Qabalistic Secret Teachings of the Mystery Schools (The Four Worlds)

I was utterly delighted thinking I can just about talk about anything I please because I can choose whatever aspect or area I wish we could talk about this subject from now on, not till doomsday because truly we don't want to believe in doomsday, do we? At least I hope not. At least the expression is there. We could talk about this particular subject from now through infinity. That's a nicer way to put it, I believe. And still we could never naturally exhaust the ideas so it left me quite free in other words it's a topic that says really nothing and yet it says everything I love that type of topic because the ability to feel inspired in whatever area the spirit moves instead of having to relate relate back to a specific topic of something that happens to be very dear to my soul. In other words, I like to go where the Spirit moves all of us together and therefore bring whatever riches we can all share as a unity.

I'm very pleased with my first topic, because I can say anything about Qabalah and the Mystery School, there being so many factors involved.

I got to wondering just what aspect should I bring in and I realized that in the long periods that we have been together here I have never tried to explain to you some because we could never really cover all of these things in such short talk but to cover some of the aspects that are involved in the the idea of the four worlds of the Qabalah. In Qabalah, as in all truly profound mystical teachings, we have presented the basic principle that man is not a creature with only one particular vehicle, or with consciousness focused on only one area, that man as such has more than one vehicle, and by vehicle, you know, we mean exactly that, bodies, more than one body.

In the Eastern philosophies, we often hear talk of the seven vehicles or the seven bodies of man. In Qabalah, incidentally, which is actually older than our Eastern philosophies in essence, in Qabalah we speak of the four worlds but when we speak of the four worlds we're actually speaking about the four basic bodies or vehicles however you still have seven isn't it nice to juggle with numbers you still have seven because the fourth is not considered a fourth as such when it when you analyze it it's actually considered a grouping of four vibratory levels which are related to just one vehicle that is why on the cabalistic tree of life the very lowest by lowest we don't mean unspiritual incidentally we mean the shortest vibratory rate in which we function the the very lowest sefirah, the one that's called Malkuth, the physical plane, that particular sefirah is really divided into four sections, so that the fourth really refers to four.

Therefore, if you think of the fourth vehicle or the fourth plane as being actually four vehicles or four vibratory levels of consciousness, and then think of the other three, again, you still have the seventh. So that man can, even in Qabalah, be said to have seven vehicles.

Now, what is meant by this? It really has to do with the entire teachings that relate to consciousness as such, to the involution of consciousness from deity and to the evolution of consciousness into an awareness of deity and the controls and powers that come therefrom.

In Qabalah, then, the four worlds are related first, the number one, to what is called the archetypal plane or vehicle or level of consciousness. And this is actually synonymous with abstract mind.

Now, only in human beings, I'm sure you must realize that we find abstract mind. Now, what do we mean by abstract mind? Mind we have things like abstract ideas and then we have things like concrete ideas abstract ideas can take you way off there or way out there and people can get lost in abstractions and as a matter of fact uh in uh the long trek on the path of return many of us get lost in these abstractions for a while though life or deity certainly doesn't let us stay that way because because we're all caught in a sort of infallibility.

We are all part of a stream or rushing river of life or livingness. We are all participants in this.

And we cannot remain lost on any level or sphere for very long, though it may seem so to a mind that has concentrated itself down and is looking at just one thing, just like if you don't like someone you know you cannot see all their nice qualities your mind is always concentrated on the parts of their nature that you dislike and so you drive yourself crazier and crazier working up your own emotional disturbances by getting focused almost like a hypnosis on that quality of a person that happens to bother you unable therefore to see the rest of the being. Well, remember that consciousness is like that, really, and there are the relative differences. So being lost in abstractions, of course, doesn't work out for very long, though unfortunately we have many people who lose themselves that way. It makes them think that they're very brilliant, you see, that they're very wise, that they are beyond all other things. So they'll talk about all kinds of abstractions and say things like, God is love.

Now, some of you may think, hmm, what is she, a black magician or something? Doesn't she believe God is love? What does she mean calling that an abstraction? Isn't that what all the true teachings of all the world have always taught? Certainly. Nevertheless, there are some who mouth these words as an abstraction God is love and finishes right there and it makes them think they're marvelous and they're spiritual because they can say God is love and present an abstract idea God is love but the very word God remember is an abstraction when we say God what do you mean by God to different people, God means different things. And the whole idea in true Qabalistic Mystery School training is to train you away from using abstractions so that you can become a true center of expression, so that you can know the difference between an abstract that says something that has no meaning. Because I don't know how many people you've known who've said god is love and go out and steal betray hurt injure have to do everything possible to put their ego up above someone else's uh make little remarks uh sometimes very subtle remarks that will uh tear down another human being in order to make themselves look big or beautiful and be unaware of the fact that they are really expressing an idea completely opposite to the principle God is love I'm sure we've all come across such people and these are children of God we're not supposed to get upset about them or hate them every child has a period where it's trying to see how far it can go where it's testing its powers and it will go go into tantrums, and do all sorts of things.

So being a child, of course, makes people do childish things. And the age of the soul really is what determines the childishness and the immaturity of an individual. So just using an idea or an abstraction, God is love, is no good unless it continues down through the four Qabalistic worlds. This is basic in the mystery school teachings, you see. Now then, what would come next? You have to have the idea God is love. Now, we're not saying you shouldn't have this abstract idea, because everything starts with the abstract idea. All of manifestation begins with deity, and on a level which our limited, or at least temporarily limited, mind or consciousness cannot completely comprehend at this point, mind you, at this point. So we are not saying that this is not a beautiful phrase and a glorious idea. As a matter of fact, I remember when I was 12 years old and was presented with just that one statement, God is love.

I was so thoroughly enchanted with it that it took me months to come down off of cloud nine, which was good. It started me on a search and involved me in certain studies because I was able to take that abstraction, God is love, even at 12, and to say, well, now if God is love, now that's the first plane, remember, of the Qabalist, if God is love, then what would follow therefrom? Now we're dealing with the proper method of utilization of meditation, concentration, and training ourselves to really live that first or abstract principle.

If God is love, we come then to the next plane the Qabalistic plane of consciousness, which incidentally is part of you. We're not talking about something outside of you. You have a group of vehicles. You are a consciousness, and you have fields of awareness. And that's why you can become abstracted and get lost in abstract ideas, or you can take an abstract idea and work it down into full manifestation for yourself and for life, for deity and for humanity, which is not as separate as lots of us think. So we take that one idea, God is love, and what do we do? If God is love, what should follow? That's the next plane called Bria in Qabalah, and it's really the plane of creation or the level of consciousness that can create through the higher powers of imagination. Your artists use this plane a great deal. Your true artists, your poets, your writers, your sculptors, your painters, and your artists who look at a sky and have their hearts washed with extraordinary ecstasy. This is artistry of the mind. Also, I hope you must realize this. I hope you do realize this.

So you have this next plane of creativity, as it is called. Now the creative plane is not very distinct yet, but it is coming down from that abstraction of God as love. It is starting to show what follows as the next vibratory step or level. And so in the next idea of God is love, you have, well, if God is love, then there are all sorts of aspects of loving. It means that there are expressions of loving, like loving humanity, loving God, loving beingness, loving evolution you're still not very uh down to the definite or super definite form but you're already getting the idea pretty much like dr case would explain that on the abstract world the first world you have the idea of city of sitting as an abstraction and the world of creation then you have the idea of chairs plural because then later in the formative world uh which which is the world of Yetzirah, and also linked with that astral, or the higher astral parts of our being, you have the idea of what kinds of chairs.

For instance, many of you may think God shouldn't have concentrated in and through a center by the chairs you have here in the temple.

And you figure that the experiments of centers of God that brought this type of chairs about, you would have preferred that they hadn't been experimented with to begin with, or at least changed. Well, of course, that's because you're experiencing it on what? You're experiencing it on the world of a theia, which is what? It is the world that's divided into the four areas I was speaking about, where you have your concretized, your intellectual faculty. And intellectual faculty is different, remember, than abstract thinking. People don't realize it, but it is, because the intellect has to chew on things.

It has to chew and measure actual manifestations.

Therefore, it is part of the physical manifestation, even though some of our modern scientists may not recognize it as a physical manifestation. But intellect has to chew on the physical, assimilate, analyze, experience it, you see. Whereas mind, as such, consciousness, is not limited to it, though it utilizes intellect, incidentally. As well as everything else. Mind is clever, very clever, even in people you think are dumb. They still have mind, and they're not so dumb. It depends on our point of view. And sometimes the ones who seem the dumbest are the ones who get the most, because they know how to work those of us who think we're so smart, and we don't see through their motives. Part of growth, growth, of course. Nevertheless, you have the reason you could think these ideas, which I'm no doubt many of you have thought many times alas, that is the chair. Someday when somebody donates enough money to the temple, we'll give you such wonderfully comfortable chairs that you'll start complaining that you fall asleep. And of course, I may develop an inferiority complex, which I'm sure deity wouldn't appreciate at all. It would interfere with our work, having you fall asleep.

We always have our problems to work out in life, and this is part of the charm of living. Nevertheless, I hope you're starting to see the differentiations that are involved. The chair you're sitting on is the actual testing ground for that first abstract idea of sitting, as Dr. Case has said, which involved, well, that means chairs, in the plural, on the creative level, which on the formative level says well there are many kinds of chairs and that's the level of course you're wishing somebody hadn't thought of at the moment perhaps and then there's a testing ground the world of a seer where you're having to suffer whatever consequences there are from the sitting thereof and you're then what are you doing uh you are automatically going into a spiral circle just when we think of the sitting I'll return to the love analogies because you know that's my favorite analogy in any case. But in the sitting analogy, you know that you're not as comfortable as you like to be. And I don't blame you. I like to be comfortable too.

Yeah, I think comfort is a very wonderful thing. I think Deity had one of the greatest sort of creative ideas there when it came to the ideas of comfort. In any case, you would have a reaction. And the reaction would again come to what the idea of sitting which is the abstraction because you know you have to be sitting at various times for various reasons so the abstract idea of sitting would come in and then on the next level some of you will be thinking of one kind of chair the idea again know of chairs on the creative level and all the kinds of chairs there are and why is it your bitter karma to be having to have to sit on this kind when so many lovely types of chairs have been created but nevertheless you see you're going from plane to plane in your awareness of consciousness and then on the formative world you you'd start thinking of the very specific kind of chair you would prefer and sooner or later you'll have it you know maybe you should concentrate on that somebody donates the kind of chairs that you want I don't know what would happen though with so many of you here we might say it might turn out to be too many types of chairs we might have the harmony we need so it's possible that we better just remain on the formative level uh where we're thinking of uh of chairs uh without specifying it wherever we because of the fact that we do have to share certain things uh our beloved uh frother felix Frasier would say this is part of your mass karma, which is quite right, you see, because we carry many karmas.

And there are some things we have to share together, both in the area of discomfort as well as in the area of joy and fulfillment. And so let's say that part of the discipline of attainment is helping you to become aware of the fact that consciousness and evolution are so glorious that you forget that you're sitting on a chair you'd prefer not to be sitting on. In other words, it might be a matter of discipline. I know there are some who would prefer not to have the discipline, but it's rather an interesting thing. Most human beings don't want the discipline. They want everything to come easily, and I don't blame them. So do I. Only those of us who are realistic discover that nothing comes that easily. And the very effort and striving really is what becomes the joy and the ecstasy once once we see into the infallibility of these four cabalistic planes and the way everything works in and through this particular area for unfoldment.

Now the love abstraction that we were mentioning from the area of the highest plane or the highest vehicle, which is really that vehicle in you which is eternally at one with your your higher soul, which is like a ray from a central sun, in other words, never separated from it, and yet a distinct ray or expression, you have this idea of the abstraction love. Then in the world of Bria, the abstraction love becomes something slightly more concretized, and it becomes something that you express. In other words, a need to express, a drive to express Lovingness is part of this creative idea.

The idea of if God is love, then there must be unity within all creatures. And then one goes around in this creative field of the plane or vehicle, also, but still Still more or less in larger concepts, like the idea of sitting has to do with chairs. You see, when we have sitting as the abstraction and chairs as the first creative idea for the sitting. In loving, God is love, then the next plane for creativity, this has to do with being loving as a consciousness and with the lovingness of anybody else if anybody else exists as a consciousness then we go on down to what we call in Qabalah the formative plane the world of Yetzirah in Hebrew and this formative plane then becomes more distinct just like with chairs there are many different kinds of chairs that are dreamed up all over the lot you know God just loves to create and that means you do because you are centers of this this deity, this creative consciousness.

So when we get to the formative plane, we discover all kinds of extraordinary ways of loving. And I mean some of them are extraordinary.

Some of them, because they're so infantile, show their love by killing somebody else. Yeah, you know, I killed him because I loved him. You've heard me give that analogy.

Some show their love by trying to sort of hit them over the head all the time for not loving them fully and completely completely in accordance with what they think love is. Some show their love by beautiful sacrifice. Some by acceptance, understanding, by a need to serve, a need to do for another. In other words, you have every kind of variety of formation that has to do with love in accordance with the evolutionary level of that particular being or that particular soul or that particular particular person. Then, on the so-called material plane, and remember, to the Qabalists, the material plane is not just the actual physical something that we're sitting on. It involves these four levels, which really means the intellectual part of the mental, the emotional part of the of the personality uh the uh let's see there's the mental the emotional the uh physical experience of the particular idea and then finally the correlation that has to do with it and that's why our alchemist divided it into the four elements but they were speaking and symbolism remember the fire air water and earth which really becomes the one physical plane now then on the so-called material plane what you really have is the testing of that original abstract idea into the first creative um essence of it into the forming of the very specifics that have to do with it like the kind of chairs you sit on and finally you have the testing of it now what we call the material universe or the physical universe as such really is the testing ground of deity of your higher soul in order to take in the experience of the powers of consciousness now if you think I've been talking in abstractions I'm now going to bring you right down with hammers and nails to what this has to do with you.

And I hope you will never forget this.

Remember, the idea relates to what? That consciousness creates by first having an abstract idea.

Whatever consciousness is, please bear in mind, you are, because the one thing you certainly have to say is, I have consciousness, don't you now? Now, if you say, I haven't got consciousness, you're still consciously denying consciousness.

And of course, though we say of other people, that person has no consciousness, this is a relative matter, isn't it? What we really mean is that that person has a lesser degree of awareness than others. Just like a child certainly has lesser ability than a grown-up in some areas, though some Some grown-ups have less than children, unfortunately, because they're not growing up inside.

But the point is, this has definite concrete meaning. It has definite practical application. In the mystery training system of Qabalah, we do not permit you to run away with abstraction. We do not permit you to live in a never-never land where you go up into a very nice little mountaintop and just sigh with joy, God is love, and fill yourself with ecstasy, although it's cheaper than drugs, we admit, we still do not permit you to do this.

Because we say, from the depth of our own knowledge and experience, we say that deity has gone to an awful lot of trouble to immerse a part of its own beingness, its own awareness, its own eternal and infinite consciousness, to immerse it into a concentration of, you might say, a concentration of specific aspects, like a concentration of rays from its own self, in order to do what? In order to deepen and enrich its own self-awareness. Awareness. I repeat, in order to deepen and enrich its own self-awareness. How is this shown by evolution? Wherever we look, what do we see? From the most latent type of consciousness, or what seems latent to us, like the atom. Qabalah, the Western mysteries, say everything is consciousness, everything. The air you breathe. Do you feel the breeze blowing across you from the cooler? That's consciousness. You say, oh no, we turned it on with a machine. Nonsense. We turned it on with a machine, but the machine was made by consciousness, by consciousness knowing how to get together and work in unity, in harmony, in order to take from that first abstract idea, idea, discomfort into what kind of discomfort? Hot. Into the next area, what do we do about it? Coolers. In other words, down the line, and now you're experiencing it. Some of you would wish that some people weren't such darn fresh air fiends, because you don't like breezes.

You think it might give you this, that, or the other. And others of you are just extraordinarily or happy about the fact that a little breeze is blowing but that breeze is air and everything is an expression a vibratory level of consciousness and so it is divinity that is sort of blowing across you and with you and into you really bringing you this particular experience whether you're enjoying it or not you know some of our children very much do not enjoy certain certain experiences we make them go in for in order to be able to stop changing many diapers or washing them. They're very annoyed with us and they think we're very mean, as I think you all know. And then our little pets, they certainly don't appreciate some of the things we make them learn. In other words, the discipline. So we all have different reactions to whatever level of experience we're having, of course.

The point is, though, that the four Qabalistic worlds with the division on the so-called lowest world, which incidentally doesn't mean an unspiritual world, this is the thing you must bear in mind.

These divisions, then, have to do with the way consciousness works when it has achieved awareness of itself. And this has been an evolutionary thing. You might say that in well you might ask what is evolution actually what is evolution now in qabalah always evolution is the involving of a deity of a portion just a portion of its own beingness into a concentration and finally it concentrates so much of itself into a certain portion of its own beingness or substance that it finally develops what you might call self consciousness from that particular portion of itself what in a way you can liken it to the different aspects of consciousness that have to do with dream consciousness cosmic awareness and waking consciousness those really are the three aspects that it could divide into because in dream consciousness we are, what are we doing? Part of us is a very surprised spectator, isn't that right? Watching our dreams. And something in us is just going ahead weaving all kinds of stories. Some of them are horrible, some of them are wonderful, often it's mixed, some are embarrassing. Still, there's something in us that's watching with tremendous interest. We're just really absorbed in our dream well in waking consciousness we have a similar thing part of us is watching the unfolding of what's occurring with amazing interest you know all of us know that the center of our lives are the most important thing and you know all of us feel that when we can tell others about our lives that's when we're really having a fine time and I'm sure you've all watched people sort of champing at the bit when somebody's talking about their experience they're just dying to get in to tell about theirs because that's naturally more important to them we're all centered all of us are centered in our own group of experiences which is all right incidentally I mean we're not talking against it because there's a certain field of consciousness which deity is cultivating as a center of I for each of us and naturally we're all interested in getting our particular field cultivated. You know, like the gardener is certainly interested in his garden more than his neighbor's garden.

Now you may say this isn't God is love. Well certainly, because it is though. Because until you can become aware of your own eyes and work with your own center or field of being and awareness, that means your own environment, your own relationships. I mean let's not get abstract about this. Until you do this you're not remotely able to do something to help other people now we have an awful lot of do-gooders who rush hither thither and yon telling everybody how to live their lives and how to correct their mistakes and their own fields of consciousness is full of nothing but weeds and noxious poisons and they're going they're telling somebody else how to cultivate their field now in the western mysteries we don't go for this In the Qabalistic training, which we have had handed down to us for untold numbers of thousands of years, we say, there comes a time in your evolution and you as a center of deity have gone through, in order to reach this point in evolution, you have gone through an involution of a part or aspect, a concentration of deity.

You have become concentrated down compressed down through untold kinds of experiences you have been involved in the life of the atom in fact you still are only you've evolved so much that now you have untold billions upon trillions numberless amounts of atoms that are under your control that's why you've got a body you know your body is made up out of atoms and why is it Does it remain a body? Because your consciousness has an image, I. The minute you have an image, I, that is really strong, it's immediately controlling, whether it knows it or not, a certain area of its environment, at least enough to have a body. Some of you may think, oh, boy, but my body and the way it looks is more sort of like a nightmare. I haven't really learned how to hold a proper image. Well it all depends on the point of view some people think red's an ugly color and some people can't live without red so beauty isn't in the eyes of the beholder in any case I wouldn't be so I wouldn't accept that idea very readily if I were you because we get fixated on what is beautiful or not or what is good or not at times and this keeps us from being where we ought to be and becoming what we are are intended to become.

The point is, then, that in the Western Mystery Training, which we give you through the classes, through the lessons you receive at home, and so on, through the Sunday work we do here together, we are out to help you to become more conscious. We are out to help you to become more conscious because this is the divine will for itself. It is expanding ever more centers of its selfhood for ever more consciousness. In order to develop ever more consciousness, we have to first deepen our sense of I and the control of our own particular field that we're cultivating, to become aware of our traits, of our personality, to become aware of the difference between our abstract thinking and that which we are really experiencing as a material reality, to become aware of the differences between our emotions. And is this a hard thing to do? No, this is what makes life exciting. The more awareness you have of subtleties, the more exciting life is.

Now if you could see only two or three colors, you would have a very boring time when it comes to enjoying colors. But when you develop the ability for seeing complex colors with all the subtle variations, you have that much more of an enriched consciousness in your awareness when it comes to sight. The same with hearing to the degree that you become trained to listen to overtones of sound music melody as a voice all the sounds that exist you have that much of a deeper and enriched consciousness now the same with the emotions there are people who protect themselves from being hurt well okay they can only protect themselves so long incidentally because you are in the hands your your deity, which is the deity of all. You are in the river of evolution. The four worlds, they overflow from one to the other. There's no abstract idea you've got that you can remain lost in, though you'll try, and you'll fight, and you may sort of break your nails, metaphorically speaking. You may get your fingers to bleed. You may even manage to do it for several incarnations some people manage to get away from consciousness by going in for alcoholism some people manage to get away from consciousness by living in a never never land some people manage to get away from consciousness by misinterpreting everything that exists in order to rationalize their own selfhood because they can't face what they are but this is nonsense we should be able to face everything that we are because we should see that whatever we are that isn't beautiful in our sight is merely the infantile part of ourselves that has to grow up and when we work at it in other words our children grow up in a train because we as I said we sort of apply a few disciplinary measures to them and it's love the discipline and so we have to learn to start disciplining our consciousness because nobody else is going to do it for us we have achieved a level of evolution through eons and eons of time we are haven't left deity deity has been concentrating itself in us more and more fully but we have achieved a level of evolution where we have to become aware and by becoming aware I don't mean as an abstract idea but as a direct experience that is bringing it into the fourth plane and then the fourth plane evolves as a result of us achieving the level of deity knowing itself here on the material plane. And when deity knows itself here, in other words, when you know that it is God, deity, the higher soul that lives you, when you know that it is God, deity, the higher soul that guides you, when you know that it is God, deity, deity, the higher soul, that is in charge of the whole unfoldment, just like an embryo unfolds step by step with precision in the womb of its mother.

You are an embryo being unfolded by your higher soul step by step, but you are more than an embryo at this point, because you have achieved self-consciousness. This is part of that mystery training in Qabalah, which is so different than what you'll find elsewhere, because it has a place for all the things that have been. It definitely looks to evolution and trains you to accept evolution. It gives you the techniques and it gives you the aid that you require once you are willing to use it, because you cannot get it gratis. In other words, you have to use your effort. When you have achieved that capacity where you will be using your effort in order to bring about more and more of the capacity to express the higher knowing and being, the deepening of your consciousness becomes such that this enrichment is shared with all other human beings, with all life. Then the spirit of this planet achieves what is intended for the spirit of the planet, and it is up to us to bring this about.

The spirit of the solar locus attains, because of us, this ability, because we are each like cells of consciousness within that whole, and the entire universe, deity. You have your different planes then in Qabalah, and we teach and train you to learn how to see the levels and to utilize all of them, and to bring the kingdom of heaven on earth by doing it in your own mind and heart. So please, when you leave the temple this morning, when you walk outside, don't just walk outside as though you're just going outside.

Remind yourselves, and then do it over and over again. Remind yourselves of this glorious, miracle, miraculous, almost unbelievable fact. I am a center of consciousness. Consciousness. Consciousness is the reality of life. What I hold in my consciousness, what I do with my consciousness, and what I do with the vehicles, not vehicle, but vehicles of my consciousness, is exactly what will influence the entire evolution of life and give me the ability and the capacity to truly love to experience joy sorrow too but the joy if you're not willing to go through a sorrowful experience or two to deepen the cup how will you have joy but it will give you the ability the capacity to evaluate and to hold a portion of yourself in the ecstasy of your higher soul no matter what you do no matter how what experiences you must go through because the embryo must unfold and grow step by step but you have to take your evolution in hand now my darling you're not going to evolve on your own anymore you've achieved that level where you have to do it but what is given you is the gift of help from those of us who have achieved levels a little beyond that of the ordinary and through the hierarchy we have this so we are given the help we are given this charge of love our consciousness being intermingling because it is on these inner planes uh bring provided we know how and are willing to train ourselves to tune into this our consciousness bring one to the other uh the beauty the awareness the enrichment the enhancement and as we do this we learn to control our environment to the point where we can say truly that life is the most glorious mystical ecstasy that can be we can say it under any and all conditions and indeed we must start learning to say that if we do our part in the evolution of life you have reached this point start working with it more effectively and the more you work with that the more help you will receive as you shall see I love you god be with you god is with you but it's a beautiful expression poetry is of deity