Qabalistic Paths to the Inner Planes - Class 8

We will start with a reading from the Meditation on Tarot Key Number 11, Justice, from the Book of Tokens.

I am the goad of action which impelleth and directeth the great ox of the breath of life. I am the power of equal vibration which holdeth ruach and balance between formation and destruction. As a driver with his gold keepeth his ox from straying off the highway.

Yet is this directive power inherent in Ruach itself, for I myself am that great breath of life.

And because that great breath existeth before all else, I am the leader, the chief, and the judge of all creatures. The wise find me thus concealed in Lamed. Before this have I declared myself to be the teacher of teachers, and now I say unto thee, O Israel, that mine instruction is like unto a goad, which guideth thee through the long circuit of existence, until thou returnest to myself. Self. I am the root of all action. No work is anywhere performed whereof I am not the doer.

By action are all things determined, and every action proceedeth from my grasp of every condition of my self-manifestation. No man accomplisheth anything of himself. They are deluded who think otherwise. Have I not free will, saith the fool? But the wise know that in all the chains of worlds there is no creature that hath any will apart from my one will. My will is free indeed, and he who knoweth it as the wellspring of his willing remaineth free from error. Let thy meditation bring thee to rest in that will.

Then in the midst of action shalt thou be at peace, and in thy busiest hours shalt thou find the eternal worker doing all things well in thee.

Lo, I guide thee all the way.

Rest thou in me.

Last Thursday night we covered and as usual most inadequately the beginning of the second order that part of the evolution, that part or area of consciousness which brings in the complete and most esoteric ideas involved with the word Christ, with the word King, with the word Adam, and what that implies in terms of our evolution. Now the thing to remember about that particular Sephirah or that initiation as we told you last week that on these paths of return each of which remember has a special ceremonial aimed at awakening stimulating and intensifying that function in us which is related to that part of the cosmic expression and which is aimed at bringing about the development of those relationships within ourselves and between ourself and our environment which means between ourself and other so-called cells we must keep in mind that that particular development which comes from this stimulation is not a sudden thing even though the rituals the ceremonials the tune-in remember rituals and ceremonials are always involved with bringing about a tune-in in relation to our own selves or parts and functions of our consciousness with those areas of function in the cosmic consciousness and it's done through the hierarchy that is remembering always that just as we have levels and levels of life and consciousness that are below the human consciousness so we have levels and levels of life that are above human consciousness and any human being any aspirant who really thinks that he can jump from whatever the level is have what is considered cosmic illumination and say hallelujah I made it this person is under a profound delusion yes we can have experiences of cosmic consciousness but it does not mean we have made the great at all what it means is that the higher self by the grace of god has started the path of return in earnest and just which way we are supposed to go what manner of development each and every one of us will have is part of a an unfolding function actually indicating that we will have to sooner or later be willing to go through the disciplines of the step-by-step unfoldment because this means gaining step-by-step control of the lower levels always beginning with our own lower levels that is our personality which is remember what we have have told you keep that always in mind our personality really is a grouping of the lower levels of consciousness which in occultism we call the elemental areas of livingness called also fire air water and earth involved with the angelic kingdom actually in essence and a parallel evolution to ourselves so that every step we take in control, every step we achieve in an awakening brings along with us that parallel evolution which incidentally serves us.

This is dimly apprehended by certain people who are born with special clairvoyant abilities and I'm sure many of you at least have read the stories of seeing little gnomes and fairies they're really true it's really true yet these levels of livingness levels of God's consciousness serve us as we serve them this is actually what it's all about in a sense these are the levels which build our body always in terms of our evolutionary level. So that that which we think, that which we feel, that which we are, these are the patterns that these busy little esoteric workers take and weave with the substance of the universal consciousness.

Well, we won't go into that more deeply. We could give a very and a very long series on just that one phase of knowledge which is incidentally attainable to at least 50 percent of the aspirants except that it wouldn't serve a purpose to concentrate on becoming aware of those levels because we grow by concentrating concentrating on becoming aware of and being directed by those higher levels that is the levels of consciousness which are higher than human self-consciousness and We do it through opening up channels within ourselves channels of guidance channels of control this is why we have the Esoteric aspects of the work these paths of return with that which is involved now then as we told you the beginning of the second order as we covered it last week begins with that yellow circle which is called beauty Tiphareth the christ consciousness adam the king and so on however the three emanations divine emanations which involve the second order really belong to the yellow the red and the blue circle as a Trinity the thing to remember at this point is that that triune being the yellow the red and the blue sefiroth as you see them there on the tree are actually direct reflections of the above triune sefiroth the white the black and the gray direct reflection so that the yellow Sephirah which in essence is the true ego seated in the hearts of men and remember notice we said ego not egos it's the same self even though it expresses in these infinite diversities of differentiated beingnesses remember always that when the cosmic life the the universal self, thinks of self in terms of expression, automatically then that thought becomes what we call the son of God. That's the yellow circle. That's us. That is our true I.

That is why it is said that the human being, human consciousness, is at least potentially a far more highly evolved type of consciousness than the angelic levels. Yes, there are many angels that are far more infinitely more evolved than we are, but it is the human consciousness that eventually attains to the complete Godhead, whereas the angelic consciousnesses are the forces of the Godhead in another way when it says in the Bible thou hast made us little lower than the angels well in a sense this is true but in another part of the Bible you will notice it says that we are even more than the angels and we won't tell you where it is look for it it is actually true now then remember we told you that about the three pillars on the tree of life and that in actuality it is the central pillar that could be said to be the true pillar of consciousness whereas the pillars on either side called the pillar of severity that's the one where the red Sephirah centers it and named after that and the pillar on the opposite side centered by the blue Sephirah therefore called the pillar of mercy those two sides actually are more the forces or shall we we say the methods or the powers of consciousness, in a sense, whereas the actual consciousness is in the middle pillar.

So that when we take up, which we will do tonight, both the red and the blue sephiris, you see we're going to have to start rushing it because next week is the last class in this series. And then you're going to have a very nice vacation from me for a couple of months that is on thursday night so I will continue giving the sunday morning talk so we will have to take them in groupings now since our time is so limited the thing we want to remember then is that in actuality though there have been those who have apparently given or stated that there exists initiations that go above the yellow circle that is Tifer, the beginning of the second order, these are eluded and deluded and have received this from sources that are not correct. We do not have any outer initiations after the yellow circle initiation has been given in the esoteric part of the true Qabalistic paths of return as directed by the true and invisible Rosicrucian order. What occurs is that in that particular area of consciousness, once we have had the initiation, a period begins, and as we've told you it varies anywhere from one to something like seven incarnations depending on what work we've done in past incarnations uh how much capacity we have and so on it's different and there are different levels of the development of the full function of the set the beginnings of the second order called remember the minor adept that's the term given for it which doesn't mean that one One is an adept, as you have read in so many of the occult books, most of which give you really fairy stories and make them sound like truth.

Because adept is, again, a varying term. It's a matter of degrees. We can be adept at typing, and we can be adept at speaking, and we can be adept at lying, even. I mean, it just means doing a job fairly well or quite well. And there are degrees of how well we do them. Being a minor adept is an indication that we're not doing so well yet, and yet this is what we all aim for, reaching this point of awareness, this point of opening out, because it is from that point that we can gain the real awareness and the real controls of the personality below, the elemental nature, as we've pointed out. So that the work of that minor adept is to become ever more aware of the intellect, which is the orange circle, the desire nature, green circle, the subconscious astral nature, which is the violet circle, and its entire effect upon the physical vehicle, along with controls of the physical environment.

The work of the minor adept is at perfecting evermore the awareness of these forces their interrelationships and the controls but being centered in that area the more firmly one is centered the more one starts opening up to the various other sefiroth and their paths and they Therefore, the rest of the development is an inner thing, and often, at least not often, but at least in 50% of the cases, the opening up is not as obvious, even to the aspirant himself, as it might be to those who know how to look.

However we are going to cover the paths and the sefiroth remembering that the other two sefiroth though that one continues opening up in the same graded manner inwardly the way it is done is by evermore opening oneself to those paths which are above as well as learning evermore how to control the forces and functions of that which is below. This is why it is called the mediating intelligence. This is another reason that man is called that point in God's consciousness which receives from God and distributes it to the various levels of consciousness below. This is what is meant by saying that man is the ruler of the world. This is what it is meant, what is meant in the Bible when it says God gave Adam dominion over the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. From this point in Tiphareth, the dominion, the real dominion, starts. Now lots of people get the erroneous idea that having had some kind of flash or inkling of the Tiphareth consciousness, that they've actually attained its full measure and are ready to go beyond. And yet this isn't true, and indeed, though I have told a part of this little story to many of you who have attended previous classes, I want to bring it up here because it gives such an excellent indication of what it is more apt to be like. When I was 21 years old, having passed through many months of what I think one could call the most agonizing and hellish pain that a person could possibly live through certainly equal to anything you want to think of in the terrors of the concentration camps though it wasn't inflicted in that manner I finally at a certain point though I had no use for god in fact I didn't believe in him I had no use for anything all I wanted to do was die at a certain point something happened to me in the midst of this hell I received a bouquet of flowers from 16 co-workers and a peculiar thing occurred now I didn't make it happen this was the grace of God as a result no doubt of the certain testing and trying remember the path that leads to that yellow circle which we spoke about last week the path of trial the path of testing and trial the path of probation well when those flowers were put in my arms and I realized that though I had been away for four months in the hospital and had thought that everyone had forgotten me that no one really gave a damn and I mean it just that way I suddenly got hit with the most startled wonder that after such a long period of time a group of people who had worked with me would still be feeling enough compassion to want to send me a little message of love and memory.

And it just, play, knocked me for a loop. I mean, I don't know how to describe what occurred. Certain experiences just aren't describable in words. We can only communicate them, I think, when we learn how to communicate directly with our hearts. But something happened to me in the sense of this wonder though I was still in the midst of pain though I felt I had nothing to live for though I had no intentions of living though everything was dark and hopeless as far as I was concerned in all ways the impact of that thought of that compassion hit me in such a way that I had a strange inner opening of a subtle vision which is not physical at all, nor is it clairvoyant, because it went beyond that. It was the direct perception that doesn't rely on form, that doesn't rely on sound, that has nothing to do with it, nothing at all. It's the higher knowing.

It's a knowing that goes beyond form. And in this higher knowing, I was able to see into the heart of all those 16 people all at once simultaneously into their hearts mind you notice I mentioned heart because that particular affair the yellow is assigned to the heart the ego seated in the hearts of men remember and I saw that no matter how rotten no matter how depraved no matter how anything somehow there was that core of good in every one of those human hearts and this filled me with such a sense of wonder and joy that I can't begin to describe it and but it didn't stop there it started to spread out and I found my consciousness all at once and simultaneously simultaneously, able to feel into, to sense directly, with a direct perception, into the hearts of every human being who lived. And again, I saw, no matter how low, no matter how evil, no matter how perverted, no matter how depraved, no matter how black, how dark, how evil, somehow, somewhere at the core of that heart there was a spark of goodness and this realization overwhelmed me so much I started to weep and I wept all night long, I just didn't stop but with it came something else they seemed to open out in me a sense of an awareness of beauty notice how that is called beauty beauty and from my bed I could see just over just a narrowest little bit way over from the other end of the room a bit of the East River with the moon shining down on it and I became so filled with the wonder and the miracle and the magic of that beauty that I couldn't bear it I just simply couldn't bear it and a radio was playing some soft music in the background it just seemed as though somebody had set the stage you know for the drama it had it had all those elements which again it just squeezed my heart with a with this ineffable unspeakable a wondrous beauty and by the time the night was over I I knew that I was not going to commit suicide and that I would be willing to live for a very strange reason, mainly because at heart, no matter how low or depraved, people were good.

Now, I still had nothing to live for, and I knew it. I still was miserable. I still was hopeless.

And yet, for that one reason, I decided I was going to live, just for that.

And from that moment on strange things happen now you'd think that a thing like that would stop making an atheist of me for that period but it didn't I learned hard the stubborn type you know I really have to get pushed around by the higher self before I'll acknowledge certain things but life just picked me up that is that holy guardian angel of the 14th tarot key and without my doing a thing saying a thing hopeless helpless because I was very physically helpless life just picked me up and transported me from new york city to california and put me in a completely new life in a different world you might as well have taken me up to some other solar system that's how different it was and with it came that sense of love in other words I fell in love with humanity I just plain fell in love with humanity my personality it was just as unevolved as a personality could be as far as I'm concerned I was full of self-pity was full of hopelessness I was full of bitterness I was full of unhappiness all of those things and yet I was in love with humanity and was going to live for them I mean it sounds a little egos like an egomaniac but I didn't feel that way at all you see my feeling was that if I could be instrumental in just helping like just one little drop of water in an ocean, if I could participate that much by relieving that little bit of pain from humanity, my life had served its purpose. In other words, that would have made it worth living. And it was at that same point I came across Ella Wheeler Wilcox's little poem if I have stopped one heart from breaking I have not lived in vain if I have soothed one soul it's aching or eased one pain or helped one fainting nestling unto its nest again I have not lived in vain now that's not suffering from egomania that one drop it seemed to me was all that was necessary to be able to do that made it worthwhile and from there on the strangeness of my life and development continued which we can't tell you about because that's not part of this evening's class anyway and some of it is very private however the point is I definitely did by the grace of god receive the vision of the true ego in the hearts of men that true undefiled spark I did but did that give me my development no you see what I'm trying to get at I brought along with that my undeveloped personality my infantile self-pity my unhappiness and all the host of immature elements that go along with our personalities that was all still very much with me I had gained something though and that which I gained became something which which took control at very strange times, even though I still thought of myself as an atheist and did for about three to three and a half years before, again, I learned better.

Still, even that was positive, because we have to, at some time or other, give up and throw away the false concepts of what is God and what is not God, what is the creative life and what is not the creative life. And the point is, the thing that made an atheist out of me was the fact that I decided there's no justice in this world. And this red Sephirah is called justice, by the way, along with being called severity. Justice is another one of the terms given in Qabalah. In fact, it has three terms, severity, justice, and fear because when we're unevolved we fear justice and we fear the comeuppances that come to us as a result of the various things we know at least subconsciously we do that aren't very beautiful so the thing that made an atheist out of me for about three and a half years was my decision that there could be no justice in the world infants born to be crippled for instance to suffer uh innocent people hurt injured millions of people starving wars which I felt and still feel a better term for that would be legal murder man lifting his hand against his fellow man these are the things that made me lose faith in a divine creator for a time because he who must believe who can believe in a god would have to think of this god as being loving at least that and certainly you can't much think of love if you look at the horror that exists in the world and yet at heart at heart they are good this is the point is a spark So I came to see justice in another way, but it took me a long time. Indeed, it wasn't until I had gone quite a ways in the esoteric training of the work of BOTA that the full implication of justice came to be understood by me at least enough. Not that even I could understand its full implications.

It takes, consciousness that has gone quite a bit beyond mine, I'm sure, but at least seeing it fairly well. I've had many inner perceptions in relation to it since. And you see, though, there are many aspirants who decide, well, yes, there is justice because we have reincarnation, and you see so it's just karma uh that did not satisfy me though it seems to satisfy many aspirants which is good it did not satisfy me because I still said well if that is true why since god is no doubt omnipotent he would have to be if you want to call him a god why then did God create the kind of universe and the kind of unevolved consciousnesses which would be capable of these unspeakable horrors? It's still God's fault, so who you do how you gonna believe in God? I mean that's at least how I felt. That did not explain it to me. I could not accept that idea of justice so it didn't help however when I did get my real perception and this was through the discipline and you can't escape them my darling if you want to try try you're just going to keep yourself on the whirling wheel of life that much longer you can't escape the disciplines if you go on to really attain to the liberations you have to be willing to go through them but through the disciplines I did finally come to realize that karma alone as I thought certainly is not the answer to an ability to accept the fact that justice does rule the world because you see it's a very different thing thinking of each and every one of us as being separate individuals having to suffer these things for past wrongs, or thinking that we are each and every one of us God, that is, Christ crucified, self-determined, that is, having consciously and deliberately taken on the disciplines of evolution, of going through the apparent outer life and death and pain and suffering in order to bring about more conscious self-directed cooperating creativeness with the self which is us in other words as we once read to you in this class the Meditation en Rés Tarot Key Number 7 where it says Thy pain is my pain Thy sorrows pierce my heart in other words it isn't something outside that went and created something aside from itself to suffer. You and I are God, whether it is in joy or whether it is in pain, whether it is in apparent wisdom or in apparent ignorance.

You and I are that level of God's unfolding self-experience in the particularized aspect which we call you and me or the bird or the tree or the animal and this makes it different for instance if I want to become a dancer I will deliberately put myself through very painful exercises so that I can hardly walk if I want to become a horseback rider I will put myself in such a position so that it's certainly going to be difficult to sit for a while but you see I think it's worth it because I want to attain these abilities in the same way what we see as pain what we see as apparent injustice if this is that individualized aspect of God himself the son of God in expression taking on these disciplines these pains these experiences for purposes of the dance of life the self-expression it makes a difference at that point I'll accept justice and I hope you will but I mean accept it with your reason as something that you have a reason to accept and not just blindly it isn't good to accept anything blindly you don't attain to your true perception if you do keep everything tentative accept nothing that I tell you, except nothing that anyone tells you. Take it tentatively, test it, and find out, but be sure you're going to be fair in your testing. Be sure that you're not going to deliberately try to test out a prejudice, because this is where we fall, by the wayside. Therefore the path, the first path that leads to that red circle which incidentally is called the greater adept is the path of maim that is the hangman and incidentally this is the last path of pain this is one of the reasons I've been talking about pain this is the last path of pain that the aspirant has to go through there comes a time when we don't have to go through any kind of pain anymore at least in this uh evolution which takes many many millennia as you know are you upset she's upset about the many millennia why be upset if you're an eternal being if you have been before there was a physical universe and if you will be after this physical universe is gone why be concerned this comes from being fixed in this moment of time and space this is the point we're going to come to tonight uh the thing we've got to train our attitude out of and the more we do it the more quickly will we be away and out of the paths of pain but we have to be willing to go through them if we're going to get out of them just like we have to be willing to have sore parts of the anatomy if we're going to become adept at horseback riding or dancing and so on temporarily temporarily, temporarily. And yet there are certain disciplines, when we understand what's behind these disciplines, which make it different. In other words, there's a kind of pain that makes you want to die, that makes life seem utterly worthless, and there's a kind of pain that doesn't really bother you at all. Like, who's really bothered by the soreness of certain and muscular exercises when they're busy doing something that's accomplishing for them a development. It's different. Though you can't get away from the discipline, the kinds of pain you still must take on are not painful in the same way. They're fun, and I don't mean being a masochist either, the kind who moans and groans and makes sure everyone else around them is as miserable as they are we're not referring to that kind at all so the path of the hangman you see is is a working at a complete reversal of our attitude in relation to will this is why we read to you from the book of tokens uh tonight as we did the one that finishes low I guide thee all the way rest thou in me and why will because that read read Sephirah which is called justice which is called severity that red Sephirah is that part of yours and yours and my nature which experiences will the volitional aspect of life every time you have any drive or will to do or accomplish anything it is that part of your nature that is involved and you see our greatest problem is that we think we have this personal will we attribute our will to the lower Sephiroth to the green orange violet and multicolored malkus we attribute our will to the intellect mostly and that's why the path goes from the intellect called splendor to the red circle through the path of the hangman because we think that it is our intellect makes the decisions and it isn't it isn't it never was and it never will be this is our delusion and this is why we get into trouble this is why we can condemn ourselves this is why we can condemn others this is why we sit in judgment and incidentally it's from that Sephirah that jesus spoke when he said my my judgment is just don't forget he was able to function in all of those Sephiroth below the supreme triad every one of them and he was speaking from that part of his perception when he said that now how is our judgment just when we know that the Father doeth the work in us Jesus said call no man good only the Father which is in heaven is good you see he had developed all this in that yellow Sephirah malkus the christ consciousness he brought down all those powers into himself those perceptions those awarenesses I mean beyond that but we're discussing that part of the nature and remember what we told you it is that triune being which is our higher mind it is that triune the yellow the red and the blue which is our higher self which has been the real guide and director of our lives through the pouring channels of self-knowledge that come from beyond the abyss you notice it's called the abyss you remember notice the space that separates the top three from the rest of the sefiroth and remember those are called the supernal triad the cosmic father the cosmic mother and the one self within which they are an eternal unity in the fight but our self-beingness is that expressed like in a mirror and that's what in its individualized aspect so that if the divine the cosmic universal mind the god self uh starts to think of of its self beingness it's self-creativeness it starts thinking I am I marry I Joe I Jim I Jane instantly it becomes the lower those the outpourings and these are the eternal individualization because they are eternally part of the one you see our mistake and the reason our willpower is so erroneously interpreted is because we cannot differentiate between that which is different but in unity or that which is separate because each of us are differentiations that is distinctive expressions we think of ourselves as being separate from each other it's just as though each one of these fingers thought that they were separate from that hand that's an illusion that would be an illusion if each of our fingers had a consciousness there and hadn't evolved a consciousness to to hear you see they'd look at each other across this way wouldn't they and they think they're separate but they're not they're fingers because there is a hand otherwise it wouldn't even be fingers would there and that's the same with our individuality and it is the same with our will. It is the same with everything, every power we've got, which doesn't take away from our individuality. But you see, it makes the absolute and complete difference as to whether we're going to get over, for instance, things like guilt complexes, which we walk in plenty, don't we? Things like condemnation, blaming ourselves, blaming others for all the various things it's a different in reaction and response to life so that it's absolutely vital to train ourselves and in this part of the self-development of the aspirant this is being done in an ever accelerated manner it's absolutely vital to train ourselves to say and you've heard me say this often God walks me God lives me God talks me God walks me God sees through these eyes God works through these hands God loves through this heart you see that's what we call blaming god now what do we do when we do foolish things well we have to realize just as the infant is clumsy and stumbles we have to say uh this the vehicle is still undeveloped and so it's done this foolishness this is part of my realizing what I've got to do to grow it or develop it or mature it a little better but the point is as we reach to that our capacity to mature becomes extraordinarily heightened so that it's speeded up to a fantastic degree so that we can in one incarnation make mutations that mature the personality that would ordinarily take the average person a hundred incarnations actually it makes that much difference the difference in weather. That was my little joke. We blame God. That is, we put the power in God's hands where it's been all along, and we trust God to be growing us. And we realize that whatever foolish things we do and feel and think that is part of our undeveloped area, and then we reach to that higher self we reach to the divine and we keep saying to ourselves let thy will live in me and move me this is a consistent training that is that takes place inwardly for the aspirant who is still remember a minor adept still working on perfecting that personality but working at it in such a way that he's starting to utilize his higher powers and opening up to bring in the more intensified energies of the higher and therefore more inner aspects of God's powers becoming more able to utilize them so this upside down business of the hangman you see is really a curious thing.

One of the most ancient of occult axioms says, go in all ways contrary to the world.

That sounds terrible because after all, we would say, well, there are some things the world does or goes in that are all right, aren't there? Yes, but what's the motive?

You see, it's the motive behind it.

Very few human beings on the face of the earth have the proper motive so many people administer justice trying to tell themselves for instance that they are really being impersonal about it how many are you know the thing that makes a good judge is the ability to be completely impersonal and yet most of us walk around with so many intense prejudices about what's right and what's wrong that it makes it very difficult to be able to really evaluate what another personality's evolutionary level is and certainly then we're not in any position to be the administers of what we choose to call justice we pretty much need to leave that in the hands of life until we know that we are conscious channels for that level and only those who completely achieve the ability and the capacity to let the divine will do all things arrange all things evaluate all things through ourselves to keep reminding ourselves that that is the way it really is only those reach a point incidentally where they develop what is considered the true will do you know those individuals who have that fairly well developed and we don't even mean perfectly are the ones whom other people look at and say my that person has such marvelous willpower such a marvelous drive not everyone because some people have a drive that comes from a neurosis, which is all right. And the neurosis, you think it isn't all right. Well, it's all right.

In the final analysis, we must always look to what it will bring us to, not just what it is at the moment, what it is growing us towards. At any rate, the ability to hold on to that concept is heightened and intensified, continuously using the intellect, that's why it comes from the intellect to the volitional nature, continuously using the intellect to remind ourselves that it is God willing through us, and being willing for God to will through us. This is really the trick, because for instance now suppose you're in love with somebody um it's going to be very difficult for you to say now god if this isn't the right one for me I'm willing for you to take them out of my life and give me somebody better have you ever tried it it's not easy it's practically impossible nevertheless this is we have to use our intellect our minds to keep pounding that home until finally we'll feel it occasionally a flash a moment a second and little by little we can hold it and feel it more often and suddenly it's there almost all the time at least in relation to that man or that woman then we'll have the same problem with other things but you see that's one lovely thing about life it keeps us interested in through problems you know we don't have to really get bored if we only knew it now then the other path leading to that area of of true strength is the path of lament and incidentally notice that that tarot key is called justice and incidentally in qabalah that tarot key is also called that is the Hebrew letter is also assigned to a function that has to do with instruction like the teacher and in actuality it is the works karma which is involved here because you see everything that we do and think and feel and our brings its inevitable results and this is what teaches us and as we hold to the divine will as being the true director of our lives we find that more and more what we do is bringing a changed karma remember what we've told you it is absolutely possible to change karma no matter what anyone says says. It isn't possible to change the past and it isn't possible to change the present.

But what you are doing now, the way you are reacting to now, is making your tomorrow so that no matter what foolish things you did yesterday, if you are correcting them in your attitudes and actions of now, that is in holding to this divine will as being your guide and your goad and your all with a willingness then what happens to tomorrow is different than what would have happened had you not in the now put yourself in tune with that divine will because that is the higher will that is the higher power and just by virtue of being willing to give oneself to it we can see miracles take place and sometimes astonishing miracles right here and now just by the act of being willing and of course in a sense you might say a good portion of our evolution is learning how to be truly willing because most of us are forever fighting with god you know really we're trying to buy off god make bargains with god we talk to god tell him everything we want and why we want it and we try to make up god's mind for him and all sorts of things like that and this is not the way we become true conscious co-creators with god only as we are willing to receive the divine intention because what is divine will it is divine intention what is divine intention it is evolution only as we are willing to tune into the divine plan consciously and participate become god's hands and eyes and feet and ears to bring about the perfected evolution only then are we truly fulfilling ourselves and every one of us no matter what our evolutionary level, certainly have achieved a point of development where we can work at that, remind ourselves of it. Don't forget all those powers above, they're not powers that come only to those who go through the grades. If that were so, no one would be ready to go through the grades of initiation to begin with. A great deal of that has to already have been stirring and stirred. It's a matter of perfecting them, of making them conscious. We're all preparing for the initiation which intensifies and brings it closer by practicing all these paths right here and now. This is the thing we're trying to help you to do so that you can be prepared to go through the more esoteric development the more intensive hot house plant hastening of your bloom so the path of justice involved with karma works and instructor also involves a development of the ability to instruct others but not as we think in other words what is the way we truly instruct more than any other way by what we are you know what you are speak so loudly I cannot hear what you say that is the way we instruct how many people have you known who've been marvelous instructors instructors in a way of what not to do and how not to be you know the one who was my closest relative as a child bless her heart taught me more than any human being on earth and that even includes dr case I'm sorry to say in this way gave me the object lesson day by day by day as to what not to be and how not to feel and I would look and say I must remember never to act this way when I grow up I must remember never to look that way I must remember never to think that way and you know it was really very positive so you see even our negative teachers uh take us towards god if we know how to do it if we know how so again living the kind of life that is the real inspiration for others is the way to instruct and only that thus do we prepare ourselves to truly serve to truly serve in the ways that count without the ego the people who want to lord it over others the people who want to rule others the people who want to be on top are the ones who are still dealing with personal will and personal ego he who practices the divine liveth me and it's the divine will that willeth in me and accomplishes through me that person develops the real humility that's involved with the christ consciousness you know when Jesus said call no man good but the father and only that type of person is truly truly developed enough to serve in the higher spiritual ways only that type and there aren't too many incidentally on the planet I know lots of people think they serve for instance when they make sure that they're collecting several million dollars to give to certain laboratories who hire publicity agents to scream at you on tv and radio you're next for cancer run do not walk to the nearest doctor examine your body carefully in detail 24 hours a day in order to find a lump and then run to let them cut it out run do not walk to your nearest physician otherwise you're going to die of heart failure so many and so many are you next are you next a lot of people think they're serving when they help this black magic this insanity that hammers sickness and illness and where they plaster stories all over the front pages of murders and tortures in order to inspire our young to go and do likewise the pictures you present to the world are the pictures that inspire the world into action because we are one being and we're influenced in every way under the sun and it is up to us to become the kind of picture and the kind of life that helps to offset this horror and this evil that is rampant from that mass mind undeveloped level so be careful and please do not run in the direction with fears that are being instilled in you of all these terrible terrible pictures that I think perhaps one of the greatest evils this era has well I'll give you a few announcements and then we'll have a little intermission then we'll proceed to the next affair in the last half of the class see the title of my talk for next Sunday morning is the cabalistic use of color and sound for revealing the secret of true happiness That sounds interesting. Wonder what I'll say.

I'm often more surprised than you.

Prineus number one has suspended classes for the summer and reopens on October 3rd at 8 p.m. All BOTA members are welcome to visit Prineus. They're on vacation, you know, until October 3rd.

Then Prineus number three, which will be a beginning Prineus, will open on Wednesday, October 4th. 8 p.m. All BOTA members who wish to enroll in the beginner's class are invited to join Prineus number 3. The only requisite is that you are an active member of BOTA and receiving the lesson.

Next Thursday we will give the final lecture in this nine-week series on the Cassia Eleanor type. I think I already told you this. Anyway, the Qabalistic Path to the Inner Plains. We will resume our public lectures in October. The date will be announced in our programs and the notices will be sent out and do not forget that our Qabalistic Sunday School is opening October 1st at 11 a.m. register your children it'll be a privilege for them and something the world needs to take our young minds start training them on the proper manner now let's have a five-minute intermission to get our blood circulating and we'll take up the next part of the program Thank you.

Now we will speak about the next sefirot, the one called mercy.

Now that is assigned in Qabalah to the function of memory.

Memory.

And incidentally, though we know you have been taught in school and in various other ways that your brain is the area where memory resides we hope you have not never accepted that memory does not exist in the physical part of the brain whatever the scientists have to say the physical brain is the instrument through which memory registers at this time in this vehicle but memory has nothing to do with the physical vehicle except in that way when people lose their memory when things happen to their memory due to a physical ailment it's just that the instrument has been injured after all if you take out a few of the keys on a piano keyboard you're not going to be able to play those notes and it doesn't mean that the the one who plays the piano doesn't know where they are or what they are you just can't play them on this vibrational level because the physical keys have been taken out it's an injury to the physical level, the vibrational level, an interference there. As we are taught in Qabalah, memory exists in our higher mind and is part of our higher soul and therefore it is eternal. It is absolutely and completely eternal. And indeed the whole reincarnational theory theory, rests on the fact that there is something in us which has a continuous memory of everything that has ever been, and it is this memory stream which goes on from incarnation to incarnation, bringing its development, its evolutionary level, on into the next development.

So, memory is assigned to this next function. And remember, both the volitional aspect, which we call severity, and the memory aspect, which we call mercy, these are functions of the yellow sephiris.

Therefore, it opens up into the yellow sephiris. These are functions of the consciousness and the consciousness the actual consciousness is in the middle pillar this is what we're trying to keep or help you to keep in mind now but each of the sephiras do indicate a particular evolutionary level and a sphere of activity don't forget get, both macrocosmically and microcosmically, that is, both in the grand universal scale and in the individual smaller scale, wheels within wheels.

And so in this particular evolutionary development, that which is opened up in us, and some of us have it in a little measure, all of us have it in a little measure, parts of it, because after all our higher soul is our real self though it is very unconscious in us most of the time as we all must agree and certainly we haven't developed the controls and the awarenesses which it is our destiny to develop and the whole reason for these esoteric training systems happens to be because there are some of us who do have the karmic good fortune as well as the readiness to make a more intensified type of grade even when it doesn't seem on the outer as though we've been doing it it occurs in some deep and inner realm in a gradual manner even those who seem to fall off the wheel uh they're going to be brought back and the next incarnation once they've really been linked with this system of training at least this is what we have been taught and everything we've ever seen makes us feel that there's no question about it well now in this particular development we have three paths that are involved we remember what we've said we go backwards in the path from key 21 we've been going back and back in an orderly progression taking each Sephirah in its orderly progression and so what we have color covered is tarot key 12 and tarot key 11 in reference to the Sephirah number five now after 11 what is the one backwards tarot key 10 and so tarot key 10 if you will look at the tree there is the key that unites that is that has the connection between the green Sephirah victory which is the desire nature and the blue Sephirah so in order to start one's intensive development of all the qualities that are involved in that blue Sephirah one starts with the desire nature now remembering that this is assigned to the sphere of venus we must realize then that it is involved with love because venus and love are practically synonymous and everything would be we desire no matter what it is is because we'd love to have it therefore we love it whatever it is even if it's something that's not good for us so the path of koth the wheel of fortune is what connects within us all those things those subjective powers which the tarot keys represent in the past uh that are are involved with what we need to have opened up in us this particular key brings into a united relationship function the inner initiation the opening up of the awarenesses is involved with a relationship developing a consciousness an awareness developing between the desire nature and that which is called mercy now before we go on with that we want to remind you that the mercy on the one side and the severity on the other side really having to do then in a sense with uh the opposite because remember the two pillars on each side are they are the opposites in all ways we have to remember that mercy could also be called love and severity could be called hate except that hate isn't what it seems to be it's more attraction and repulsion this always keep in mind some things are attracted to each other some things are repelled by each other without it really being destructive now in essence no one knows how to love unless his love knows how to be severe that is why severity comes before love you know for instance is a mother loving her child if she lets it run out in the street to get run over or is she loving her child if she's severe with it and grabs hangs on to it to keep it from getting itself injured you see we run into a lot of trouble all of us because we're afraid to use that part of our nature which we call severity and usually we're afraid to use it because at least something in us knows that perhaps hate is at the bottom of it and hate must never be at the bottom of severity love must be at the bottom of severity and this really is the secret of knowing how to function in various situations which bring up an ethical problem in our minds and hearts for love to be the real motivating force and to remember that love does not mean being namby-pamby and letting people get away with murder are you really loving them if you let them get away with murder not really therefore you have to look into your hidden motives and your hidden thoughts and so we see this tarot key assigned in qabalah to comprehension it is called the hand as a closed fist in other words in in the the symbolic gesture of grasp when we grasp something we comprehend it and so a comprehension of the real laws of the universe and the real volition of the universe which we've just come from a comprehension of the desire nature and those who love nature with its control understanding the way the cycles wheels within wheels work gaining more and more insight and perception into this this is what develops in us the real capacity to love not to just be sentimental or marvelous a lot of modern sentimentality you know goes for love and it isn't it's just an effort to seem to be uh sweet and kind how many people deliberately do kind things not because they're loving at all but because they want to give the impression that they're highly evolved maiden kids themselves well all those things come to light in our consciousness when we go through the disciplines of the paths and the awakenings of the paths when we are through our initiations introduced so to speak to the guardians of each of these paths of the spirit these things come more and more to light and we become more and more able to see into the motivation factors the immaturity factors and therefore to do things with ourselves and to change uh these attitudes of mind and of heart always calling on the divine will of the higher soul to do it in us of us for us with us so this is the first path an understanding of the laws of the desire and it's in the desire nature we search for our true motivations you know it's in our feelings we have to learn how to watch and comprehend these feelings to develop this and then incidentally in in relation to memory you see in this grade the adept because we can call ourselves adept the lesser greater or interim uh doesn't have to work at reminding himself anymore that god doeth the works in me that is the divine will is the true willis and that my will is that aspect of the divine will which it is mine to freely distribute it is a regular thing memory you see memory he doesn't he doesn't have to try to remember because subconsciousness is already trained it knows it is always remembering as a basic inclination and of course at this point that's why this is called the exempted depth by the way what is he exempt of well first of all he's certainly exempt from the uh perturbations and problems that face most of us because he doesn't have to worry about outcomes.

He always remembers that God's in charge, that the divine will is functioning whether we know it or not.

And believe you me, this is a most comforting thought. All of us are capable of remembering it at times. And at those times, we should be comforted. When we know it in our hearts, then we'll be at peace. And remember, the feeling nature is involved with the idea of knowing in our heart this we must remember and remembering also that the ego seated in the hearts of men is involved with the heart center we have the same emphasis that is placed since these are the powers of the central ego now then the next path involved with attaining to that full state of exempted depth is the path of yod that is the the hermit and what does that got to do with you can see offhand when you look at the tarot key the hermit that this has to do with compassion compassion and incidentally those who've attained the fullness of that grade are called masters of compassion and here you see the linkage now you and I may not be able to be masters of compassion at this point but we sure could be uh at least at times minor adept at compassion you see the the interrelationship flow that exists but in this opening up we come to recognize that always there are those who've come gone before us who having had their vision their perception of the unity of all life who realizing that at heart there is a spark of good in all that lives there's this love this compassion that must do its part in holding that lamp as the hermit holds it to help guide others up the path that knows that the divine will is functioning because Qabalah calls this Hebrew letter incidentally the intelligence of will this is the subjective power will is involved in many ways outwardly and inwardly and of course when the inner will that is the inner drive is consistently merciful that is here we have mercy consistently full of love and compassion then you have an individual who certainly is arriving at something we can call more than man and after all you and I we have moments haven't we at least moments when this is true of us and we need to try to promote that as much as possible until we arrive at the point where we can have it heightened and made something far more consistent and more active more vital in every moment of our lives the third path that leads to this sephirah is the cross path going from severity to mercy this is the second cross path and incidentally it's the central cross path again therefore it's a balancing area a balancing area of force which is involved naturally with tarot key number eight since we were just dealing with tarot key number nine and what is tarot key number eight it's called strength isn't it and you know that tarot key what does it show So it shows the woman who is controlling the lion with roses, with a garland of roses.

Well, you know, that is one of the most potent messages to subconsciousness that you can imagine.

Because here we're being shown symbolically, and we are meant to develop this in ever greater measure as when we work with our tarot. We are being shown that subconsciousness has become so completely humanized don't forget subconsciousness is that which we share with all living beings below us in yes it but on that level that portion of subconsciousness which we direct that portion of the cosmic substance has become so completely humanized as shown by that woman that it can take the raging lion that is the animal nature and it can direct it and control it through roses which is love, roses are the flower of Venus.

And incidentally, in the final analysis, this is the only way you will ever control, ever control any of your problems in your own personality mechanism all the so-called willpower in the world and it may seem like willpower to you but it usually isn't the real willpower because you're putting it on the wrong level you're trying to you're trying to think of it as the personal power but all the so-called strenuous you know bang bang I will or I won't do this or that doesn't work because how many of you have discovered the moment you say I will never do this again how many of you found yourself doing it oh my god but fat you know I've learned my lesson I'll never fall into that trap again did it take you a day or is it a week or a month before you were in the trap again this working with that driving so-called willpower alone not that you mustn't have that persevering will yet but with that alone it doesn't work that's why the balancing of the volitional power with the memory love mercy only then do you really balance off and attain the full ability and capacity for being what is called a master of compassion called an exempt adept again why well certainly he who attains to exempt adept is exempt from the illusions and delusions that we suffer from therefore exempt from from a major part of the sorrows, because our sorrows come from our illusions and our delusions. And yet a master of compassion, if you've ever seen certain pictures or portraits of those few who have been said to attain to that, you will have noticed that from out of their eyes there shines something that shows there's been like almost an infinite pain and with it an infinite gentleness and love but that has to do with the ability to empathize completely with the knowledge that your pain is my pain with a perception that as long as there is one human being still lost in ignorance and in sorrow I am not free that kind of loving that kind of perception because of the recognition of the unity of life which comes from what from remembering who and what he is she is we are and that is something there's a great deal more involved in it but when you are exempt from the delusions of the world you are automatically exempt from personal problems of a certain kind though you will still suffer the pain of others in a certain way and have an absolute need and compulsion to do your part to help lift the pain of the world and all of us remember all of us have some of this in us at least at times some a little more some a little less some hardly ever but this is what we must reach for and we cannot find it we cannot feel it as long as we keep fooling ourselves holding to this idea that we are separate from anyone else or anything else we must worship that in us which is distinct individualized and different yes knowing that this is God's way of self-experience experiencing this uniqueness nevertheless at the same time we must realize that you and you and you and all others are just as miraculous wondrous vital and important just as we feel about every member of our body do we feel we give up an arm or a leg because it has nothing to do with us because we're not that no we are our whole body and in the same way our true eye is the whole universal self and true strength and true controls comes only from having that complete awakening of perception and this is what the work of bota is aimed at this is what it's all about next week We're going to finish this particular class series by taking up the supernal triad and showing its effect on us here and now, showing you that it is not something separate, even though it's across the abyss, and linking it up with that which we will need to link up together in order to help ourselves and to help each other on the path of return.

Turn and then whatever else will come we never really know because uh I don't know how many of you know this I used to try long ago to prepare classes you know to make little notes and say well I will bring up this point in that point the more I tried the thicker I would get but finally I have to go to bed for quite a few hours or a few days until about half hour before the class But then I realized it took me a long time that the higher self has no intentions of letting me put my own prejudice, my own thoughts, and my own ideas into your need.

Therefore, when we come together, we form a spontaneous unity, a group.

And I gather in my own subconscious way, this is what makes me a channel of the higher forces, from you. From your thoughts from your emotions your feelings your needs as of this moment and it sifts through and then comes down from the higher levels of the hierarchy which I channel from the third order down for us and then together we interrelate and we get the things that we need for this moment and that is why if some of you have wondered uh you have so many of your questions answered during a class it's because we are one and more intimately one when we're together I finally found out that I don't need to prepare anything that we all do much more beautifully when we let it flow with the divine will as it's supposed to do at any rate all right now we will have some questions yes yes well if uh have you got the book of tokens well if you'll find that that book gives quite a few of the answers and several of the meditations to really help you get more of a perception.

You see, the whole idea of will isn't something you can ever really explain from the intellectual level. That's the strange part of it. Dr. Case used to say that he had a very close associate who would argue with him and say, now, Dr. Case, why do you keep trying to tell people about the difference between divine will and their idea of will and choice.

You know that people either know it or they don't know it.

And that's all it really amounts to. And he used to say, no, it isn't exactly that way. There are some who know it and some who don't know it and some who are just ready to know it.

Those who know it need the reminder.

Those who don't know it have a seed planted. And those who are ready to know it will suddenly have a realization or a perception but you see the whole idea of will or the problem with our idea of personal will has to do with our identification of ourselves with our personality he who knows who and what he is can't have that problem because then he knows that will is free from that level, but not from the personality level which we are lost in. We think we are our intellect. We think we are our emotions. We think we are our subconscious minds. We think we are our bodies. Whereas these are just functions and forces that belong to the true I, which is that thing that never changes. You're different in personality. You're different in function. You're different in feeling and you're different in body than you were as a child but you have the same sense of I haven't you and it is that I which is not and we repeat which is not the personality functions but it's something beyond it and in a sense you might say it owns the personality It's like the personality is a sort of pet of it.

It is from that level that true will, that is the image-making faculty, comes. But because we think of ourselves as separate personalities, we feel that we have a will that is, say, in opposition to somebody else's will. Like I might want a man and you might want the same man or you might want a woman and some other man won't want the same woman then you think we're in opposition we each want the same thing therefore our wills are in opposition opposition to each other or with a job two people might decide they want the same job and so on and so they go into this clash well you see there's a misinterpretation of the desire nature and there's a misinterpretation of what will fulfill the desire which makes people have these clashes yet anybody who has that experience of the one self with its complete perfect harmonious interrelationship knows doesn't have to think he doesn't have to wonder he doesn't have to guess he knows that the divine will is the only will that there is and that his true self is in uh unity with that divine will so when people say well if there's only one divine will therefore I can do anything that pleases me it's mentioned in the book of tokens this comes from that level of personal identification which is erroneous because nobody can do what pleases him he can only do what it is his level evolutionary level to want and to think and to feel and to do and to the degree that we hold ourselves to that higher self and when we say father not my will but thy thy will be done it isn't that thy will the father's will isn't going to be done in any case it's that we are becoming self-consciously willing to will consciously with the father it's the beginning of true free will it's very difficult we said intellect can't give it it's knowing that we are the way god self expresses and that god's got it all mapped out and that if we hold ourselves our hearts our minds to a willingness to cooperate this is what brings us out of our pain of our misery of our separativeness and makes us truly powerful co-administrators with God.

Yes?

I'm going to put my heart and soul in it and pray that you're going to be able to understand. And my and everything. And when everybody said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I just knew I decided the color is weird. I want to put everything I'm going to put in the room. Now, when you decide, okay, now I'm going to go. Nothing wrong with creating beauty, dear. It's attachment to things that's our problem. After all we live in and through the physical universe and it's quite fine as a matter of fact that's part of our function we are the way it's our images and the things we point to we are the way god brings all these different uh physical things it's when we get attached to things when they become the vital importance in our lives that's when we get into trouble but to use them as certainly not nothing wrong fine very good attitude any other questions that too in another way but well you have what when you give up the attachment though it all depends you mean a carpet yeah if I hold on to that possibly I don't get it well if you hold on to it too tightly it's because if you hold on to it too tightly you're only telling subconsciousness I'm afraid I'm not going to get it you see that's the secret behind it any other questions yes yes yes a very profound significance very profound indeed oh my god yes I'd have to give a whole class and it would be much longer than this on just the significance of the colors and what they mean because you see there we go into their assignation in terms of esoteric astrology part of which we've taken up but in a different way having to do with their astrological correlations, signs of the zodiac, planets, the kind of forces they portray.

That's part, indeed, of the awakenings that come on the paths of return. But I've, you see, taken just one particular aspect of it for this series. I could give you about a hundred classes on the same series and give you all the variations that are involved in the use of symbols, color found psychological spiritual physical elements involved and so on well back there yes wasn't that ever done well by golly you remind me when well you remind me apparently we haven't we haven't given it to our yet I guess you remind me when eleanor comes back from her vacation I didn't know we hadn't had that done one more question and then we're through all right yes I decided to give it that next time because we had too much to cover with three paths to sefirot that actually have to do with the functions of the self and I thought we'll finish it up for the the last class to give the exercise which is a very potent one and we'll help you to bring about a preparedness for the development of just the thing we've been talking about tonight yes no I haven't given it yet well yes well then until next thursday night for some of you sunday morning good night my darling Thank you.