Discover Your True Self Through Tarot

So, my talk for this morning is Discover Your True Self Through Tarot.

And, as is obvious from the title, we're going to discuss Tarot a little bit this morning, and just what we mean by true self, as well as many other things. Now, the magician, Tarot Key Number One, which you see before you, is indicating the basic position or the symbolic basic position of that which refers to the act of attention or to the principle of concentration.

Now, it is well known in all of occult teachings that unless we learn how to concentrate, unless we perfect our ability and capacity to concentrate, we cannot even remotely develop the further states of consciousness, is certainly not in any dependable manner because concentration is the secret behind all things. However, as is usually the case, most people do not seem to realize just what concentration is because the tendency that we all have is to think of these various methods methods as being something more formal than they necessarily are.

And I have heard so often aspirants say, well, I have a hard time meditating, or I don't even know what meditation is, or concentration is my weak point, I'm unable to concentrate. And yet, as I have watched some of these very beloved aspirants who claim the inability to concentrate properly, or even who claim an inability to understand what meditation is, I've noted that some of them, at least, are actually almost adepts at concentration. And they would have been more accurate had they said something like, I find myself unable to concentrate on that which I choose to concentrate upon. And then perhaps if they had said that they might go on to see the secret behind concentration a little more fully because one of the mistakes we all make at least most of us make it is thinking that it is possible to concentrate on anything in which we are not interested any time a thing has captured our attention notice we say captured and we use the word attention and you notice the magician is standing symbolically in this act of attention anything that has captured our attention automatically puts us in such a state of concentration that we can't pull our consciousness away from it We are really literally captured, or our attention is literally captured, and we certainly have no difficulty in recognizing the fact that when our attention is captured in that manner, that it has to do with something that is very, very important to us indeed.

So that it is far more useful to understand, to look into the things within our own hearts which interest us so that we can find ways and means of guiding our attention towards those points of interest where we will be able to gather the controls in the proper manner.

I remember I knew someone who was quite a chain smoker, and quite regularly the people near and dear who loved her used to say to her, Why don't you stop smoking? You know it's unhealthy. And this person would say I know it's unhealthy it's one of the unhealthiest filthiest habits that there are nevertheless I'm hooked so I smoke and then the answer would be or the remark would be well but all it takes is willpower after all you have a lot of willpower don't you and here Here is the secret behind attention, of course, knowing what willpower is and what it is not.

Just like knowing what concentration is and what it is not. And the answer always was will, willpower.

Well, now, willpower only follows desire.

Without desire, you can't remotely apply the force of willpower.

And inasmuch, the answer was, inasmuch as I do not desire to stop smoking, naturally I'm not going to waste my energy trying to apply willpower to where I know beforehand it just simply isn't going to work.

So you see, being able to know our own inner nature again becomes one of the most important secrets behind whether we choose to be wastrels marching around flagellating ourselves making attempts at something that way deep down we surely should know are not going to work out or attempting to work in such a way as to have success now sometimes we think I think that certain people are so marvelously extraordinary, they're able to apply their willpower to accomplish practically anything. But what we don't seem to realize is that usually these people have learned where not to try to apply it.

And they have learned this in the very manner that I have just been speaking about, in learning how to recognize where the desire lies. Now of course desire has a great deal to do with the evolutionary level upon which we stand and certainly we are not the prisoners of desire as such the thing we can begin to change but this needs to be done so subtly is the desire nature but we will talk more about that when I get to that point in the tarot series every two weeks I'll be taking up one of the tarot keys that is on my Sundays as you know I speak on the second or fourth Sundays so I will be covering that in more detail but the thing we want to understand about attention, about concentration and therefore about how to let let the higher self or the true self guide us properly.

The thing we want to truly understand about this is that when we are able to recognize the areas in which the immature desires lure our attention and concentration and therefore go about subtly and with great ingenuity, as it says in occultism, subtly and with great ingenuity we go about changing the area of expression for these desires, when we start to recognize the principle behind desire, we will then start to recognize the principle behind concentration. Concentration as you've often heard me say No one has any problem keeping their attention on somebody they're in love with Problem is pulling the attention away No one has any problem concentrating on anybody they're in hate with you've often heard me say also The problem is pulling it away and indeed alas we we can so go into such a state of emotional banquet. We can gorge ourselves so completely and intensively with our negative emotions and hate levels levels, that we not only make ourselves physically ill, but we lose all track of who and what we really are, certainly during those periods when we become captured by these various emotional states.

States and of course again why can this occur well to the degree that we are able to recognize the factors behind what our precious brother david mitchell read to us in the bible to to the degree that we are able to see the relationship between what our attention and concentration goes to and the desire nature that has brought this attention and this concentration into such an intensive focus. To that degree, are we going to be able to do things that we have not been able to do before? For example, there are so many spiritual aspirants who think that just by holding whatever it is they mean by a positive point of view, in other words, that just by holding positive expectations, they are going to cure all their ills and experience higher and higher states of their selfhood.

Well, you see, we might say in relation to this that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And it certainly is, because when you have only a partial knowledge, when you don't have the complete picture, this is the tendency. I know someone who has been so determined to hold what she thinks is a positive point of view that she has nothing but trouble. And I mean trouble. And you'll say, well, how can this be?

Very readily, when one is determined not to see what is there, when one says, no, this makes me uncomfortable, so I'm going to keep my mind on positive things, then what we are doing is using a principle for escapism rather than promoting a positive, spiritual, concentrated point of view where the willpower is more like the won't power instead of a truly directing principle within ourselves, saying, well, I won't see the weeds in my garden.

They're not there. I'll just wish them away by refusing to acknowledge that they are there or that they exist. And so in the garden here, in Tarot Key No. 1, The Magician, I think we can see that this garden is something that is being very specifically cultivated. And here again we go back to the desire nature, because the roses in that garden symbolize the desire nature, whereas the lilies symbolize knowledge. And you see what we seem to overlook is the fact that knowledge is just as an important aspect of the garden as is desire and that just desiring knowledge will never bring it to us because we we have to do something about it.

So the magician is doing. You can see that though he's apparently standing still, and this magician is you, this magician is me, though he's apparently standing still, he certainly is in the most concentrated motion.

But the motion is the motion of holding the attention. The it is the motion of permitting the attention to work in a positive way it is the motion of bringing or permitting the higher self or the true self of permitting it by opening up to that higher self beingness therefore permitting it to come in and through in other words to bring awareness because it is awareness of what is that helps us to actually discover who and what the true true Self is. And awareness of what is includes the awareness of seeing the weeds in the garden and then weeding them out.

Now as I pointed out, the weeding process has to be something that is subtle. You can't go into any garden and when the first shoots are coming up you can't just go pulling hither thither and yon because not until certain things show themselves can we tell the difference between a weed and something that is a cultivated flower now our desire therefore has to be cultivated now Now my gorgeous, beautiful, perfect husband has a great problem with me.

Because you see, I'm just not perfect.

And his problem with me is that when we go walking in our glorious garden, which we adore, every time I see some new little shoot of some kind or other, the whole sense of magic comes over me. And I say, oh, I wonder what this might be. Do you think it might be one of the seeds I planted so that it'll be one of my children?

Or do you think that maybe it's a gift from one of the birds?

And he says, it's a weed.

I look at him in great sorrow.

Also with a little trepidation and fear I said don't you pull that out don't you pull that out it might be some miraculous something we've got to let we've got to be watching it so he's screaming that it's a weed and I suspiciously keeping an eye on him from every corner of the garden so so that he does not pull, that may be very extraordinary something that might become. We watch it in this manner until finally either it disappears when my back is turned, or it grows into something that I am also willing to acknowledge was a weed or a gift from the birds or one of my own seeds now of course I have accused him at times of pulling up all my gorgeous seeds before we were able to see what they were and that's why we don't have more flowers from the seeds I planted last year because he's so determined they're weeds he pulls them before time, you see.

Now I'm sure that my accusation is most unjust when he looks at me with his archangelic eyes. I mean, even if I knew I was right I would say I was wrong because he looks so beautiful about it. And of course, just as often as not they are weeds or whatever is meant by weeds of course then I argue about what a weed is and isn't you know and I say well it's just something that we think is a pest or it is a plant that humanity has not yet cultivated but God seems to think it's okay and so on which is what we would call beautiful rationalization Because if you want certain types of plants, you have to cultivate and you do have to be very careful to take out the weeds once you know they're weeds. So you see here we have an example of what might be either pulling things up too soon before you know what they are or of letting them go too long which I've also done until I had my beautiful man of course to keep an eye on the situation and what we need to recognize is that within the garden of our own emotions within the garden of our own desires within the garden of our own expectations, we have various portions of our nature, of our character, of our beingness, in different stages of development.

And only as we watch, that is the magician in us learns to watch, what we are doing with these seeds, which we certainly have planted or they wouldn't be in us or we may have planted some of the seeds by neglect you know how it no matter how cultivated a garden is if you go away and you'd leave no one to take care of it the neglect of this garden is going to bring about the growth of weeds which will kill out the cultivated flowers the knowledge the desires that have been so carefully nourished and nurtured aspiration wise if we go away we come back to quite a terrible sight the longer we are away of course the worse the garden is there will have been droughts lack of rain which will have made various things die that needed extra nourishment and all the beauty of the garden will be gone. In the same manner, when we fail to pay attention to what goes on in the garden of our subconscious being, when we fail to pay attention to not only what we are planting but what we are nurturing, when we fail to pay attention we're doing the very same thing that is done when we go away for a long time thinking the garden is going to take care of itself it doesn't the magician in us has to be watching so often people think that they've attained to a certain transmutation of their natures because they've had some tremendous realization and so often I have heard spiritual aspirants say ah, now that I know what it is I've done now that I understand this I know I will never do that again and you know what happens, don't you?

They're usually doing it again very fast very fast because here we have a principle it just simply isn't recognized recognized, it's pretty much like saying, ah, now that I know that you call this plant a lily or a rose or a lilac, now that I know what this plant is called and now that I know what seed goes into it, into the ground and what time of year it has to be planted, now Now I know I will always have this particular flower.

And what we don't realize is that every flower basically is an annual until we make it a perennial, and we make it a perennial only by keeping the ground of these seeds watered with our attention, with our understanding. So trying to ignore anything within our environment by saying no I'm going to keep a positive state of mind and so I'm just going to pay no attention to this at all this is not the way we transmute our circumstances because having mentioned before I will repeat a little knowledge is a dangerous thing because it always weds itself to prejudice the prejudice of its own making and those who do not want to see what is there are certainly not going to be able to discover and to keep watch on the weeds that will grow continuously you see we think that once we have cultivated our garden once we have say gotten rid of all of the weeds that that is it but it isn't everyone who's done any gardening knows that we have to keep watching for weeds all the time we cannot let it go which doesn't mean we watch every second what it means is that we have to watch at regular enough intervals so that we are able to recognize what is and thus we can tend to the garden of our subconsciousness to bring those transmutations into alignment so that we are able to change the conditions and circumstances of our life in accordance with the principles of the universe now the principles of the universe demand of us the growth of awareness and we are going to become more and more aware only as we use this awareness like any muscle fail to use a muscle it will atrophy fail to walk the legs will will become weaker and weaker.

Fail to use anything, and little by little, one loses the ability to function in that particular area. Fail to practice your music if you're a musician, and little by little, you lose your musicianship.

And in the same manner, if we fail to use our ability to be the watcher, to concentrate, to bring attention to the things as they are, we lose the consciousness that we have already developed for attentiveness.

And so most people have fallen into the bad habit of just simply not paying attention to what is, mainly because they have not cultivated the desire nature in such a way as to let it grow, that which is in harmony with cosmic law. Now, let's see it in one or two ways that have to do with our personal lives so that we can recognize this more fully.

For example, the desire to quit or overcome any bad habit only develops within the nature when that particular consciousness has not only seen fully into the desirability of doing something to change a negative desire into a positive one, but when that consciousness has been nurturing the idea. So let's go back now to this chain-smoking individual we were talking about who always smilingly answered when asked why she didn't stop smoking uh well I have I'm because I don't desire to and when asked I remind you when asked well why don't you apply your willpower then the answer uh was by why should I waste an attempt at applying willpower where desire doesn't exist the willpower will only follow the desire and since I do not desire to stop smoking why waste energy I like to smoke I'm hooked and I like it so that's it and of course this leaves people feeling kind of helpless and yet it's the truth it's the way the principle works however I hope you noticed that there was one aspect that's when this person kept saying why should I try to quit I don't desire to there was the recognition that should the desire change then perhaps the rest could follow and there was that one aspect I know I don't desire it well when when something happened to this individual, where the smoking, the chain smoking to that degree, became a real danger to things that were important.

Remember what we said about if a thing isn't important to you, you're simply not going to be able to concentrate on it. When something occurred where it was very important in terms of people who were loved, without any willpower on the surface being used at all, at least for a certain period. This individual was able to cut out the chain smoking without any real problem, without any real problem at all. Why?

Because first of all, the emotion, which is from the garden of desire, The emotion was roused that had to do with the desire that involved the welfare of loved ones. So automatically where the desire was the ability to control without having to fight the ability to control took place in that area at least for that time or during that period whatever happens later or doesn't happen later isn't the point the point is that for that time, that period, that need there was no fighting of trying to apply willpower now then when we have to keep fighting to apply willpower to ourselves in any area whatsoever what we should do is stop because we should realize right now we're acting like a house divided we should stop and take a little stock the magician you know the Hebrew letter on that Tarot key one the magician is called the house and you see our house the area wherein we dwell well has to do basically with the wholeness of the house and when we are a house divided within our own consciousness again we are wasting the energies and so we cannot remotely transmute anything within ourselves by fighting with our own desires.

Now what we have to do is recognize what the desires are and find ways and means of expressing them in more spiritualized ways. Ways, because desire, in accordance with all Qabalah, is actually, from behind the scenes, it is the will of God for us. This is something we have failed to recognize too often. Not the way that the desire is expressed but the principle of that particular desire it is the will of God for us that's why on the Qabalistic tree of life you will notice that the desire nature that green Sephirah is called victory and that's the desire nature you and what it is saying in a very subtle way indeed and yet it's quite definite what it is saying is basically that any desire we have is absolutely destined to be fulfilled any desire strange as that may sound and yet of course we have a way of thinking desire is bad No, it isn't desire that's bad.

It is the immature areas in which desire has been permitted to flow so that we have all these weeds choking the purity of the true desire. For example, you say, how can that be? Well, it's easy to see when you look at it with that magician's concentration. For example, when somebody says, I love only so-and-so and nobody else, and I desire only so-and-so and nobody else, what they're saying in essence is that I find myself focused on this particular individual in such a way that I refuse to look at the larger picture and I insist that my desire be fulfilled only in and through this particular person.

Now, when we do that, we can never be sure whether the Lord of Life really has this particular person of mind for us or not. The principle of the desire has to do with desiring unity, desiring love, desiring the fulfillment of love. But the direction this takes has to do with how mature or immature, how much knowledge we do or do not have. And very often we keep the rich joy of the fulfillment from ourselves by overly focusing without saying if it be the will of god and so you notice that holding of the staff is the secret behind getting certain areas of desire transmuted.

When we say, I want to do only the will of the Father, we're opening ourselves to the true self, to the discovery of what the true self has in store for us and the area and manner in which the true self wishes to express.

There are some people become completely focused on the idea that the only way they can fulfill a specific desire is to have money.

And many people have discovered that that is incorrect, utterly incorrect. You've heard me tell of the person, and I've known of more than one instance, but you all remember our beloved Frater Felix.

Told about the time. And he kept thinking and thinking about money, meditating on it, figuring he wanted to find out if all this baloney was true.

And so he thought, well, what he would do about being able to demonstrate by what you image. And so he just kept meditating on and thinking about having money. And he saw himself with loads and loads of money in his hands, just loads of money. And uh years and years later because he said nothing happened years later all of a sudden his higher self woke up while he had loads of money in his hands making him realize there it was the money except it wasn't his he was transporting it from one place to another for someone else not to count it so there it was in his hands and it certainly neither solved the problem of that time nor was it his nor did it solve the problem of the moment that he discovered that the image had expressed itself but not in the way he thought it would and I think we have here a very graphic illustration of the desire nature going off into an erroneous area for its fulfillment, and yet the desire that he had was what?

Now, if he had gone into the heart of what was involved in this desire for money, what he would have realized was that his real desire was for security.

Now, does money have to be the thing that brings the security?

You see?

As a matter of fact, the very wealthy are the most insecure people in the world, aren't they? Or haven't you known any? Well, I've known quite a few, and I assure you it is so. And all you have to do is read up the history. Read up on the history of the people who are the exceptionally wealthy ones, and you'll find an insecurity that is pathetic. It is far worse than the insecurity of the poorest people, because at least the very poor person knows that if somebody loves them, they're loving them for more than their money.

That's one thing we can be secure about when we have no money, is that when anybody who's is kind to us isn't kind to us because of our money they're not seeking us out because of our money and so we have quite a bit more to feel delighted about or at least at peace about in relation to ourselves so you see uh just like desire can go off into the wrong areas thinking only money will solve the thing whereas the principle behind this desire turns out to be security in the same manner uh when we decide on a specific area or way in which desire must be fulfilled this is where we are making our mistake desire itself is victorious what we desire there the will flows as the magician points out very graphically again and also it is saying something that few of us have noted.

What it is really saying is that the willpower does flow in and through because the desire is pulling it. You know, most of us seem to think that the magician just stands for an act of a reach from below upward.

In order to receive from above downward.

But in actuality, these are two-way focal points. And just like we have a tendency to think that anything happens today and tomorrow is because of what happened yesterday, the truth of the matter is that what happens today and tomorrow is just as much caused by what has to happen. In other words by next year or next thing even next reincarnation as it is by last reincarnation discovering the true self deep within our spirit requires that we stop thinking about life as being a flow in time of yesterday causing whatever has happened here and now only.

Because when we discover the true Self within ourselves, the thing that we discover is that we are eternal.

That not only are we eternal, but that the power resides deep within our being to fulfill fulfill and indeed to have fulfilled within us all of desire that can possibly arise but remember the fulfilling of this desire does not mean that if we desire to have somebody drop dead that somebody's going to drop dead or if we desire that somebody have misfortune that somebody's going to have misfortune if we desire that we have good fortune why automatically it will in other words it isn't this immature kind of emotion this idea of tomorrow being just as much the causative factor as yesterday is the secret of hold the secret behind the ability to hold our attention on a larger sphere our consciousness is able to take in more of the details and therefore it develops more of the judgment that is able to change the direction or the flow of desire and changing the direction or flow of desire doesn't mean you're changing desire you see this is the the thing we want to recognize we change the direction or flow of desire only if first we have learned to pay enough attention and we don't learn to pay enough attention apparently until we have suffered enough which seems like a sad thing but it has its point because nothing seems to grab grab the attention as thoroughly as being uncomfortable.

When we're uncomfortable, then we get desperate enough to want to get away from the discomfort.

And by being desperate enough to get away from the discomfort, we develop more and more strength and power to look into, to hunt out what it is inside ourselves that's making us the host or making us the fertile earth for the weeds that are causing the problems and unless the problems were there we wouldn't be utilizing this power within us as much so So remember, the secret behind discovering who and what we are, the secret behind the ability to live in attorney right in the here and now, the secret behind a joyous, ecstatic, rapturous fulfillment of all things, the secret behind living in the rapture of love continuously resides in that very ability capacity to direct our attention to what's making us miserable enough to want to get out of it and of continuously acknowledging to ourselves the father the divine self the higher self the divine soul, whatever we want to call it, is directing me into a full discovery of who and what I am and of looking at every desire we have as the gift of God bringing us to fulfillment as soon as we've learned how to direct it towards its principle rather than through through our own ignorant interpretations.

So let's spend the rest of today, at least, in paying attention to what is around us, paying attention and saying, this is awareness, I thank you for it, Lord of Life. And then this awareness will spread into deeper and deeper portions of our being as we walk in this rapture of knowing we are the eternal.