Attainment on the Tree of Life - Class 2

Last week we started the first of these ten weeks of lessons in which we're going to attempt the condensation of some of the most vital aspects of the Qabalistic Tree of Life which you see before you there. Now this Qabalistic Tree of Life which we're taking up in this particular course is being done from a slightly different point of view than we've ever given you before. And the thing we are going to attempt is the, shall we say, very difficult thing of helping you to start experiencing yourselves in terms of the eternal aspect of your own being, to help you start seeing yourselves as having been a point of actual creation as well as evolution within this total universe and therefore help you to start gaining the control over your environment to, as we've been told in Genesis, to gain control of the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that creepeth and walketh upon the earth.

Now, some of you may say, well, I don't want this kind of control. All. This sounds like having a power complex, perhaps. Well, if you don't want it, I'm afraid what you'll have to do is step out of evolution. And if you want to, try it. You know what happens to those who try to step out of evolution? They really get knocked down, and their path is made that much more difficult. Now, I never blame anyone for trying it. I think we should always try the easy way first. Indeed, it's been my way. If I can't do it the easy way, then I'm willing to take up the more difficult methods. And as we attempt the easy ways, of course, you know, what occurs is this. We develop more mentality, more consciousness, more discrimination, more ability to really see into the principles, into the meanings of life. Therefore, we develop greater capacity for joy and for sorrow, for love and alas for hate. But even that can be turned to good usage as we grow into larger aspects of the one deity. Now let's return to one or two of the important ideas that we took up last week so that we can continue clearly without any break in our understanding or comprehension of what we want to do. You will recall I pointed out to you that now even modern science is willing to agree that the organization, when I say modern science of course I don't mean all scientists, we still have very many scientists who are still conditioned by the material aspect aspects of the or the material look of the universe. They're still caught up in attempts at material explanations, and this is because they have over-specialized their consciousness.

Remember what I spoke about last week when I pointed out that it is in over-specialization that certain creatures lose the ability to continue to evolve in that particular form. The over-specialization of the hands and feet, for example, the four digits that we all have, in, say, the birds, they made wings out of their hands, kept them from an ability to continue to evolve in certain special ways. Although they mastered the air, they mastered it at the expense of being able to continue to bring about a development or growth in their organism as such an organism. This doesn't mean that the living essence of the bird stops evolving, but that particular form is limited. It cannot experience certain levels of consciousness. The over-specialization of the horse, for example, in order to attain speed for running, which developed hooves, stopped that particular creature from being able to keep the five digits on the hand which we see in lizards and in various amphibians we know.

So that over-specialization in any area or any field locks away a larger picture and limits us. And even once we have attained to human evolution, when we get over-specialized, for example medical doctors who over-specialize in just one area of the body, we find that they don't understand the whole organism they see practically everyone as a throat or as a digestive organ or as a pair of eyes haven't you found this to be true and yet medical science is a wonderful science in many ways though some of you may disagree in time it will evolve to some kind of rounded development but the minute you over specialize you've locked away an ability to see a larger picture. And this is even true, incidentally, in occultism. This is one of the things Qabalah has never done. This is one of the amazing things about this extraordinary esoteric wisdom of Israel, that from the very beginning of its mystical teaching and training system, it organized or was given. Remember, I told you that the Qabalists have claimed that this particular system, Qabalah, was given them by the angel. And this particular system, or this particular method of evolution, or the attempt to use a method for one's own self-evolution, which we call the Qabalistic method, this is perhaps the only method that we have right now on this planet that includes all of the other methods.

We do have practically all of the methods in yoga however they do not use them all together for example as some of you have heard me say some people follow the path of bhakti which is the way of devotion some the path of janana or ganana whichever pronunciation is preferred which is a way the way of wisdom some the path of mantra which is the way of chanting that is using vibratory powers in order to bring about certain changes. Some use hatha yoga, that is learning how to control their particular physical vehicle, and they may gain tremendous control over their physical vehicles and show amazing power. But on the other hand, they do not have the rounded development that takes in all the other yogas. They will lack enough love, perhaps, or enough objective type of analysis. They may lack enough concentration on bringing about controls of certain other parts of the environment, like in relationship values. So that specializing in any one area does hinder the total evolution, and yet as we evolve we perhaps have to specialize lies incarnation after incarnation until somewhere in the background of subconsciousness we have already gained enough understanding of the different ways of control the different types of experience until finally we are ready to synthesize and become a total being an integrate integrated being and of course if you recall integration is the thing that modern psychology psychology tries to point towards, though even there we have too much specialization so that some people follow the way of Freud and decide every problem is because of the way we look at sex, and other people follow the way of Adler and decide every problem is because of having an overdeveloped power complex, or that everyone has one, whether they realize it or not.

And some people follow primarily the way of the Carl Jung psychology which is incidentally a very fine way also they're all fine this is the point but they are limited they don't take in a whole picture so I think perhaps the Jungian method includes more but you do have your individuals who are evolved enough so they are what you call eclectic. They themselves are intelligent enough to take whatever they feel is good for many systems, and they understand human nature far more than the specialist would, that is a specialist in any one method. So in Qabalah, you have this extraordinary thing. You have all methods brought together, and for this reason, Qabalah does not appeal to a very large majority of people. You can understand that.

How could the tremendously advanced method, which we call the tarot Qabalistic method, the real Western mystery school training method, how could it appeal to a vast majority of people?

Recall that Jesus said in the New Testament somewhere to his disciples, to you it is given to know the mystery, but to them that is the multitude. I must speak in parables.

You always have your few who are ahead, who are at the vanguard. You always have a small percentage who have already passed through various specializations through untold numbers of incarnations. And then you have the graduations into lesser and lesser developments. And that is why you heard me say last week, we are not out for quantity in our work here. We are out for quality.

We have been given a very vital job. We feel our responsibility most keenly. We have the advanced methods which work. However, they will work only if you work them. Them. So we also say to you, we're not handing you anything on a silver platter. If you haven't gotten to the point where you know you're not going to get it the easy way, then you're going to be able to walk with us and find that the easiest way is the way that makes you willing to acknowledge the fact that the efforts that you make are worthwhile, and that unless you have this this drive, this effort. Nothing is worthwhile.

You have to come to a point where you feel that all of life becomes meaningless unless, now mind you, unless you are doing all in your power to evolve your own selfhood.

Up until a certain point, you, as an individualized you, are not evolving your selfhood. Qabalah teaches this most definitely, and I will show it to you when we go through this sefirot. Up until a point, we are being pushed by what you might call a larger spirit. Up until a point, we are under an inexorable necessity. When you see this tremendous evolution that has taken place, just from the description that our material scientists give of evolution, you can see that something, and when I say something I use it with a capital S, incidentally, something, or if you prefer, someone, because we do not object to personalizing deity in Qabalah. Do you know why? Because we figure the one and the many are not anything so separate, and that when deity goes to so much trouble to evolve personalities. Certainly a super personality isn't anything to feel as an anthropomorphic idea. It is quite likely that deity, at least the deity that we could comprehend, is a type of super personality that is able to express all of us. Therefore, it has many talents. Remember what I pointed out, that we can have many talents, we can do many things, we can be many relationships? Well, if you think of this on a graduating scale as Qabalah does, certainly then deity becomes more and more of a variety of personalized aspects of self-consciousness. And therefore, the idea of I doesn't have to be thought of as being something that's impersonal and therefore unlovable. How can we love deity unless we figure deity is something that can love us? This is something we'll take up more a little later, but so many of us have come to a point because of the fact that we have fine minds, we've come to a point where we feel that it is very very unintelligent to think of deity in any personal way. On the other hand, others feel that the only way deity can mean anything is if one can personalize this creator of the universe and therefore of us. But you see, I want to remind you that in Qabalah, we draw the three veils across that which we cannot comprehend, across that which comes from behind anything that this level of consciousness can think about coherently.

And we say, let's start from the point where we can think coherently.

Now we can see without any question that everything that occurs, scientifically speaking, in the universe of the astronomers and the physicists, from that apparent first hydrogen atom, if there was just a first that appeared, or many all at once, we can see that something has been pushing, pressing, for what? For the development of an organized type of universe. Now, anytime you have anything that organizes, remember you have to have consciousness. Now if deity then has consciousness, consciousness in itself indicates that you have some kind of capacity for personality expression. So let's say that in Qabalah, if you feel you want to think of deity as personal to you, it is perfectly permissible. If you feel you want to think of deity as something more abstract, this is also permissible. Here again we show you where there's no specialization. Every type of thinking is able to take what it requires at the moment, and only when you have your own direct experience, which we are helping you to grow towards, only then will you know for yourself.

And even then, it isn't just one experience. We have experiences on many levels. Haven't you experienced things in one way when you were a child, in another way when you were an adolescent, in another way when you were a young adult? You know, I always love to remind us how much we knew in our late teens and early twenties. We knew it all then. This is a very interesting kind of experience. And then later on, how very stupid we became. We degenerate so rapidly recalling mark twain's statement that after being away that at 18 or 19 I forget the actual age he thought his father was so stupid and he was went away for about six years when he came back he was amazed to discover how much his father had learned in six short years All right. This is the broadening of consciousness. Now then, we showed you last week how the understanding of the physical aspects of the universe, the nebula, the development of the compression of these points of energy into stars, the expression of more points of energy around the stars into planets, and then upon the planets the continued compression and remember what I pointed out this inexorable pressure this inexorable compression has continuously merged simple or apparently simple types of energy together which we call atoms and by the merging have have developed more and more complex bodies.

And I remind you also of this particular point, that an atom of chlorine is a poison, it's a gas and a poison. An atom of sodium is a poison. And they're two different things. But when they merge, remember I love to say they fall in love and get married, remain in union. I hope they didn't fall in hate and get fastened to each other that way. I'm sure it's love. Because what they make is salt and since salt is the essence of life. I insist that it's love that made these two atoms merge and so you have a new order of experience in consciousness because of the merging now then this continuous merging of these compressed points of the one essence of life The continuous merging finally brings about a condition where you have your first little center of what we call living life and yet in Qabalah as in all occultism we do not draw such a strong line we say deity is consciousness whether it is and consciousness is a part of deity whether it is latent or whether it is expressing more fully so that your single atom is just as much a latent speck of the universal consciousness as is the consciousness you know when you say I I, except yours isn't latent anymore. And the reason you can say I and call yourself a human being is because you have been merged and merged and merged from simple atoms before the beginning of time, incidentally, or when time began, but before the beginning of time as some aspect of the universal consciousness, the One, the white circle indicates that One, called a Heia. That's the divine name. And incidentally, remember in Qabalah all the divine names are really formulas.

They're vibratory formulas that have exact numerical proportions and are aimed at tuning every atom of your physical body, as well as every part of your consciousness, to a a special vibratory rate that will raise your consciousness finally so that it can experience itself in that higher vibratory rate that goes beyond physical awareness and yet it doesn't exclude it because after all to be conscious of a spiritual experience finally your brain has been evolved to a point where it can register this vibration that at the present time is not yet yet registered within our brain. This is what we call self-evolution, to become able to register these vibratory rates. So in Qabalah, the beginning of the whirling, and I remind you they knew then about nebulas, didn't they? And planets around stars. And electrons around the nucleus. The beginning of the whirlings involves that very idea of continuously compressing and compressing until you have more and more complex types of atoms that have merged and merged and merged.

Now, what has merged them? Only one thing can do this.

Consciousness.

So again, I repeat, up to a certain point, there is something with a capital S that inexorably is taking a portion of its own being, or own consciousness, and is exercising it. You know how if you exercise a muscle it gets stronger and stronger and bigger and bigger? And so it is exercising a portion of its own essence, its own consciousness, in order to bring about something that is more evolved, more capable of experiencing I as a specialized kind of personality as against an all-inclusive experience of I which has nothing to be conscious of. Now this is a very difficult thing to explain and for this reason Qabalah says we draw the three veils because as a matter of fact everyone has to draw the three veils at some point. Now my My three veils would be at a different area of my consciousness than yours. We're all at a different spot. Some of us are relatively near each other, and so we have the same area where we have to draw the veil.

Let's put it this way. An animal couldn't see what you see.

An animal's three veil happens to come on a lower vibratory arc. It would have to, because it cannot be aware of itself in the way that a human is.

The plant would have to draw the three veils at an even lower arc and yet even within these different types of consciousness the three veils have to come at some special place now some people would have to draw the three veils at a very low level in other words they think they're nothing but a physical body that was born accidentally that wants to take advantage of anybody and everybody and sort of blow up its own ego you know I'll get mine while I can and to you know where with you now where are their three veils their concept of love of beauty of goodness of the inexorable repercussion of immaturity which brings the unhappy experiences is very low so you see they couldn't remotely have a concept of god that you can could they now they couldn't they're not able to are we going to hate them for it nonsense hate an infant for having to have its diapers changed and because you have to hold the bottle to its mouth they're infants so they have to suffer the repercussions in other words they have to do some growing however these three veils uh bring in a very um important point actually because in order for us to help you to experience yourself in your own true essence the thing that I would like to bring across to you is a very basic idea now you see it is it It has been my advantage to experience the essence of that white circle, not once, but almost regularly for many different periods of my life.

And because I am familiar with this particular kind of consciousness, I am able to at least work at projecting it to you, not that you would all experience it. But let's put it this way. If I can lift myself, which I certainly work at doing, and I can hold myself for a certain length of time because we are mutually leeching and yearning towards God, or we wouldn't be here together, would we? If I can lift myself like that, and while I speak, we are vibrating together in a certain sympathy. We are yearning together, because if I know unity, I yearn to share it. Otherwise life is meaningless and you yearn towards unity so together we have something that makes us one even though some of us still have it a little latent even though it is not a conscious thing as yet we're still yearning together as a unity always uh perhaps myself and a few others might know it a little more fully than others therefore if I know that experience I can attempt to project it to you through my own beingness by trying to describe what is really indescribable.

My descriptions would be inaccurate. Still, I have warned you they would be inaccurate.

And the thing I then would ask you to do is try to ignore any mental concept and try to reach for it with your heart. Because only with the heart do we directly experience full unity in any case. The mind doesn't or that is the intellectual aspect of the mind cannot really know it the ahea type of unity it is called the crown it is above the head in other words and yet it is consciousness it is consciousness so I want to try to bring to you uh at least the first planting of a seed some of you may suddenly wake up in the night tonight or a year from now or 10 years from now and suddenly that seed will have grown because you will have continued working aspiring practicing and attempting to grow and so you will have kept the womb of your mind growing to give birth to this embryo some of you may have it as I said tomorrow some now some 10 years from now in other words there's a seed if you open yourself that is projected this is the way uh life works it is actually the essence of all of the universal growth process. So in this experience of that level of consciousness we have a very extraordinary thing. What we have is this, a complete unawareness of personal levels. No awareness of personal levels happens to be possible when one is in that state of consciousness. In that state of consciousness, what one actually, the closest I can give it to you, is this way. Suppose you were all space, and incidentally Qabalah attributes space to a heya. Suppose you were all space, but there was nothing in space. Of course this isn't possible, because you have to have something for space to exist, but that's why we give you these analogies and then we keep you from getting lost in something that wouldn't be true.

Suppose you were all space. Suppose you were aware of yourself as I.

I. But that's all.

Not I am, or I Jack, Joe, Milton, Mary, Frida. Not I anything or anybody. Just I. And suppose this I washes its consciousness around, and wherever it washes it, it sees itself as nothing but all space. Beginningless, endless, never being born, never dying. Just I, all space. This is the closest analogy one can give. Not that it's exactly it. But the point is this, this awareness of I, this beginningless, endless, eternalness of I is so intense, it is so extreme, that when one has this experience one knows that the essence of one's I was never born, will never die.

That's what one knows. But after that one might start wondering, well if that is is what I is.

Heter, aheia. What happens to my individuality? It must be an illusion or delusion. That's where you have so much misinterpretation of Eastern philosophy.

Having had that experience, it's samadhi. As I said, this has been almost second nature to me at certain periods of my life.

That is, I've been able to have it at will through many periods of my life. I've never cared to stay in it because I have work to do and I'm not lost in samadhi I tried getting lost to it in the past I'm sure in other words I probably tried the easy way and they kept throwing me back I figured oh no you don't I'm coming back on my own the point is this is where the eastern philosophies have made such an error in their translation. Because having experienced this, and mystics experience it a great deal, by the way, you know. Having experienced this, they feel, oh, this is marvelous. Here you are, I, never born, never die, no worry, there's no one else to hate or have troubles with or problems with. There's nothing, there's just I. I mean, talk about a happy state a being and incidentally this is an ecstasy too I could have pointed this out there is an ecstasy involved uh think of the most ecstatic in love you've ever been and then multiply it by an ecstatic umpteen trillion and it's an ecstasy so great that one perhaps wonders we understand why the universe is expanding and exploding it's probably the explosion of the ecstasy of the eye is being all the place. At least it seems like it could be. The point is, there is a level of consciousness that is like that. However, the mistake that's been made by the other philosophies when they've attempted to make it an explanation of what consciousness is supposed to be ultimately, the mistake they've made is in not realizing that just by virtue of going through the trouble of evolving centers, there must be something else besides that all-I, beginningless, endless, all-space ecstasy. And this is what we may call a partial experience. Do you know how people get a partial truth and think they have it all? Do you know how they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread you've heard a little knowledge is a dangerous thing all right now in qabalah we help you to avoid that because we tell you no matter what you experience it isn't the ultimate you're going to be discouraged okay get discouraged but why why be discouraged why are you out for the ultimate we have different levels of ultimate says qabalah different levels of ultimate And whatever is ultimate to you today, when you've achieved it, you have a vast new group of experiences to have.

You have a whole new group of awarenesses, a new deepening of the cup of consciousness. Although no doubt you're given an opportunity to sit back and enjoy, or melt back into certain enjoyment. In other words, you know, you sleep, you wake, you work, and you rest, you breathe in, and you breathe out.

Nevertheless, to be out for the ultimate is still attempting to escape from life.

Now, life is the attribute of the next sefirot, basically, though bear this in mind. Everything we're going to talk about from here on out, we're still talking about number one. As a matter of fact, we're really talking about that which is before one, the three veils. But the one is the the first emanation or the first expression of an intention. The point is, there has to be an intention, there has to be a purpose. And Qabalah calls, number one, the primal will also. And when you have will, you cannot be just all undifferentiated consciousness, you know, in an ecstasy of I that's beginningless and endless. The reason human beings can experience that level is because this is what we were, and I repeat, this is what you were, before deity decided that it's time to take portions of itself, compress them down into evolving, more riches, self-experience, and expansions of consciousness.

And therefore, the experience of being this undifferentiated, the allness, is true, but in a sense it's true only as far as our own evolutionary state was before we started on the journey of differentiation. That is of becoming individualized, that is of becoming conscious sons and daughters of deities, God the Most High. So the truth of the matter is this. There was never a time you were not. You've always been. But there was a time when you were not a self-conscious I. There was a a time when you were an undifferentiated ecstasy, aware of nothing but I as a beginningless endless. In other words, you were the primordial. You were part of that primordial, unindividualized aspect of all space. It isn't really all space, and yet it is. It's experience like that. Space, remember, is really in consciousness. When you dream – this is the best analogy I can give you – when you dream, you know how much space you create right there inside your consciousness.

And of course, consciousness creates whatever space it needs to express itself, its images and its quotes. And this perhaps is a secret of experiencing the all space.

Consciousness does it in images. The vital aspect is the image.

And of course, here again, the Eastern philosophies made the mistake of calling an image unreal. What, and I say, what's unreal about an image of God? And you remember, in Genesis, it says, And God created man in his own image and likeness. Of course, it isn't really said just that way, but we'll go into that another time. It's really the Elohim, which is the feminine aspect of God in union with the masculine.

Creating Adam or generic humanity in their own image and likeness, because all creation is through consciousness. Everything you are, everything you've ever been, everything you ever will be, will be because you've created it with your consciousness.

Everything.

Your consciousness created you, created the original conditions through which you've come. And remember what I pointed out last week. You've come through the entire stellar evolution. You have come through the ability to hold two atoms together into something else. But your consciousness has. And then to hold, but the holding of the two atoms is merely a projection of your own eternal essence or substance of consciousness, actually and yet you've always been more than that but this is the way you have evolved your eyes you've come through being able to bring about all kinds of compressions and merging you have been involved in the heart of the nebula you have been involved in the heart of your son right here our solar sun we all have or we couldn't be where we are now you have been involved in the the forming of this particular earth because you are part of the spirit of earth you have been involved in the evolution of everything that has taken place here you've gone through in other words you have gone through a whole line from the simple to the most complex you have done it in other words you've been exercising your consciousness developing muscles of individualized center of of I. And when people say, well, deities made mistakes, look at the experiment they made when we go back into evolution and see these giant dinosaurs that died, etc. Remember what I've pointed out to you. What do you mean, mistake? Deity is life, and life loves to exercise its consciousness. It must have had a marvelous time seeing how big a form it can hold together with its consciousness in a certain electromagnetic, and that's been you incidentally, sort of exercising the muscles of consciousness in order to finally bring about the ability to hold a complex group that we call the human body.

So evolution on the physical plane, according to Qabalah, is because of the image held in the mind of God. But that's you. You. In other words, you are an image that has been held, and you are the image, and you are the one that has held the image. Now, is that confusing you? Because you are both. You are both. You are an aspect of deity that has compressed itself together, let's put it that way, and then started to collect more and more complex compressions in order to bring about something that God wants. Now when we're unhappy we say, why did God want to bring about anything like me? But when we say that all we want is for somebody to tell us, oh no you're fine. Really we're just hunting for somebody to say, you're not doing so bad. We get discouraged because we're lost, we're lost sort of of in the momentary aspect again let's look at it another way so that we can understand more of this process of the consciousness of god that we are as well as the fact that we ourselves have been our own evolution and yet up to a point it has been the divine larger consciousness that has inexorably compressed and forced us you want to fight with deity about it go ahead I tried it and it's fun sometimes.

You see, the point is when you become secure in the realization that you always have been, you always will be, that you're a part of deity and never can be other except an aspect of deity, you can start having a lot of fun. You can start even telling deity the deity doesn't know what it's doing.

Haven't you had children who told you you don't know what you're doing?

Has it made it much different? You should hear what my daughter had to say to me at a certain point in her evolution about what she thought of my mind my intellect etc and actually of course you have to have a certain sense of security don't you to do that I remember my mother for sweet soul she used to make regular bargains with God. Regularly. She used to say, now God if you'll do thus and thus, I'll do so and so. Maybe it would be light a candle every single night for a month or a year. She thought God would be quite charmed with this.

And so, but on the other hand, I remember watching this and at first I I was contemptuous, as children are, but from a later point of view, I looked back and I thought, my mother had an extraordinary belief in God. God was real to her. Even though she acted this way in a rather immature manner, there's a certain charm about her total acceptance of the fact that deity could do anything, and that she was important to to deity, this is the thing. I came to realize, in a sense, my mother was very right.

Not that I'm saying go make a bargain with God, but I'm sure God won't be annoyed if you try it, even though it might move on at work. The thing is, there's a certain security when you feel that deity loves you, when you really know it, when you really know it. It does something very special. You really know that deity wouldn't be without you for anything on god's green earth whether you're kicking up your heels whether you're being whatever you think might or might not be naughty at the time in other words you're an important member of deity and deity needs you just as much as you need deity this is the dignity of the self-conscious awareness of the eye Now, I wonder how many of you have ever stopped to think about that.

I wonder how many of you realize that you are just as important to deity as deity is to you.

Can't you see why?

Think of the untold numbers of billions of years that have gone by in order to bring about your particular organization of electromagnetic consciousness that holds your particular center of individualized I. Do you realize, of course, there are others that say, yes, but God is not conditioned by time. No, but God apparently loves to self-examine lines of evolution or or self-beingness, which we experience as time, that's why it seems to take time. Now, I'm going to try to give you another image of yourself for a moment, so that you can see that you're something more than appears on the surface.

Now, suppose you start thinking about yourself as, for example, starting off in this individualization of your own I or selfhood by divine decree portion of divine substance from the time of the compression learning how to compress two atoms and then more and more into the extraordinary things that take place in the nebulas and then in the sun and then finally on this planet then Then learning how not only to hold together the extraordinary group of complexities of atoms that make a single cell, but learning how to force these cells to cooperate with each other in order to make more and more of a complex body, so that you'd be able to experience more and more awareness in more and more ways.

Now suppose you start thinking of yourself as being all of the things you've ever been up to this point. Now you see here I'm again trying to show you another aspect of the divine intention.

Now if an architect sits down and draws out a plan, here is how the house is going to look, right? The whole plan is there. Then the workers come and bring it into manifestation. But the plan is there and the architect knows it's going to be built and so do lots of other people, especially the ones who have to spend all the money. The point is, the plan is made first in the mind. It's put on paper. It's all there in a consciousness. Then step by step, it's brought into manifestation on the physical plane in a special way that we have to work with physical type of vibratory elements which we call matter now I'm just trying to give you an analogy suppose that selfhood which you are which is an a part of deity incidentally and can never not be you can never not be a part of deity please bear this in mind now suppose this center of your selfhood which is your eye which is a part of deity has then through the total that is the largest selfhood which we call a god you know the all god suppose it has had an image this is what I plan for this portion of my selfhood and expansion then everything you've ever been in other words the whole motion to deity you know it says in the bible a thousand years is as a day and a day is a thousand years in other words it's a matter of your time sense now if you get away from your time sense for a moment as you are this moment and think of yourself as being everything you've ever been as a whole line of motion Say, suppose your consciousness has just sort of been traveling along a part of cosmic substance and experiencing a step-by-step, in other words, like a being all absorbed in a self-examination of details of itself.

Can you see where you, as a part of deity, could have been going all the way down that line and yet you are all of it at once when you look at it from above, though you've gotten and lost in your story, you know, or in the TV play or in the movie, but you're all of it at once.

Take the embryo in the mother's womb or the womb of any female. It goes through a step-by-step recapitulation of its evolution in the nine months or the six weeks or whatever the creature is, depending on the age it is evolutionary wise also the size of the vehicles got to carry they they have they have a certain correlation one or the other or both or interrelated uh the the point is that the recapitulation of everything we've done when we're in the womb and finally come out a baby then recapitulation of our psychological evolution until the present moment if we realize that all of these things in another part of our consciousness already has been intended again as I spoke the inexorable climal will so what you are until you become a self-conscious being is an inexorable plan of a house but when people move into that that house in other words when you reach a certain evolutionary stage from then on your evolution is in your own hands your evolution is now in your own hands you have become a point of the primal will in other words you share in the power this is the tabalistic teaching basically that has been handed on orally from mouth to ear for untold centuries in fact millennia untold millennia this is what jesus knew this is what he taught his disciples and more as I will be giving it to you because this teaching has been going on and only two disciples unbroken down this whole line of the mystery training and very few have ever gotten there darling right here today we have in essence almost the same system that jesus had to learn as a child so of course he was certainly in advance over the rest of us, but he had to learn it to achieve his awareness.

And he taught his disciples the same system, basically the mystical, esoteric wisdom of Israel, which explains the universe, the cosmos, our own evolution, and gives us the tools to take our evolution in hand. You cannot escape it. Seek nirvana if you want to. It won't do you any good even if you experience nirvana, because what will happen will be more and more pressures upon you if you try to escape as the mystics do. And you'll be thrown right back out and down, and in harder and harder ways, incidentally, until you finally realize that deity has no intention of failing in and through you. Not after all this work. Maybe when they're a little less evolved, some people may manage to have what has sometimes been called in the Bible the dreaded second death. It can happen occasionally, and occasionally by the way, but very rarely. And I'll talk about that when we get to Yesod, which is something I'm sure none of us would really expose ourselves to at this point. But the thing is, you cannot not really escape. You have to decide that you are going to learn the formulas which will make you the specialist of life, which is not like being the specialist, incidentally, that just takes a fraction. And a specialist of life is what we could call the second circle, the gray one, the emanation of deity, which is incidentally the cosmic male force. It is the cosmic father father aspect. In the Bible, mistranslated as Jehovah, it is Yod-Heh-Vah-Heh. It is a special formula that has numerical aspects and that has to do with a vibratory power. Incidentally, I might point out to you that in our Sunday morning services here, we do a very special invocation of the vibratory powers along with Qabalistic chant, which regular participation participation in, definitely helps to bring a much more intensive growth.

That is, the seed in your own being grows in a far more accelerated manner like the plants in a house when you participate regularly in this particular group type of power. And why? It's because it really uses formula. Incidentally, it uses the same formula that has been used to whirl nebulas into space and believe me I know what I speak of I've experienced it it's the same formula that condenses into suns and planets and forms life it's the formula that helps you to become master of the vibratory powers of light which you will have to be sooner or later if you are going to remain in the stream of evolution that is and I doubt whether you can really get out of it at this point as I've told you. And this vibratory formula has certain laws that are involved in it. And only those of you who show that you're willing to work, to study, to grow, only those of you who persevere in the many ways and show certain developments of certain characteristics, and only after we've watched you with loving suspicions for many years, not less than four and a half incidentally if you want to know only then do we start looking at you uh with the possibility of bringing you in to the esoteric mystery training system the temple mysteries uh in which uh jesus was trained the point is this right now here in this class and in the sunday work we are giving you at least 50 to 60 percent of what was taught then very silently secretly and quietly though we still have of course that which has to be quiet why not because we want to keep any secrets from you only because you cannot teach someone something they haven't prepared prepared themselves for, as you well know.

You cannot have a doctor go out and practice medicine unless he's gone through medical school, whether you wish medicine had never been developed or evolved or not.

You cannot permit people who are well-meaning but biased go out and try to take care of the problems of the world. Their bias only their bias will work you cannot let children handle dynamite or atom bomb and so it isn't a matter of keeping secrets at all when jesus said unto you it is given to know the mysteries but unto them we must be comparable if some people realize just what their powers were and you have some people who have not yet evolved enough ethics or morals we'll go into that on the the proper spot on the tree they will take this and they will be very dangerous hydrogen bombs very dangerous and of course some people have to learn discrimination that way but we have to keep certain types of formula that explain the use of the power of manifestation station through the knowledge of the sequences. And we have to also have special conditions, incidentally, in order to take each aspirant, each initiate, and because others have been linked to special universal forces.

What we do basically, incidentally, is because we always have those who've gone before who've been linked. They get together and using the formula using the interrelated methods we then give them of that which we have we in other words surround them with certain protections as we link them to each of the forces starting from the lowest Sephirah there incidentally which is Malkuth and going up through every path that in the Sephirah remember emanations they are special spheres of activity for of with divinity They're specialized expressions of consciousness, deities and yours, therefore, as a reflection, microcosm into macrocosm. Are you in the mystery trainings? You are linked, step by step, as you work and study, to these specialized forces, so that your evolution is hastened even more. And believe you me, it's hastened plenty right here. Some people almost can't stand it.

It is hastened even more than previously because it's all like a geometrical progression accelerated but very few people are brought into that part of our work because we never feel that we can take the chance of some of the disruptive kind of reactions that people have and so we are very careful very careful indeed we have to be many are called but few are chosen how many of you? Have already achieved that portion of our work, I do not wish to say. How many of you are going to? I always hope real big. I mean, I believe in being optimistic and holding the positive image. Then if it doesn't work, at least I can't say, ah, why was I negative?

I don't believe in blaming myself if I can get away with it, with not doing it. So, you know, after a while, you learn to be careful about the future, realizing that everything you think and feel is affecting the total mass all humanity deities the spirit of the earth your friends your relatives your children as well as yourself when you get to realize that you become far more careful by the way did you start to see what has really caused the problems you might have been a sweet sweet sweet soul but believe you me if you don't know the principles of consciousness you'll So repercussions will come heaping.

They will slide around you and into you. And one of the big problems also is that in elementary metaphysics, you're given just one part of the situation, one portion of it. You said consciousness creates. Now go out and create yourself a million dollars, a house, a car, a husband.

You know the story of the one I've been told I shouldn't ever give this in temple, but I can never resist it.

Because it's a true story it absolutely happened I have witnesses this woman came marching into our place and uh for the first time she was presented with uh the very fine beginnings for spiritual work elementary metaphysics uh one of the new thought types of thinking and and she uh decided what is it thought well let me see what is it I really want and she decided what I want is a husband few of you may have heard this so she went to work and started to concentrate all I can say is this woman was a marvelous concentrator and I like talent I really do this is the only way we learn and grow so she concentrated on a husband and she said what happened was just extraordinary she said every husband in her neighborhood started to run after to her with a mattress on his back. That was her expression, unquote. So as I said, this woman had talent. But you see, she didn't understand the full powers of consciousness.

And of course, this is what happens so often. Then people get discouraged. They get to a point where they're afraid to use their consciousness. That won't do you any good either, as we shall I'll show you. You have to use it, so you might as well keep getting up when you bruise yourself and incorporate what you've learned into the next step. So the drive of life, which is the number two power aspect, it's really the projecting principle of deity, is there. And no matter how many times you decide, I give up, something will go to work, it'll add itself up because that pours through you and you'll start driving towards something or other. Sooner or later. And since you're going to, I advise you to sort of try working together in the spirit that we emanate here so that you can learn how to more effectively channel that driving power into areas that will bring you what you really want, whether you recognize it or not.

I think it's time for us to have our intermission.

When you're called together, we'll give you a few announcements. It's after we're called together we want the announcements, isn't it dear?

And stretch yourself.

Next Thursday night we're going to take up that aspect of the Qabalistic tree which deals with the ideas of polarity.

Now when we refer to the ideas of polarity we're referring to it from many levels I certainly am not going to cover all the ramifications in this particular course I have had please for I'd say something like 12 years regarding the ideas of polarity I have been and asked, I have been begged, to give a class, a complete class on polarity, male-female created, he-them, the whole ideas that involve the masculine-feminine principle. This is quite something.

And I thought about it, and I said, no, no.

Mainly because I would say that psychology, our modern psychologists are certainly right when they claim that practically all problems are involved in that area. That is in the inability to understand, react to, and express the polarity aspects of life. And of course it reflects into relationships, it reflects into all kinds of relationships, that therefore reflects into our ability to express on all the the different levels and proper ways and because people are so conditioned they have such strong emotional responses to this uh particular subject I've thought for a while and said no I prefer to lure and entice uh via the abstract ideas involved with this particular subject and not get so specific but I thought you'd like to know that I've been finally talked into it and that following this particular class I am going to give such a class and this as a matter of fact will lead into it and God knows what will happen it's a good thing God knows because when we start stirring habit patterns, emotional traumas, you know, the fur can fly. Still, I feel that together we'll be able to handle it. At least, let's put it this way, most of us will. And only as we get to understand that particular aspect of deity, and incidentally I repeat that particular aspect of deity, only as we get to understand that are we going to be able to solve some of the most poignant problems in our lives even when we like to say well I have no problem with the opposite sex you know some of us just sort of say hmm men or hmm women and let it go at that you know men are determined that women are if they'd only evolve a little bit more life would be so much more pleasant and women shake their heads and sigh and say oh men they're all infants and so each of them call the other an infant and we have quite some problems even that which seems so happy on the outer plane is often a cover-up for problems that are extraordinarily profound and deep so as I said fools rush in where angels fear to tread and And I hope that I'm not being a fool.

But I do feel that I owe it to you, at least those of you who are ready for true teachings in this area, some of which will, without question, surprise you. I think that it is time that we started to give you a little more of the profound aspects of this particular subject and stop being afraid. If the fur will fly, fine. Fine if uh some of you can't take it fine then it's time you found out and we found out and then we start going on from there in order to really learn how to love to really learn how to understand uh the polarity aspect of life because right here on the tree of life you have it I'm going to give you just a few little words on it we'll cover a portion of the polarity aspect of deity in our next class but just as a preview as you look at this tree or that right-hand side as you face it is a masculine pillar and it's called the pillar of mercy I always love to point this out because the women say men are brutes and the left-hand side as you face it is called the pillar of severity and that's the feminine pillar and of course women feel that they're the tender ones but but that's called the pillar of severity.

And then the middle pillar is actually referred to the pillar of equilibrium of mildness, as it's called in Qabalah, and it's supposed to equalize, but it helps us to understand the forces in such a way. It's also, incidentally, the unity of the forces that evolve consciousness in very special ways. We'll cover that. But but the thing to remember this nothing could happen unless there was a this and a that consciousness couldn't exist unless you had the two apparent sides like light and dark of course men love the idea that the feminine pillar the cosmic mother is a black Sephirah that is men who have traumas against the feminine principle love that idea and her women who have traumas against the masculine principle love the idea of the masculine principle being gray that sounds pretty dismal too but you know God is life and and all living creatures are precious treasures.

God is life, and God is livingness, and that's what you are.

And in Qabalah, we don't let you step away from life, from livingness, or from revering all aspects of livingness. So we will cover the livingness from the various points of view of Qabalah as regards polarity next, Thursday night.

At least that portion which we're able to in just one short class, because we have to keep going with the tree and with the different aspects or emanations or spheres of activity of deity, which means spheres of your activity and powers, in order to get through these ten weeks that we've given to this particular class. So that's what's in store for you next week. During the week it would be a good idea if you sort of analyze your own ideas, thoughts and thoughts, not your emotions, please, because you'll either throw yourself into disturbances.

We don't want that.

But sort of try to be a little honest with yourself and just ask yourself what you really think of the opposite sex at such period.

Being careful not to let yourself get emotionally involved or to go back over your life to prove to yourself why the opposite sex is so terrible.

Because then you'll be able to measure what Qabalah says as against your own thinking. This is a good discipline for you, even if you give yourself a few uncomfortable moments. If you're not willing to be uncomfortable, you won't get anywhere. The ballet dancer, remember, goes through tremendous discomfort in order to perfect the skill. The poet has a tremendous discipline. I'm a poet. Poetess. Well, because there's a special form, an idea that has to come out in a special way. The musician is extraordinarily disciplined. Imagine all the the intricate things that have to be done in order to develop an ability to express music.

In fact, consciousness is extraordinarily disciplined wherever it expresses glorious talent. And of course, in a sense, everything is a talent, even a talent to make ourselves miserable.

I always say, only when we become experts at it do we finally get miserable enough to go the other way.

So anyway we'll uh cover that the polarity aspect at least briefly in the next uh thursday night class and now I will permit a few questions only a few because we have to have our exercise and get you home in time yes dear Going back to what you said about specialization, about the birds and the horses, I thought that in the evolutionary process, we went through, had to go through, seeing the bird and seeing the animal, that we were limited in that body. How do you assimilate that consciousness here? And that's the way you express it, because you think they have a choice. Well, the question is the idea of the specialization of creatures like birds, horses, etc.

Our beloved sister and member says that she thought that the vehicle limited the consciousness and actually these creatures didn't have a choice, that we all have to go through these different specialized forms. The answer is yes this is so but remember consciousness itself uh in attempting to become familiar with ways and means of controlling and bringing together complex uh groups of its selfhood goes in for various specializations in order to say ah that wasn't the way to continue going onward meanwhile it also enjoys itself as a bird or a horse by the way because I mean that's where God has it all over us.

Even mistakes are enjoyable because they're not really mistakes. You might say that they're part of a process of learning what not to do just like we do.

And learning what not to do within a limited field. Bear in mind that if we didn't have the kind of eyes that we have developed in the particular kind of body we've got, If all we could see, say, is in the ultraviolet range, we couldn't see anything that exists as it is here. We couldn't see the universe at all as it is, and so deity would be experiencing a completely different vibratory range in and through us. If we didn't have the special range that we have developed for hearing, we couldn't remotely hear the things we hear. We might be hearing other things. Remember the dog for instance has a range of hearing that is beyond ours the dog did a little better I think on the hearing uh in a way because it hears what we have to say in the low range including the extra high ranges whether that's an advantage or not I don't know I've experienced the consciousness of my pets uh many many times but I never did go into that particular phase of it to see just what it was in that area.

I don't know if I could have. But the thing we overlook is this, that consciousness deliberately goes in for all sorts of experiments in its tremendous ebullience. That is, what would it be like to specialize like this? What would it be like to specialize like that? You remember what Jesus said. And remember we're trying to help you understand what his secret teachings have been in this class along with showing it to you as qabalah except you become as a little child you shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven and what is it to be like a little child there's this tremendous living interest and curiosity what would it be like you know we have been so miserable when our children wouldn't follow our advice, but it's because our children have said, so what would it be like to feel this? We knew it was unhappy to feel certain ways, so we tried to stop our children from being unhappy. And they're wiser. They insist on being unhappy. The same principle exists. The life wants to experience itself.

God is livingness. We have heard God is love. God is love. But livingness, I think, is often a better interpretation because within livingness we have the idea of love as well as consciousness, awareness, growth, and so on. And it is this very drive, it is this masculine factor, incidentally, of deity that has the drive. Because, you know, the female wants to make sure everything is safe, which is right. I don't say all of us, we all have both in certain ways. And the man is the one who's a great adventurer basically although we as I said we have these variations as we evolve the different aspects of our selfhood but it is this need to drive into self-experience you know that it is because you have had a drive to experience various things it is because of this alone that you develop wisdom discrimination depth awareness and so So we can say, of course, we have gone through the full area of experiencing selfhood in these myriad ways, but still the one and primary drive, self-consciousness in order to control and become a co-creator with deity.

So all our little side roads are marvelous. It's part of what the child has to do.

It's a mistake and it's not a mistake is that I hope that's a good enough answer because it isn't a mistake in the final analysis we have to experience feeling the bird feeling the horse yes but at the same time we all are That part of us which is driving towards a definite conclusion for a special cycle. Although it loves being the bird or the horse. We love being children, but wouldn't it be awful if we remained that way?

That's the whole point.

Any other questions?

Don't be bashful.

Maybe what we'll do is have you write out questions. Have a little pad and you have it during intermission I think that's what we should do with somebody like to take charge of it well and as I look at our beloved Anne Ryan here whom you've heard about I'm sure in our editor news notes but uh yes oh the question here is would the polarity between men and women be different that is from right side to left side since on the tree of life as we face it the right side is masculine the left feminine Actually, when you look at the tree of life, you're supposed to back yourself into it with your imagination, and it is the right side. You think of yourself as being the tree of life. It is the right side that is feminine, then, and the left that is masculine. Yes, it is reversed.

Basically, it is the same in the Chinese mystical philosophy. You have your yang, your yin, that's the masculine-feminine, and then you have the tao, which is the middle way. That is, it is through the interplay of these opposites that consciousness develops. In your Hindu philosophies, you have your ida, which is masculine, your pingala, which which is the feminine, and the shishumna, which is the middle aspect. And actually, both of these refer to the spine. You have the same thing here. And definitely, there is a sort of very minute tube in the middle of the spine. In fact, our work on Sunday mornings has a lot to do with the Qabalistic chant and stirring this positively in a group sport. And the exercises we do here Thursday night is involved with the same thing in a different way there are two different systems that do different but special things for stirring and balancing these energies to awaken them and of course the acquiring of cosmic consciousness and the developing of special powers has to do with the energy which we have focused down on the lowest level of the spine, the Saturn center is what it's called in the mystery training, and in the Qabalah you'll see it as the lowest Sephirah or emanation of deity.

It's at the bottom of the spine, and this is where the Hindu philosophy says we have the wound-up kundalini. Again, it's interesting. It's wound up like a sort of spiral. Now, that is stirred by the work we do here together, by what I project to you in and through the help of the higher levels of consciousness, which we work with together here.

And this is stirred into awakening through the training you receive and the lessons you get through the mail, along with what we do in personal work. So that what is being aimed for, really, is having this energy rise up, but in a controlled manner in such a way that it charges the higher center in other words our patterns are released from these lower centers and we charge the higher centers up in the brain it has a physical correlate it has a natural psychic correlate it has an emotional and spiritual as well as the mental correlates because we have more than one vehicle and it involves this sort of vibratory awakening of energies that go beyond the physical and yet it must include the physical because remember this a deity has evolved physical organisms in order to be able to experience selfhood within the the vibratory range that our sensory life has. At the same time, deity is intending that we become aware of this vibratory range and start gaining control of the physical universe, because that's the way deity controls certain levels.

I'll put it another way. In this polarity balancing of the energies and the rising of the vibratory ranges, which is a very vital part of our training, by the way, though I very rarely refer to it, in fact, because I think that it's better to hammer on the psychological, emotional, mental aspects from the spiritual point of view. It is in this particular area of awakening that we learn how to tune in, in a controlled manner, to whatever vibratory level is needed for the moment.

Tune in consciously. We're tuned in anyway. I'm talking about conscious tune in. Therefore, conscious control. We are put through all sorts of tests, incidentally, in order to discover whether we hold our own center of consciousness, despite the impact of the vibratory emanations of all sorts of people and things and conditions. And when we understand this we stop suffering incidentally the adventure of life becomes more glorious but there's no doubt at all about the fact that the basic one of the real basic secrets related to the tree has to do with those two polarities called masculine and feminine that all of the evolution of consciousness as a matter of fact is involved in it and Qabalah has been called that which holds the true secret of gender uh was there a hand back there you already asked one question if somebody else is getting through the clarify if someone has asked for the clarification of the three veils now the three veils and qabalah are called the einstaff hour actually what they refer to I won't give you each of the meanings the uh of the ein then there's the einstaff then there's the einstap are what it refers to is the fact that behind the first point of manifestation behind the first beginning of this the whirlings or swirling behind the first uh condensation of manifestation there is something which we cannot think about or understand or comprehend end with the consciousness we've got here and now that is with the physical consciousness it is therefore referred to in philosophy as the absolute and the thing about qabalah as against other philosophies is this they know where they're wasting their time I don't know how many of you have tried to to wade through uh tongues of philosophy talking about the absolute and abstract things that absolutely have no meaning and and you come out the same door wherein you went feeling more confused than ever uh the qabalists uh being very wise have said uh the consciousness that is functioning in and through three-dimensional awareness cannot even remotely cope with an idea like absolute so in order to be able to go ahead and do something let's just draw the three veils and say there is something from behind which the whole plan of evolution comes all light all outpouring and it's the iron sapphire means basically uh limitless light interesting that they knew this of course they knew this you see their awareness was so profound those who had this mystical training who were, shall we say, chosen to be taught by some type of being from the higher level to bring to humanity the first aspects of evolution and methods of evolution for humanity.

So they didn't bother their consciousness with talking about things that we often refer to like the sterile woman's child. In other words, you can talk about things that are abstract from now till doomsday and you'll get no understanding of it. You know how they used to argue about how many angels there could be on the head of a pin? Well, trying to discuss deity in its abstract term, that which is behind manifestation, is wasting your consciousness that way. And they don't believe in wasting their consciousness.

Qabalah is practical. It says there is something that's responsible, but beyond our comprehension to understand, at this point of our evolution, we'll have to achieve something beyond three-dimensional awareness to know what is behind. But there is something behind, and it continuously, it's the actual outpouring, you might say, of this limitless light that forces manifestation. This is really the inexorability. This limitless light as it is called in qabalah uh keeps pouring itself compressing itself which brings about the um atoms the development of the cosmic so-called cosmic dust the suns and yet uh it's no sense wondering what it is unless you like to waste your time and that's all right go ahead but when you work with what you do know and what you what is people are called somebody might as we'll turn off whatever's making them cold.

Einsoff Auer. A-I-N is the first word. Soff is capital S. Each is capitalized. S-O-P-H, that's the English spelling for the Hebrew letters. And the Hebrew letters have meaning. They are actually, incidentally, formulas. Again, all of the Hebrew letters are formulas. And R is capital A-U-R.

But that's the Hebrew formula which is utilized for this beginning. You have to have something against which to project your first ability for an idea. All right, I think we've had enough of the questions now. We want to have our meditative closing exercise. Ein Safa means without an end. Yeah, limitless. I know, without an end, limitless. Yeah, that's right. That's why when I give you the meaning of the full three words, eins, zwei, drei, we have the meanings of the others as implied by limitless light, you see. Limitless means without beginning, without end. So, I mean, you have that definitely involved. And actually, we are all the products of a something, a consciousness, or an aspect of consciousness that is limitless light, without beginning, without end, limitless as consciousness, and that expresses as light. And remember, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The word, by the way, is Qabalah for formulas.

Formulas. These are the formulas that I am giving you, we give you in all of the various aspects of our work. And then it says, and this light, mind you, this word formula is light. Again, science is back to substance because we find that the sound vibrations since actually he keeps multiplying them, they go into the whole electromagnetic spectrum. This light is the light of men.

And of course it has meanings other than extraterrestrial Christianity has given it. And you will understand more as we go along together. I think it's time for us to have our meditation.

I'm not going to give you any of the more intensive meditations until we've sort of gathered our spirit of togetherness here for two or three or four times It depends on what I see happening in you. When we have intermissions, I'd appreciate it if you sort of get together and get acquainted instead of just sticking with the people you know, to sort of get a vibration of acceptance, love, unity, making each other welcome. The spirit of BOTA is not exclusiveness, it's togetherness, and it's up to us to practice it. And as soon as that togetherness is potent enough, which it's going to be, it always is, and our work has never failed, but it's up to you to help bring it about.

In other words, if two of you come together because you're such intimate friends, you know you're intimate friends, go and help somebody else feel like a friend too.

You know, get acquainted and bring the spirit into expression and then we'll be able to handle even more intensive energy. So I'm watching the development, as I said, it always comes. Otherwise I raise a little, not hell, because in a temple you're not allowed to do that, you know.

And then usually we do.

Let's sit straight.