Heights Of Attainment In Tarot

Our talk for this morning is Heights of Attainment in Tarot.

And as you can see by looking before you, it deals with Tarot Key Number Nine, the Hermit.

Hebrew letter Yod and symbol of attainment.

Now, I'd like you to notice, first of all, that as the number nine, nine in itself as a number is a symbol for completion.

Because when we, after the number nine, we always have to go back to the number one.

And we add the zero. Dr. Case points out in the lessons that you receive that, in actuality, the number nine, when mitten as it usually is, is a combination of the zero, which is tarot key zero, the fool. You'll see if you look up above you to the right. And the number one, which is symbol for the magician, which you can also see right up there in front of you, tarot key number one, the magician.

All that lovely yellow.

So that every completion completion actually is the final result which again sends forth a new beginning and yet it's held the completion holds the beginning and the ending within itself now I'd like to point out that tarot key number oh the fool which we see above us there here we have a very young man on a mountain very beautifully dressed in all kinds of glorious and fancy clothes clothes looking off to the heights we're obviously having attained a height he is looking as an adventurer would for the next height in other words then he's full of this gaiety this sense of of adventure, which is that part of the spirit of us. Also remember assigned to super consciousness, that part of the spirit of us, which is younger than the day newborn, forever young.

We can be physically speaking something like 10, 15, 20 years old and have none of this younger than the day newborn spirit in us. We can be just a bunch of old stuffed ground squirrels and we can be physically speaking within this incarnation 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 120 and we can be infinitely younger than the day newborn full of that spirit of what's going to happen next what is the next goal what is the next magic to work for to reach for to climb for and yet as you can see before the fool can climb or get to the next height he's going to have to descend into a valley so here we have heights preparing for the next depth in order to go to the height which will follow it the Tarot key the hermit number nine is the symbol of an attainment without any doubt yet it is very important to know that the fool and the Hermit are not two different Tarot keys really nor are they two different nor do they represent two different portions of our nature they both represent the one identity they They both represent super-consciousness, but super-consciousness expressing first in one way then in the other, or why not both ways at once if one is in the mood to express it that way and or is able to.

Now, what is the idea of being able to see the principle behind this eternal youth and also this eternal age or the ancient of days or the wisdom? Well basically of course not only do we have to come to recognize that the one identity is both the fool and the hermit and really at the same time but we have to come to recognize that all of the tarot keys in between are different phases of our own nature as are tarot key 0 and tarot key 9 every single tarot key is a phase of our own nature in other words of your nature you are the fool in one aspect of your being whether you have become consciously aware of it or not you are tarot key number one the capacity for self-awareness self-consciousness attention to which you give life or death depending on the amount of attention you give to the area you are this magician planting seeds in in the garden of your subconsciousness you are tarot key number two the high priestess the principle of memory and the principle of subconsciousness fluidically flowing in this unity of life which we all share as parts of this high priestess you are the Empress forever creating growing ripening the wheat or having the final results the growth of whatever it is you've planted in your garden of life whether it be bitter or sweet to your taste it is your garden in which you've planted and where the ripe results abide you are the next Tarot key number four the Emperor the ruler of these principles within your nature, the one who is able to bring order out of all things that have preceded, able to see and understand and change whatever is necessary.

You are Tarot Key Number Five, the Hierophant, Revealer of the Mysteries.

With portions of your personality, the knowledge, the desire, kneeling there in Tarot Key No. 5, having been brought into a kneeling position through the experiences of the past so that you can receive the teaching, the wisdom from the revealer of the mysteries, so that you can have intuition, which is sure intuition, guiding you so that you can feel this yoke of divinity leading you into ever larger vistas and you are Tarot key number six the lovers with the Archangel Raphael keeping you safe and protected you are the these pairs of opposites in in the proper discriminatory role which this Tarot Key portrays in its positive aspects. All the discrimination that you have and the guidance of the Archangel Raphael, also a phase of your nature, has come to you from all of the previous cards to whatever degree you have brought them into being. And you are Tarot Key number six, the chariot, because the driver of that chariot is none other than the fool, super consciousness, none other than the king, the ruler of all, the emperor in you, none other than the ancient of days here is the hermit, the driver of the chariot of your personality, the chariot of your physical vehicle, the chariot of your physical environment.

You are these things and you are the grower and you are the reaper. You are beginning and ending, and a renewed beginning, with the ending already being foreshadowed up to a point. And you are certainly Tarot key number eight, strength, the development of that strength that has come to you through being more and more humanized, getting your animal nature ever more in control, as a result of properly working with growing, living life after life, time after time, forever new, both as incarnations, forever new, in the spirit of you which is behind all these incarnations. And so we come to this aspect which is like a finish, and yet this finish is going to be the beginning of something new, which we'll take up when we take up the next Tarot key on my next Sunday. But here with the hermit, what we want to do is learn how to more completely identify with this portion of our being which is incidentally called the one identity now by one identity the western mystery system is very definitely saying the same thing that Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth said that Moses said that every prophet in the Bible has said that every true mystic has said which is here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one here O Israel I am the Lord and And there is none else.

I am the Lord.

And there is none else. This is the one identity. That means this is symbolizing your identity and my identity.

I am that I am. I am the Lord.

And there is none else.

Now why then problems how are we going to come to know that I am the one identity and there is none else this becomes the problem alright remember when we're in the valley as I've pointed out so often or in that phase of a cycle of our own self growth self experience self-enfoldment when we're in the cycle where we have descended into the valley in order to gain new abilities new vistas new growth new attainments new enlargements new experiences new new mountaintops. While we are in that valley, we can't see very far. That is the part of us that, of course, is then the limited part of us. That limited part we call our personality, and we call it all personalities. Not that anything is as limited as it appears, but this is the way we experience it because we have to experience things in this manner. This is what you call concentration. We surely know and have recognized by now that being able to concentrate means that we are able to use the principle of limitation. And I have often pointed out to you that you all are absolute masters of concentration. You are definitely infinitely as powerful as this hermit Which is a part of your being you have no problem in concentrating and when you say you do it shows how deluded you are and how unaware you are of your own powers Because as I like to point out The easiest way to realize this is to recognize the fact that no one ever has any problem concentrating on something that they're worried about you have a problem can you get your mind off of it isn't that concentration I'd like to know any way better of course you also have no problem concentrating on someone you're in love with try to take your mind away from someone you're in love with does it work of course not because you are concentrating that powerfully you also are concentrating very powerfully indeed when you're in hate with somebody which is really just as powerful as being in love with somebody because the same principle is being used do you have any problem keeping your attention on someone you're in hate with even though the attention has growled, grrr, tear, etc.

With all of the epithets we know how to dream up, but the concentration is there and the power is there, negatively or positively, so that the ability to concentrate exists.

And too many times I have heard too many times indeed from the mouths of some of the best concentrators amongst us with a frown and a sorrow you know I have a problem concentrating and these are the ones that I have usually found are the best concentrators when it comes to worrying or keeping their attention on something that they're afraid of or don't want etc. without realizing here is concentration so you see it isn't a matter of being able to concentrate it's a matter of learning how to direct the concentration more consciously as that part of us is doing as pictured here in the hermit and as tarot key number one shows there's a principle in the magician Now Tarot Key Number One is tied up so intimately with the Hermit in so many more ways than is obvious because you see this Tarot Key assigned to the Hebrew letter Yod, the Hebrew letter Yod is assigned to the zodiacal sign of Virgo.

Now Virgo is the sign in which Mercury is exalted and also Mercury is the planet that's the ruler of Virgo so that we have the double whammy here you might say it isn't just one aspect of Mercury that is so intense in this particular sign to have both rulership and exaltation mercury is the only planet which is given by a sign for both rulership and exaltation within the same sign again we are being told then by the Western mystery system that the principles of mercury which we see is the magician incidentally remember that really are the most powerful or is the the most powerful principle that exists and what is it attention what is it concentration and I've just pointed out you don't have to learn how to concentrate so the next thing we what we have to do is say all right what am I doing then I don't have to learn how to concentrate so what we have to do is discover what have we been doing with this power which we don't have to learn to develop we've really got it we've got to discover how we've been using it and not only how we've been using it but start learning how to use it in another manner and we have been if we deceive we've been using it in ways that are bringing the ends or the heights or the results because the height in a way is also a symbol for a result incidentally if it is bringing the kind of result that that makes us experience sorrow unhappiness frustration irritation or what have you whatever the host of demons we may think of in terms of unhappiness now then the importance of this magician as tied up with the hermit cannot be overestimated or overstressed.

But here with the hermit we are seeing the concentration in an area and expression that has achieved a real knowledge of who and what it is. And this is what you are being prepared for and helped to do. Because whatever level we want to reach to to speak about this particular tarot key we can utilize it and we can find it because every level is a height of some kind and was a height at some time in our past because as we should realize by now evolution is not a straight climb going uphill evolution is like spiral motion you go up and then you go down in a movement and then you go up again to on the next up is higher than the previous up and then we go down again and we go up and down in other words it's a cyclic motion that goes on and finally the time comes when what was our highest high becomes our low because we have achieved so much greater heights therefore anyone who feels that he's attained the ultimate is in for some happy surprises when he enters again into the full part of himself which invariably we must you know after the Hermit Park and discovers the joy of new adventures that are there to be unfolded but it is while we are in the valley that we suffer but we don't have to suffer in the valley or while climbing towards the next height we don't have to suffer once we have managed to develop an ability to stay with what this key symbolizes.

Because I want you to notice that the hermit wears a little cap that's shaped also like the Hebrew letter Yod. In last Thursday night's class and a couple of the previous classes we've been speaking to you about the divine name of power, the chant and its meaning that relates to Yod-Heh-Vah-Heh, which is thought to have been the lost word of power when the Temple of Solomon was destroyed but was never lost because we have been keeping it safe in the same system of training the Qabalistic training that Jesus was developed in and all the other prophets so I have been speaking about the Hebrew letter Yod and pointing out that it's a flame In fact, one of the reasons that the Hebrew alphabet is called the flame alphabet from, incidentally, its Chaldean aspects, is because every single letter in the entire Hebrew alphabet consists of that particular flame, yod, and variations of it, every single one, which which is one of the symbolic ways that the Western occult training system is saying that every one of you and your personalities, everything that lives, everything that is, is made up of the flame of consciousness, the flame of life, the flame of light, which is the divine one identity and that all that we experience is as dr. Case like to put it often like congealed light in other words your body could be called congealed light in a sense and this is a pretty accurate sense incidentally it is still of that one stuff and the one identity well the top of this flame is in the crown and one of the Hebrew words for that is Yechida which means the one the one identity the indivisible identity and this is the entire figure here is representing that one identity and then the bottom part of the flame is in wisdom which is part of that divine aspect of our nature which is the cosmic father so that we have here a symbol of what you might call both the one identity and the cosmic father aspect but also of the principle of the cosmic mother because the color blue itself is the color of the high priestess which is the feminine aspect of memory and the entire mind stuff which is always being portrayed as fluidic actually is seen here also except as snow and Dr. Case points out that the snow is actually the same stuff which we see running as rivers and watering the gardens below in the valley when if you look at Tarot key number two the flowing of the waters begun on from the heights incidentally from the heights of the magician or the with the height the heights of the magician working in the depths and you see it there's the water that's in the Empress this is the same water yet here we see it as snow and yet snow or water merely a different state of the one thing. Now this fluidic aspect which we see as the waters and this cap being worn by the Hermit actually are indicating the fact that here the one identity has been able to utilize that which seems non-living like the snow and and utilize it even in its fluidic aspect to wear as a crown so that that part in you, which is in charge of your entire evolution, is also growing you so that you will be in complete and consistent memory of who and what you are.

Because remember, memory is the principle of the high priestess, and that's what he's wearing on his head.

The continuous memory of the flame of identity.

Now, the most wonderful analogy that I think I have ever come across in a way of trying to show how can we differentiate between this one identity in ourselves and the personality and yet feel not that separated from it. The best analogy is the analogy of the stalagmite and the stalactite. Now, in caves, as we know, the stalactite is that portion that's above and keeps drop, drop, drop of water, water that has mineral in it. The minerals are very rich in the water, and it goes drop, drop, drop. The waters drop below. And gradually from nothing the drop, drop, drop congeals from the stalactite so that from below the stalagmite starts to grow and it grows gradually little by little and drop, drop, drop in time the stalactite grows the stalagmite into itself grows it upward and there you have a complete union of the above with the below well your one identity could be thought of as that stalactite which is drop by drop drop drop drop growing your personality or its personality via experience via a movement and it is doing it with the lantern the six-starred lantern notice now the light cannot be separated basically from the fluidic mind stuff because that the fluidic mind stuff has also been called the fiery hidden water of divine consciousness and this light which is the the six-starred light tells us one of the major portions of the story and how we should use that part of our nature.

Because the six-pointed star, as we know, is also called the Star of David. And what does David mean? David means beloved. That is the literal meaning of David, beloved.

So that the hexagram, the six-pointed star, could also be called the star of belovedness or the star of lovingness or the star of capacity to love or the light of love and the light of love perhaps makes it easier for us to image in special ways so that what is the one identity the Hermit the higher self and holding out the holding out the light of love and this light of love this flame of love is being held out to those that are climbing climbing upwards in other words to those who have evolved to the the point of aspiration your aspiration to develop spiritual beingness your aspiration to know union with god your aspiration to develop the capacity for true happiness and true fulfillment and living a life of true beauty and true love comes from the drop drop drop of this light of love of your higher self that has been growing a very particularized part of itself which we call your personality growing it so that inevitably and inexorably you in your personality will have conscious knowledge of your oneness and identity with the higher self and you will have constant and continuous knowledge of who and what you are, you will have continuous recognition of the fact that you are a star, a light of love, a ray of this divine love, and you will have continuous ability and capacity to experience this love in its cosmic and personal aspects.

Because once you have experienced its cosmic aspects, the personal aspects inevitably come and inevitably are experienced and inevitably are expressed.

In other words, to experience union with God is to inevitably have the capacity to know and experience personal love. Now many people think attaining this height of union is a cold stark dark thing you see this and on their way in their aspiration I've mentioned this before they feel they have to give up so many things they have to make all kinds of sacrifices and they feel that in order to really attain union with God they have to give up say personal relationships and they cry and they weep and they feel they have to give up whatever it is that they figure is bad and they cry and they weep and so they attempt their climb towards the one identity weeping and crying and giving up but I think wasn't it last Thursday night I pointed out mostly when we weep and we say alright God, alright God if it has to be that way then I give it up, I give it up I give it up but that all we're really doing is giving up what we can't get you know so how noble are we really and we just feel we're so noble you know at this point when when the truth of the matter is we do not have to give up any of these things and this tarot key actually shows us what is involved and why if we know how to understand it and we can't understand it all at once just like the stalagmite and the stalactite we've got to be willing for it to go drop drop drop and give it its time you know no matter how much you may like the discomfort or I mean not like that the discomfort if you're a female it's going to take a certain number of months to give birth to a baby there's no way out of it and no matter whether you like it or not it's just going to take so much time to knock together a bunch of nails to build a house or anything else.

I mean, when our consciousness is in time and place, that's when it's in the area where it's doing the growing, evolving, and it simply has to take a certain amount of time.

So that when we are in such a hurry, and in one way it's good, it's nice to sort of be in a hurry in certain areas, in actuality we are losing the ability or we're not giving attention to that portion of our aspiration and growth process that will bring about this attainment. You see, we have the idea, again, the mistaken idea that attaining a mountaintop means we have to give up personal love, that we have to give up union with the beloved one, that we have to give up enjoying eating, that we have to give up enjoying friendship that we have to go off and be a hermit and a mountain you know on a mountain or in a mountain and people who attempt this physically attempt to isolate themselves into the nonsense and escapism and who are really off down below thinking they they are on top or whatever it is because you see the truth of the matter is that if you cannot love first on a personal level you're not going to be able to love on a cosmic level and if so if you say well I'm giving up personal love in order to have divine love sometimes it's just a good way to protect yourself from possible pain and if you say well I'm giving up working in the field of life you know during a living because I'm giving that up because I want to keep my mind and my heart on God on this one identity forget it a beautiful cop-out you might say those who truly have their mind on the one identity are busy with that light they're really busy with that light and by busy I mean busy you know people even astrologically who have mercury very prominent in their chart they're very active people Virgo people are very active and live and quick and Gemini people are very active and live and quick they are the two signs ruled by Mercury, the magician remember, and this life quickness has to do with activity activity, and Virgo is also assigned to the sixth house, and the sixth house of the zodiac, see I'm showing you how to read meanings that you don't see on the surface the sixth house of the zodiac amongst other things is the house of service the house of service so we have to recognize that serving and serving takes place in many more ways than one is part of the expression of that light of love the six-pointed star which brings us the ability and the capacity to have union with the higher self this Hebrew letter is assigned to a very strange function incidentally when you realize that it's also assigned to Virgo the Virgin and you know what a virgin is this is also assigned to the word coition if you don't know what it is look it up in the dictionary write it down I'm not going to discuss it this morning it's assigned to coition it's also a sign to the sense of touch touch now and the object given because each Hebrew letter is also given an object picture as part of the esoteric groupings to help the consciousness bring together its shall shall we say, symbolic language or symbolic alphabet, so that altogether it brings a sudden realization where we know many things at once, or the illumination.

So we also have the idea of the hand, you see.

The yod means, as an object, it's the hand. And it's the sense of touch, the ability to touch. And it's a one of its functions is coition and another word given for its function is union that ought to give you some more ideas and then another one of its functions is called response because certainly it's from the sense of touch isn't that what is the responding part of consciousness now union with the the higher self is always experienced via the inner sense of touch. It is union itself, remember, whether it be with the higher self or whether it takes place with a beloved in other ways, two minds that are at one, for example, amongst friends or people who are close, two hearts that are one in an ideal all of this is a portion or part of the union that takes place between individuals which are part of the one identity so we have many varied aspects of this idea of touch and union so whereas aspirants have a tendency to think of the attainment of this highest area as being the result of giving up and sacrificing.

In reality, this attainment comes from the very reverse, from the ability to touch, to respond to others, to take on service, to be willing to work in anything and everything, to have the true humility to have the compassion and to be expressing it and to have the love and to be able to express it. And just imagine how much hidden knowledge is being given in what appears so other on the surface. And of course this is where our problems usually come in. We misinterpret states, both states that we're in and states that we aspire towards. And then we wonder why we're not getting the kind of results or attainments that we want. Well, what we have to do basically then is to practice recognition of the fact that only by expressing touch, compassion, service, and union are we going to be able to develop the capacity to experience the highest union the very highest the most profound union and that when we do although to others it might seem as though we're on some sort of cold solitary mountaintop you can see this figure isn't uncomfortable this figure is very concentrated and preoccupied with love and service, helping others, sending the light of love, the light of the heart out, sharing the light, which is self-light, because it doesn't need any other kind of light anymore, held by the hand, the hand that gives.

The handiwork of man really is the signature of God, the signature of the one identity as a matter of fact. There's a little story that perhaps will help us to see how misunderstandings can come which doesn't correlate with all aspects of this key but one little aspect can be seen in this way. A man crashed in wild mountains that had never been researched, and he climbed about in quite a state of stupor for a while, and suddenly found a valley and climbed himself down into this this valley, this hidden valley, and discovered, much to his astonishment that this valley was peopled by a group but who were very seemed in many ways very different after looking them over carefully he discovered they were all blind and that's what was so different about them they were just simply blind he went in for a great state of exultation saying oh my you know it is said in the valley of of the blind, the one-eyed man as king, and so he was fantastically joyous and happy, you know, about how important he was going to get, how magnificently important he was really going to be on this mountaintop. That's one of the tests Jesus went through from the reading that gorgeous, our beloved Rabbi Jacob here gave us just a little while ago. So he He proceeded to try to tell these people about sight, and of course they figured, poor thing, you know, he was just created from the gods of the mountains and he's so unfinished that he's just crazy, out of his mind.

He tried to describe sight to them. Obviously, there's no way to describe sight to a valley where nobody had ever known sight at all. They were all blind, and as far as they knew, it had always been that way.

And even he attempted to prove it to them, but he went into their houses and all he did to stumble around like the clumsiest thing that ever was because naturally they had no windows what did they need windows for they lived in dark houses and he stumbled and fell and hurt himself he uh tried uh to prove it to them out of doors again he kept stumbling and falling all over the place because naturally their fields and everything was so ordered so that through the very delicate sense of touch they went and did everything there's some little peg that was just so delicate it eyes couldn't see it but they could feel it with their feet knew just where to feel just a little edge this little delicate sense of touch so they did everything via sense of touch and finally you see their scientists and doctors got together wondering what to do with this poor crazed insane creature who claims there's such a thing as sight they decided his illness lies in his face with with that quivering nervous thing there on his face.

And if they operate on him and take that away and sew it up, you know, let it heal, then they'll cure him.

Well, it sounds like a terrible story, but it isn't. Listen, realize, just realize what it's saying and how many things this little story is saying. Because, you see, a lot of people think that Masters of Wisdom should be walking around everywhere and shedding their light on people right on a close personal basis but the truth of the matter is that those who have attained have a realization that is when they've attained this kind of recognition and the powers that go with it they have the recognition and the realization of just what the average person is going to think of them and I have news for you will even often be the average spiritual aspirant because we all get fixated notions as to what a spiritual being should be what an attained one should be there are those who have seen me act demonstrative in certain places and I'm everything I do I like to do an extreme I like to god made me that way I think god's extreme and I take after god blessed be she so at least the feminine aspect of her you know so and holy holy be he which he is so that if I feel demonstrative well why should I go halfway I don't have to I've got that much feeling I've got that much love in me I'm not going to lose it by expressing it you know the only way to get more light is to give it away the only way to get more love is to give it away this is one of the esoteric teachings and anyway I feel demonstrative I'm going to be demonstrative but you'd be surprised how much gossip people have enjoyed oh they've had the most marvelous time I'm quite a gift to people on all levels you know fantastic gift because those who frown upon things like physical touch you know that's so unspiritual obviously and who interpret hugging and kissing on just a certain level obviously imagine the marvelous time I give them when they are clicking their tongue at such and believe me I'm not fooling they can click their tongue at such an unspiritual fleshy earthy you you know what, crazy scorpion.

You know, these scorpions are over you know what on account of it's assigned to the reproductive organs, etc. So, you see, they are going to interpret demonstrativeness their way.

And that's why many of us think we have to weep on the path towards this height or light, because we misinterpret what this light is.

We do give up things on the path, but what we give up are the things we've outgrown. We sacrifice nothing, absolutely nothing.

What we gain is the ability to be completely in touch with so many beloved ones, more than words could tell, so that we have here a symbol of the expression of love that is the love that passes comprehension and deed because it's a love that is continuous, cap on the head. And this one identity in you, my beloved, is continuously in love with you. What do you think of that? Your higher self and your one identity is absolutely as concentrated on its personality, which is your personality, as is the figure here, concentrated on the guidance. Whether you think you're alone or not, you are not alone. The stalactite of your higher self is drop, drop, drop, dropping love and training and help onto, into, and through you all the time. If you think you walk alone, you are mistaken. It is in touch with you via the light, even though you may not recognize it growing upward, but remember what is growing you.

Remember then that this height is something that is your truest and innermost self. This true identity is yours when you say I no matter how deluded you are it is still that the principle of compassion the I am of I am the I am that I am there is one Lord there is none else and you when you say I are really speaking that identity out of yourself in whatever way shape or form depending on how high or low the stalagmite part of you has grown at this point. But as you're getting closer, your aspiration comes, you start seeing this light of love. You're able to start expressing it more. You're becoming more aware. And who knows, maybe even right now, or tonight, or tomorrow, or next incarnation, what is time, to those who attain and are Absolutely destined to attain Even right now the one thing you're sure to be able to feel if you just put your attention on it Is that love the six pointed stars the star of love?

You are able most of you right now or Soon to feel the love of that one identity Flowing through your being letting you experience a rapture what do you think that love is that so many of you feel when we chant and who do you think it is it's not me and the personality no it's the one identity of us all because we are one and because I know that your identity and mine are one because I love you with god's love which is much more fun because it's bigger it isn't that limited because of that I'm able to share because I must share and I know because of that light that is the light of that one identity which is yours I know that you are the divine made flesh you are the divine put here so that I could have the delight of of touching you. Next time we have a party, careful.

I'm sure to prove it as I do regularly.

Please do likewise.

Touch the beloved wherever you go.