Key 13 - Death

Death, Change and Immortality, that's the title. So Tarot Key Number 13 is assigned through its Hebrew letter Nun to the imaginative intelligence. Now, you look at that and you figure, gee, who imaged up anything so gruesome as the imaginative intelligence, I'd like to know. You know, we look at this and we think, God, what a horrible looking figure. Now how is something like that supposed to inspire me? So at any rate, we look at this figure and if we look at just surfaces, we don't see anything that looks very promising.

And of course, that's where all of the fantastic subtle aspects lie because, you know, in occult training we are being taught more completely and more fully when we are receiving suggestions in a subtle manner than when we get the direct clobber over the head, which we also get because sometimes we need one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. Nevertheless, there's always more chance for a truth, a teaching, to enter deep into the spirit when it is done subtly because we don't put up such a fight.

You know, in other words, it kind of sneaks in.

And so the serpent of temptation can be said to be part of the meaning of this tarot key. Serpent of temptation.

And how would that be?

Well, remember in Genesis, Genesis. It's the serpent of temptation that got Adam and Eve to go in for naughty-naughty, apparently, from the way people, to go in for no-no's, the way people interpret the story. And this occurred because they listened to the serpent, you know, sort of goading them on, saying, hey, don't you want to be smart like God? You know, after all, this is a good thing to have, wisdom, and so on. And so they, it's the serpent which got them into apparent no-nos, which brought about the idea of death, isn't it? Because before that time, apparently, death was not known, or death as we think of death, or interpret death. So you see, the serpent is tied up here in more ways than we know. Also the reproductive energy has also been called the serpent power.

Along with being the serpent of wisdom, you also have terminology like the serpent power. Our Eastern brethren call the serpent power the kundalini, which means serpent. Serpent. That literally means serpent, who are Eastern brethren. So that we have the idea of the reproductive energies tied up with death. Now remember, this Taroki Noon is also assigned to Scorpio. So the astrological sign of Scorpio has assigned to it the reproductive organs, you know, as that part of the organism, the reproductive energy therefore, and death. Now mind you, this is a very important thing to contemplate, but you thought we're not going to be talking about death, that we went off into another subject. Oh, we're right on the beam, like a narrow, talking about the one subject, death, change and immortality. And you cannot separate reproduction, the reproductive organs, the act of reproduction that brings about the beginnings of a new vehicle for birth, for livingness as we know it in and through a vehicle.

Life comes about through the action of the scorpion energy. Life comes about through the function. Life as we know it, manifesting in this area, on this plane, in this way. And also, mind Mind you, death is associated with it. And we think, again I point out, we have a way of thinking of life as being one thing and death another.

But what the Qabalistic sons of the doctrine are telling us is that life and death are not two separate things.

Life and death are one thing.

But we don't know this, you see. And you know why we don't know it? Because we think of life as being life only when it is in movement, in action, in and through this particular vehicle or a vehicle. And we think of death as being the complete cessation of life because identifying life life with the vehicle, we then automatically identify cessation of life or death when that vehicle is no more expressing the life.

So the sons of the doctrine, the wisdom teaching tells us, and it tells us in no uncertain certain terms that this is not a proper identification or a proper way to think. That indeed you cannot separate life from death or death from life. You can no more separate it than you can separate the one edge of this pen that I hold with the other edge. Can you separate separated. Your mind may say, this is one end and that's another end. Are you going to call one end a beginning and the other an ending? You can if you want to, but you can also reverse it, can't you? You can call the ending the beginning and the beginning the ending. Isn't it all one thing? This pen is one thing. And in the same manner, consciousness Consciousness is one thing. Life and death are not two different things.

When you know this, not as an intellectual concept, but when you know this as a direct experience in your innermost being, you will no more be able to think of death as the end of anything.

You will be thinking of death in terms so different that it will, in essence, make you another order of human being, a completely different order of human being, although it may not be apparent on the surface. But what we want to remember is that the very energy, The self same energy that brings about the birth of an individual is the energy that brings about the death. And what is that energy?

That energy is the spirit, the soul, the cause, the consciousness that is before all the beginnings. Meanings, the consciousness that is beyond all endings. It is that which is not physical and tangible but expresses in and through the physical and tangible. It is that which which was and was able to say before Abraham was, I am. It is I am-ness. There is a white rose in only two of the Tarot keys. One is in Uranus, Tarot key number zero, the Fool. The other one is in Tarot key number 13, Death. And I'd like to point out that Tarot key number 0, the Fool, it's a sign to Uranus, which is exalted in the sign of Scorpio. Isn't that interesting? Think of how this wisdom had the exact symbols, and this before Uranus was discovered in the heavens, mind you. They had the Tarot key prepared for when the consciousness consciousness of man would evolve to receive Uranus into its awareness, which has as a basic meaning amongst others, remember, the Aquarian age dealing with what? The brotherhood of man, which means what? The capacity to be a brother, which means what? To have proper proper emotional capacity, which means what? To go to work on the desire nature. See? We can bring it together in any way we like. The point is, the desire nature, the purification of the desire nature is symbolized by the white rose. But the important thing to know is that purified desire. When the Western masters say to us that the reproductive energy, which is the Mars energy, because remember Mars is the ruler of Scorpio, I know now Pluto is also. But look at Pluto, Tarot Key 20, look at him coming out of the grave. You know There's only one way to come out of the grave, and that's to know, death, where is thy sting?

What a lot of nonsense we've believed in thinking we die.

Look, what I'm trying to tell you is, I don't care how many times your bodies have died, and they have untold numbers. You've grown yourself body after body after body after body. I can go on, but you know, isn't that enough?

And fine, and it's marvelous.

And by growing yourself a body, inevitably, and thank God, the death of a particular body is right there in the, what would you call it, in the index. We're going to have to come to see and to understand that this selfsame Mars energy, energy, this reproductive energy that brings babies into incarnation, is the very energy that makes it inevitable for change to take place and for, thank God, thank God, death, or that which we think of as death to take place. Now, we get the idea that death is a terrible thing and life is a wonderful thing and we have all kinds of nonsense ideas.

But again, the truth of the matter is when we come to experience the depth and important realities of our being, even when we come to sort of touch them in the most subtle way, way, we come to see that change is the most glorious thing.

Life in and through a vehicle requires, and you can use the word change just synonymously, interacting with that very same idea. Because what is life if it isn't this continuous change? Think for a moment. Dr. Case has pointed out that if there were no change, it would be like a defective needle stuck in a groove of a record. Now that's what consciousness would be like if there were no change.

And how would you like that?

You'd want to die of boredom, and wouldn't it be horrible, and you couldn't, because you couldn't die?

Oh, now that is our hell to contemplate.

That's our real hell. Just imagine, suppose absolutely nothing, everything immobile. No movement, therefore no change.

Now can you see how benevolent death is? Because change. Think how horrible it would be for everything to be immobilized and everything would be exactly as is. It couldn't change. You know. Oof.

Now that's the thing to feel horror over, not this, because that is the most glorious figure. It is giving your subconsciousness the most positive suggestions even when your conscious mind doesn't know it. Because again, it's been pointed out by Dr. Case that this particular skeleton is in a kind of position, it has a couple of twists in it. If you put flesh on that skeleton, you'd see that these two twists have this skeleton in an abnormal position as we think of the position of a body, because it's got a twist at the base of the spine. Now that's where what I was mentioning, the kundalini energy is stored up, that's the serpent energy. Therefore that's the reproductive energy. That's therefore the evolutionary energy. It is therefore the love energy. It is the unity energy, because the number 13, Kabbalistically, means love, means unity. There you have your attraction, even for the reproductive drive.

And you have your unity and love tied up with the idea here of this kind of death. Well the twist, the other twist is in the neck. That's the throat center. You know, we call it in Qabalah the Venus center. And you know the Venus center, look at Tarot Key number 3, the Empress.

You see, this Venus center is the creative imagination. It is also love, Venus, love. You see the heart. Love is the shield so that this Mars energy, this reproductive energy, in order to awaken it from its sleep or being unfolded in the Saturn center to bring it up it can be brought up safely only if love love is using it which means that those who rush around utilizing an energy like this out of just base drives you misuse See, this is the thing that so many people just can't take.

They misuse one another and make... they make rationalizations to themselves. You know, use one another, say, for relaxation of the pressure or tensions that drive... that build up in the body, and then they call it love. Love is tenderness. Love is concern for the welfare of another. Love is harmlessness. Love will never misuse its power, its drive, its energy to injure another, to hurt another, to bring tears or or despair to another, it will not do it.

Love won't, but purified desire can't.

It's harmless.

But the other desire that we let nature just drive, and nature drives it because it's working for the survival of the species, but man is something more than species. Species. Man is a spirit who has had the breath of God blown into his nostrils, an immortal soul who existed before the physical universe was. Therefore man cannot permit himself to to be the slave of the level of the energies that serves the survival of the species. Man is something more. And we cannot arrive at knowledge of our own immortality, which we have. We cannot arrive at the controls, we cannot arrive at the fulfillment of the evolution which is being worked upon by us, that brings us from birth to death to birth to death, all of which is the same thing, basically, the evolutionary process. We cannot do it without working on the purified desire.

It has often been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and indeed, sad to say, so many spiritual aspirants read a book or two, to get an idea or two, develop a little extra know-how as to how to use the Mars energy in interaction with the opposite sex. And what they do then basically is misuse it, because to take advantage of another or whatever rationalization, and especially using this Mars energy, which is the love energy and the unity energy of God, to utilize it in other than the most tender, protective manner towards another, in harmlessness, is to bring upon oneself sorrow. We cannot avoid it. This is the harvester. And thank the Lord of the universe that we can harvest.

And, you know, there's do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Well, that which ye sow, says the great master initiate, Jesus of Nazareth, that which ye sow, there's the seed in the upper left corner, that is what ye shall reap. We have here then a reaper. Now what is being reaped? Here we are reaping marvelous things image-wise because here purified desire is working. That's why it's a marvelous suggestion to your subconsciousness. Here then, the reaping, you see the woman's head, the understanding and the tenderness of the cosmic mother, Bina.

The wisdom, the man's head, we're reaping the wisdom and the rulership of our energies you see the crown the king in beauty Tiphareth at the center of the tree of life as well as the father the divine father that's the king here you see the hands the hands are are a symbol for you know the divine will the intelligence of will good works good works are in these active of hands and even the hand that's passive it is showing all things the we are reaping that which has to do then with the hand good fortune is also the hand the clenched hand whatever but we reap what we have sown and we do it and this is the greatest benevolence that the divine gives because because this is how we are assured of finally realizing that the greatest benevolence that has been brought upon us is the fact that something deep within us is being taught, whether it will or not.

It's being taught via movement, motion, change. Change is the benevolence of God. We fight and try to hang on and we scream, but like a beloved loving parent that the destiny pays you no mind because we make our own destiny and we reap what we sow because god is so completely love the unity that number 13 tied up here love and unity god is so completely love god is so completely unity that everything that we we do, automatically we experience. This is the unification of the very movement of life. And in this manner we are assured always that finally, with reaping the wisdom, reaping the understanding, the purified desire will come. And the purified desire will mean there's just one thing we will want to be doing. We will be singing of God's life in us and in all when I sing of god's life in you would I want to do anything when I know it's god's life that is in you would I want to do anything that would make it a sacrilege would I want to drag it down in the dust no if it's god's life in you and my darlings it is there is none else I see god's life in you you, I experience it. Together we share it and I know it. And that's why each and every one of you are so precious to me. Words cannot tell because God is love and I am love and you are love. You are learning how to be it in movement. God loves so much that God gives gives us, to us, to grow into conscious powers.

So what does this teach?

Death is not the end. This we know. Death, as I've been pointing out in every way, is always a new beginning. There is no death. When the time comes to give up this vehicle, we have other vehicles, as was read to us from the Bible, we have a spiritual body. And the condition of that spiritual body is going to be in accordance with the movement that we've given our own life on this plane.

My beloved ones, then, walk in this knowledge because it is true. Never a time you were born. No, not you. Your body? Yes, not you. Never a time you were born. You will cease to be never. You cannot cease because the you that is responsible for being born, dying, the vehicle, is beyond time and space. Never a time you were not, because you are from forever to forever.

Think of that.

So whatever death we see, if on the personal level we must weep, let us weep. But when we weep, let us know we're not weeping for the beloved, because the beloved never died. Mind. The Beloved is forever and from it forever. When we weep, we're weeping because we are accustomed to and want the presence of the loved one, physical vehicle. But God so loves us, God pays no attention. And that's fortunate for us and for all. So walk in the knowledge that death itself is the proof of eternal life, because it's the eternal movement of your spirit and your soul. You are the product of eternity, and you live in eternity.

And you do this because God is love, and God's life in you is the melody and song of love.

Thank you.