Key 11 - Justice

Tarot Key Number 11 is assigned to the ideas of justice, basically, even its title, as you see, is entitled Justice.

And here we have something that has not been very clearly understood by most spiritual aspirants. Because the moment you see the ideas that are involved in justice you have to always also recognize that whatever principles and ideas are involved in with the word karma have to go hand in hand with this because karma although it means basically work or works has to do with the the balancing or equalibrating of forces. And we see here the scales of justice, of course, which also have to do with equalizing forces.

Now, too many people, especially those who've done a great deal of reading other schools of thought, have gotten the erroneous idea that karma means punishment. Punishment so that whenever they have unhappy experiences they have to say well and this is always with the proper expression on the face well well you know that's my karma oh that's my karma and uh also when they look upon other people who they think are doing doing things that they don't like, they'll say, boy, I'd hate to have the karma he or she is making at this point.

At any rate, the idea of punishment seems to be in the mind and heart when we think of the word karma, which of course isn't true. And I notice that even in the literature of our Eastern brethren, brethren this is not true of some of the deeper more esoteric eastern followers but there aren't too many of those but even in those schools of thought they give uh the word karma to unpleasant experiences which are supposed to be the outcome of being and doing no-nos in the past and they give the word dharma to pleasant experiences in other words they give it a different name but basically in the qabalistic training system we do not do this because for one thing that which we might interpret as karma in the the manner that we've just been pointing out should not be accepted. In other words, that which we might call so-called bad karma will, in the final analysis, when we learn how to see into and understand the experience or the occurrence, it will turn out not to have been, quote, bad karma, close quote.

It will usually turn out to have been one of the greatest blessings. In other words, one of the things that has taught us the most, one of the things that's given us the greatest wisdom, so that the idea of calling some karma bad and some karma good isn't really a wise thing to do. Because we really, we mess up our own ability to gain insight into all experience when we give such sharp demarcations. Some people go in for very pleasurable activities, which actually are engendering very unhappy types of karma. Other people might be involved in very unpleasant experience, but because of the way they're handling it, are engendering very pleasant karma. So that pleasant and unpleasant might be a better way to put certain kinds of experiences if we want to think of it in terms of karma which we should because everything that happens to us according to the wisdom of the ages everything is involved in this and in forces that are in movement and And always the universe is bringing about the balancing.

By the universe, remember, we're always referring to consciousness.

And we have the cosmic consciousness. Within the cosmic consciousness, we have the hierarchy of consciousnesses. And we have our own individuality and its personality as degrees and forms and qualities of consciousness, which we receive, which responds to the movement, the continuous movement of life itself. And in the response, and through the response, we learn. So that in all the universe we cannot have that which might be called lack of balance. Everything is balanced. Karma therefore should not be thought of and remember karma if we think of it as readjustment of the of the movement which is like the scales the weighing and measuring of scales if we think of all experience as readjustments we can train ourselves to get away from the the erroneous thinking and feeling which has brought us so many problems in the past. That's just one aspect of this Tarot key and one of the many messages that it tells us.

In other words, if we see everything and everywhere, and this includes all people and all creatures, as being in that state of experience that means every one of us this moment having that state of experience which is the readjustment the required readjustment for the balance of our movements to keep us in other words from going overboard too far in any direction but to keep us on the path whether we know it or not whether we recognize it or not this continuous shifting of the weights and the scales of life as it were is what keeps us moving and finally gives us the ability to do something about mitigating and changing some of the aspects of these shiftings and balancing now you've often heard us say that we all have more than one kind of karma and this is true of everyone everyone anywhere in the world we should we all have a genetic karma a genetic karma means basically the karma that goes back through the family in the Bible it was stated by the capitalist and the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation in other words we receive we don't complain about receiving from the genes of our forefathers which remember is like one line of life we don't object to receiving all sorts of goodies like the like the you know beautiful eyes or beautiful nose or or a lovely figure, or a bright mind, or certain tendencies towards talents, or intensities, or musical abilities.

There are all sorts of tendencies that are, you might say, the gift of our forefathers. A gift whether they intended to be generous or not, you understand. We're talking about the handing on of memory of a genetic memory the genetic memory knows how to build a human body out of the out of a seed when it's the human genetics and the genetic karma for a little dog is the memory which we call subconscious but those are words aren't they just means we're not consciously aware of them but it's the subconscious memory of how to grow and uh and develop and give birth to and live a vehicle like a little dog and even certain kinds of little dog or cat or plant because it is known just as the bible has told us you don't get a different kind of tree than an oak tree if you're going to plant the seed of an oak whatever seed you plant that's what you sow and so if you will look at the tabalistic tree of life you'll see that the high priestess which is the number two on the tarot keys takes us from that one the the indivisible the crown to the image-making power of beauty and that is the principle of memory of the scroll the torah this high priestess but please bear in mind that if you look here at tarot key 11 justice 11 is made with a one into one that adds to two so that in a sense the high priestess is the principle behind this which we call justice and this figure and incidentally I want you to note that this figure is a female justice is a female or it is it is the feminine principle of God that actually expresses or holds the law of justice this is a something that requires very profound meditation my darling because all of God is one and it is true that aspect of God which is masculine could be called the law giver and that aspect which is God feminine principle could be called the law protector or that part of the universal law that part of the Lord of the universe that sees to it that the laws are followed now karma is pretty much along the same idea it is in actuality the reaction or the response which is bringing about growth in other words the law of karma karma could be thought of as the cosmic law of evolution and therefore it brings about the evolution by helping to bring the knowledge and wisdom that was read to you from the bible that comes out of insight out of experience and in your higher self remember before even the mountains were raised was that portion of the universal mind the universal self which set the goal we that's the tarot key zero every one of the tarot keys please bear in mind are always a development from all the principles that have been contained in the in the previous tarot key so that the setting of the goal in itself and the keeping the boundaries in which the goal can be developed all this is obviously the development from the previous key when we were talking about Tarot King number 10 you'll see it there above that wheel of fortune you can see that the four fixed signs that are in the corners these are what you might call the boundaries and these are the boundaries placed there by the divine law so that they hold the cosmic law that's why it's the four fixed signs of the zodiac that sort of mark out now this marking out has to do with law now then why should this be so so? Well, it should be so because first of all, there is one and one alone, blessed be he. There is only one self, that's the cosmic self, and every one that lives is part of that one self. Therefore, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my children, ye have done it unto me. Can you see the idea? You cannot hurt another without hurting your self because there's one self and that's the cosmic self when we are under the illusion and delusion of separateness we think that we can at the cost of another make hay so to speak that we can lie or cheat that we can take advantage of another person either in a business sense or in a personal relationship or in any way you want to think of it and so you see this circling motion that we saw in the previous tarot key is seen here as what you might call the sword of justice you see that sword that's the sword of justice and the sword comes in it it's swiftly cuts but it comes and it cuts swiftly not because there's hate not because that is not because there's hate in the law the law is not hate the law works just just as automatically, as apparently the planet turns on its axis and revolves around the sun.

It is a law that cannot really be broken, although we think we get away with things as we've pointed out before. So inevitably this law of circling motion brings back to us anything and everything in terms of our thinking feeling and even more particularly doing and I have news for you lack of doing we often think that a lack of doing you know isn't going to engender anything but you know there's an occult saying that uh again also could take much thought and it says goes something like this non-action in a deed of mercy is action in a deadly sin did you get that lack of action or no action non-action in a deed of mercy is action in a deadly sin so that in today's cheerfulness it's a very sad thing when people can be in such a state of isolation that somebody can be attacked scream for help and others will be afraid to go this non action and a deed of mercy is action in a deadly sin in other words we become a part of the evil it's like again in occultism where it is said that unbalanced mercy is but evil and aids and abets the sin in other words we feed sin when we are unbalanced in mercy and I want you to note that mercy the blue Sephirah is on that right hand side of the trees you faced it and severity the red is on the left hand side as you face it and that severity has several other names it is very much interactive but the interacting with this Tarot key because that severity is also called judgment and remember we we were judgment and justice they're used synonymously in all of the bible because the qabalistic prophets knew this truth so judgment is another name for that now fear incidentally is another name for that Sephirah and fear has to do with people's state of consciousness when it comes to their expectation of whatever we mean by justice in other words people don't want to receive the just desserts you notice I say just desserts they're very happy to get the unjust desserts like all the little goodies that comes from society they're happy to receive electricity though they never did anything to earn it person on the personal level and they're very happy to be the recipient of things like washing machines and all the other electronic marvels that make work so easy and remember this tarot key is also assigned to work so I'm talking about this tarot key people are always very happy to receive anything that is pleasant but they're not so happy when the situation goes in reverse justice then has nothing to do with retribution my darlings this is what I'm pointing out nothing at all it is the inevitable and the necessary return of that which is so you have to reap and you have to because the energy returns upon itself to balance itself off and thereby serves as the instructor the teacher and incidentally one of the attributions of key 11 has to do with the teacher because this is a teacher of teachers this is the wisdom that wears heaven on an unseen level but where is a helmet that talks about about sovereignty in another way because here we have a headpiece that's surrounded by the yellow also colored green this tarot key is assigned to Libra you know Libra the scales this is assigned to Libra the scales therefore Venus is very strongly involved here and then we have the green that's assigned to venus the green cape that means that this figure is wearing the cape of love cape of love but underneath the cape of love notice the red this is the robe of mars and the sphere of the activity of mars is severity and remember one of the names for that Sephirah is justice justice and notice that the path of tarot key 11 justice flows from severity to beauty but to the degree that we have attained a certain level of this self-control a level of this stability a level of aspiration to the degree that we really work with our spiritual goals we come to a point where even though you we certainly cannot wash out what shall we call it karma we can mitigate it dr. Case puts it in a very beautiful succinct way in the lesson when he says that if you throw a ball against the wall it bounces back and that's what you might call the action and reaction in other words that which we do to others comes back to us it's action and reaction that which we think of others comes back to us that which we feel about others comes back to us automatically but now there's something that a spiritual aspirant a true qabalist is taught to do and that is once you've done something that is certainly against the cosmic law say you can't eliminate it you can't wipe it out you know moving finger rights and having written move what moves on nor all your piety nor wit can alter half a line or all your tears wash out a word of it no more says Omar I am but here is what a Qabalist that well trained Qabalists can do well trained Qabalists can run towards the ball after having hit it against the wall and the faster you run the faster you're going to catch that ball it's not going to bounce back the same degree the same amount it'll hit you a little harder if you run towards it to catch it might you but you see you can offset a fantastic amount of karma you can't eliminate it because the soul has to learn but more More rapidly, that's part, you know, the analogy helps us to see how, when we become spiritual aspirants, when we start working with the tarot, when we start working with the tree, how our entire evolution is speeded up.

Now, interestingly enough, this is the Saturn principle in this tarot key. And I wonder how many of you can see the Saturn principle in this tarot key. Even though it is assigned to Libra, which Venus is the ruler, saturn is exalted in libra and saturn is key 21 key 21 which you'll see behind me and this is the dance and you notice dancing in air dancing in air and that gives you an awful lot of you do an awful lot of things when you can dance in the air by the way you know a lot of freedom from the from the heaviness and the inertia of earth now this saturn principle is the the teacher not only is this saturn principle the teacher but remember of key 21 it is it is related to the pair of opposites that's called dominion or slavery in other words we're either slave to our karma or we start gaining dominion by gaining dominion it doesn't mean we can wipe out that which we sowed I'm reminding you but we gaining dominion means number one we start choosing what kind of karma we shall have and there's only one way you can do that you know right now in this instant what you permit yourself to think what you permit yourself to feel what you permit yourself to do and also what you fail to do that too incidentally is all part of what what happens or doesn't happen.

What we want to realize is that cosmic justice has nothing to do with hate or retribution.

It is just automatic response to that which has been.

If we will stop thinking about whether it involves pain or non-pain, but in relation to ourselves, that is, but start thinking of wanting to save others others from any ignorance within ourselves. In other words, start developing that protectiveness towards others in what we think of them, what we do. Start feeling, and we have to train ourselves to feel this, my love. You are in this training. You can mitigate every bit of unpleasant karma that is the personal level of karma. You can mitigate every bit of this if you start doing what the Lord of the universe mercifully showed me how to do then and thanks to dr. Cases teachings the Catholic Qabalah and the teachings of the initiates which are all one the fact that no matter what anybody has ever done to you please start thanking them start searching for that in yourself self which needs to go the reverse instead of pain say thank you god for the ability to be deepened instead of bitterness say god help me to see where I can gain the greater good out of this experience for myself instead of wallowing in self-pity it's such a waste of energy and all that will happen is you'll have experiences where you'll be more self-pity and others will pity you.

You make it, you see. Instead of self-pity, the reverse, start feeling full of treasure and full of the wisdom and the riches. More to be treasured than all the gold in the universe is the capacity to have a grateful heart for every experience. And never mind about other people's karma. God is going to take care of it. You know, in other words, the universal self just remember you know don't be so concerned be concerned only about your own this moment by moment training yourself to say in as much as I do this unto the least of these my children I do it unto myself be with the rabbi jesus of nazareth the christ consciousness consciousness that learns to be grateful and tender and rich and your karma you'll have nothing to worry about then you'll be able to worry about other people and you'll be able to do it positively let's think on these things