute your sexual energy, you will awaken consciousness. You will have experiences and visions, but unfortunately, you will also enter into hell because the ego cannot go to heaven. That is the law. As beautiful a story as we may tell ourselves, and as sublime and attractive as our theory of religion might be, no idolater, no murderer, no fornicator, no thief, no covetousness, none of that can ascend into the higher realm. We have all of that within. Ignoring it does not get rid of it. Saying it is illusion does not get rid of it. Trying to be a good person day to day is great, but is does not get rid of the ego.
Let me ask you a question: if you suddenly realize that you have become lost in a very confusing and dangerous place, would you tell yourself that the threat of death and suffering is just an illusion? Would you just keep on going, hoping that by being a good person you will avoid the dangers that surround you? To me, this sounds insane. It would be foolish to walk blindly hoping to accidentally find our way out. Instead, we would be better off retracing our footsteps, so we can be sure to get out. By correcting our mistaken steps, we can find our way out. This is why we learn how to meditate: to retrospect our past actions and recover from our mistakes.
There is only one way to get rid of the ego, and that is by using a power that is superior to the mind. That power is the Divine Mother, the kundalini, which is here, the vav, the spinal column. That is where she works, through Bereshit, Genesis.
Audience: I am interested in elimination of the ego. You call upon the Divine Mother to do that for you. Is it better to do it when you are in sort of a state of meditation, or can you do it without being in meditation?
Instructor: Your Divine Mother is always with you. If you maintain constant awareness of Her, you will feel that more strongly. She is always with you, and if you are transmuting your energy and you are really trying to work on your ego, She is helping you. If you do not work on your ego, what can She do? If you are creating more ego and cultivating your desires and feeding your fears, and your pride, and your envy, She is still there, but She cannot save you, because you do not want it.
You can call on Her all the time, and you should, through prayer. Whether you call on Her in meditation or out of meditation, She can only eliminate an ego that you have fully comprehended. The reason is, that ego is enlivened and empowered by your consciousness, meaning part of your soul is inside of it. When you have fully comprehended that ego, it means that you have fully extracted yourself from it. When you have fully understood it, when there is no way you can repeat that mistake because you are not in it anymore, then She can eliminate it. And you can pray for that. You can do it while you are standing, or meditating, or sleeping, it does not matter. It is dead already. That ego has no consciousness in it. It is a shell. Then She can kill it. Until then, She cannot, because part of you is still in it. She does not want to hurt her child.
Audience: Could you please explain what is Yaldaboath (?)…
Instructor: I think we will come to that in another lecture. That is another lecture, just that question. Anything else?
Audience: …knowledge, Daath, is intellectual knowledge or…
Instructor: Daath is not intellectual knowledge. Daath is Gnosis, it is conscious knowledge. When you comprehend your ego, when you comprehend that your anger towards your relative is wrong, and that your anger causes you to be in pain and causes your relative to be in pain, and then you learn to love that relative and to not be angry with them, but to love them, then you have comprehended that ego and you have acquired Daath, Gnosis. Then you do not need to repeat that resentment. What is there then is love, not anger.
The same is true of every ego. Lust, fear. Let us say that you have lost your job. Money is dwindling, and you start to be very afraid. If you learn to do what you have to do, and to trust God to help you, and you keep at it so that eventually you do not feel the fear, but you start to feel faith, conscious faith, that is comprehension. It cannot be faked. You cannot get up and say, “Today I will be faithful in God. I will not be afraid.” You can say it, but that fear is still there, right? You can say, “Oh, that fear is an illusion, I am not going to believe it.” That is fine, but it does not dispel the fear. What dispels the fear is real understanding of it, to look into the fear and say, “You know what, this fear really does not make any sense. I am on the path. I have my Being inside who knows what I need, who knows I need to eat and I need a place to live, and I need to be warm. I need these things. He knows that. He wants me to do the work, he will give them to me. What do I need to worry about? Why should I be afraid?” And when you sincerely feel that, that is comprehension. That is not easy. There is no affirmation, there is no intellectual argument for that.
That is how you see the difference between Tob and Ra, the good and the evil. When you have real comprehension of an ego, the only way you can have that is if you are conscious, if you are centered and seated in that throne in the mind, in the brain, in the heart, in the sex, the throne of our own goodness, Gedulah, Chesed, our spirit. Our consciousness is connected to that. And when we have our consciousness present, here, and strong, that brings comprehension. And then we can see that that ego, that fear that is wanting us to become identified with fear, to be worried about where we are going to live, or how we are going to pay for this or that, or how are we going to do this, and what about whatever situation is troubling us.
This is a matter of perception, ayin in Daath. When we start to see that, and experience that, that is Gnosis, that is Daath. That is real knowledge. You see, I talked about ayin in the context of clairvoyance, but do not think that clairvoyance is only extra-physical. Every one of us is clairvoyant. Every image that flickers in your mind is clairvoyance. Every memory, every daydream, every fantasy, every projection, every thought is related to clairvoyance. Clairvoyance, or the power of sight, is this ayin in the midst of Daath. So, according to how we see from moment to moment is according to how we perceive or comprehend. When the consciousness is present in us, we rely on God in us, we rely on the path of Tob, of goodness, in order to see Ra, the impure spirit inside. This is why we need to self-remember, to self-observe, to meditate.
Audience: Can you talk about labeling, because what happens is many students label the ego… is this is comprehension. This goes on all the time in meditation…forms of…comprehension.
Instructor: The key point, the key foundation or basis for right view is to not have any preconception, to really be conscious, to really see things as they are. You cannot expect to see anything. You have to see what is there. But in us we have a mind that is full of projections, full of images and filters that we see through.
When you first went to the place you live now, it looked very strange to you. It looked very odd, but as you live there, you stop seeing it. You do not even see it anymore after a while, because what is there is there, but what you see is what is in your mind.
This is the simple reason why when you are going to leave, you cannot find your keys, you cannot find your wallet, because you are seeing a picture in your mind that does not relate to what is actually there. You think you left it on the counter, but you actually left it in the other room; you are projecting an image that has nothing to do with the reality.
We do this all the time. We do it when we dream. We are not seeing the actual reality in front of us. This is this ayin that is seeing through the asleep consciousness, filtered through projections in the mind.
When we learn Gnosis, we do the same thing. We learn the teaching, we build a whole series of mental projections about that teaching and what we think it is. And so we no longer see it for what it actually is. And this is why people become fanatics, people become attached, they become followers, but not doers. There are many Gnostics like that, many Buddhists and Christians and Jews. They have a lot of mental concepts, but they do not see what is actually there.
When we learn to meditate, we still do this. We observe ourselves and we feel a discursive emotion, and we say, “That is anger,” and we label it. And we go on about our business thinking that we saw it for what it was, but really all we did is, we got scared and we put a label on it and ran away. This is what happens. When the ego is really there for us to see it, we do not want to see it because it is scary and it is uncomfortable.
Audience: …it’s a form of meditation that notes ego…
Instructor: This is why the science of meditation is so incredibly important. When you really develop the ability to meditate, you learn how to position the consciousness in such a way that it does not become distracted by anything, and you will see what is there without blinking, without looking away. This has nothing to do with labels, this is to see it as it is.
This relates to the stages of pratyahara, dharana, and dhyana in Raja Yoga. Patanjali outlined this very well, if you read the yoga sutras of Patanjali or you can read Vivekananda or Swami Sivananda or Samael. All of them explain these stages very clearly. These are not intellectual, they are stages of conscious perception within which, by the time you reach dhyana and will penetrate samadhi, your consciousness has become capable of seeing without filters. That is what samadhi is. You do not really see without filters until you penetrate samadhi, until you enter into that state. The filters are the ego, so until you are in samadhi, you are in the ego. So what is the point of labeling? An ego cannot label an ego.
Audience: But in the beginning stages of a student he has to label to quiet the mind, there is no way to…
Instructor: There are techniques that you can use like that, that use labeling and that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. That is fine, but we are talking about a psychological tendency of labeling, a projection. Anyway, we could talk for hours about that. There is a lot to it.
Audience: What is clairvoyance?
Instructor: Clairvoyance is just an exotic word for imagination. It is the same thing. Clairvoyance is French, it means, “clear vision.” So, any time you use your imagination, you are using clairvoyance. But we have different kinds of imagination, right? Most of the time, our imagination is egotistical. We imagine what we want, or what we do not want. We daydream about our fantasies or our fears. But through learning how to direct attention and cultivate will over the consciousness, will over imagination, we learn conscious willpower, conscious clairvoyance, which is an ability to perceive without filters of the ego. To see with that same power of imagination, but to see what actually exists. And this is the great power of the ayin in Daath, is to see knowledge and to have comprehension, to see what is, not what we would like, but what is.
