Key 4 - The Emperor

Our Tarot Key for this morning is Tarot Key number 4, assigned to the Emperor.

And as you heard in our beautiful reading from the Book of Tokens, the letter He, which is the Hebrew letter assigned to this key, means window. Now, this is very important in order for us to understand some of the more vital aspects of this key and therefore learn how to use these powers more adequately.

Window. Each of the Hebrew letters you know, being in a sense the language of the angels, this is one of the things, the alphabet of the angels, which this alphabet has been called. Each of these letters have many attributions, all of which tie in together so that finally our consciousness learns how to weave not only sentences but entire concepts which come in flashes when we learn how to understand each of these symbols. And our subconsciousness takes hold then and starts to correlate it, this being the job, one of the many jobs of subconsciousness within ourselves. Now this letter A, in one of its meanings, relating to window then, gives us an idea as to many aspects of power that are involved with the attribution of sight, because this is another attribution to this key and letter. Now, a window is used for what purpose? We use a window so that we can look out of it, as well as, of course, be looked in upon.

And it also lets in light, which is something rather important to think about. Now looking and sight why is the attribution of sight given to this key remember that these tarot keys and the letters are representing cosmic laws and these cosmic laws also are the laws that reside within our own individual beings so that here with the emperor and this letter we begin a series of keys which will be showing us cosmic laws in terms of the zodiac because you see the entire system of letters is assigned in such a special way that some either go along with the Hebrew letters that are part of what what are called the planetary system, and therefore they're assigned to planets, which are the names given in the Western mystery system to our inner chakras, those vortices of force, which are part of our subtle vehicles and which our Eastern brethren call chakras. In our Western mystery training system, these are called the inner holy planets, and they correlate.

We have areas within ourselves that correlate with what could be called the planets that we see outside. So that, for example, through a telescope we see the planet Mars. Right now we have a lot of focus on Mars with a satellite rotating around it. And incidentally, this is very symbolic of something that is starting in the evolution of man. In other words to accomplish an ability to place a satellite in orbit around Mars this is an outer indication of something taking place in the inner consciousness of man and this would indicate that the ability for man to utilize all the forces and meanings relating to Mars is just now for the the first time been started because this is the first time there's been an ability to orbit or an attempt to orbit Mars say so that we're seeing some outer form or representation of a new beginning a new remember beginning in the mass consciousness of humanity here on this planet and what is this beginning the idea of rotation around mind you we're not we're not yet on the planet but the idea of rotation around it would indicate that all of the things relating to mars in the western mystery training system such as the action power the power to act war incidentally is one of the aspects involved but also there's the opposite of what Mars stands for in terms of war and that is protectiveness now that's an important thing this is a beginning how long it takes this has to do with certain cycles of karma dealing with the total a human karma as as well as our individual karma within it.

But Mars also is assigned to the energy which on the physical level is the reproductive energy. It is the energy that drives us into action. It is the energy that gives us muscular tonicity. It is the energy that we utilize with which, and here this is something we should remember with which to speak because Mars in itself is related to Tarot key 16 which will come upon later you'll see that before you the tower and it's also related to the mouth as an organ of speech now why are we talking about Mars when when he for the the Emperor are to be considered it's because this Tarot key with its Hebrew letter is assigned to the first sign of the zodiac Aries here you have your idea of beginnings Aries is the first sign and Mars is the ruler of Aries so whenever you speak about any one of the keys that have to do with the the attribution to signs of the zodiac, automatically it brings in the other Hebrew letters and their meanings that have to do with the planetary rulership forces.

Therefore, they're not as separable as they seem. Everything is interwoven. We have to take them up one by one to try to understand the different letters within a series of a word and a sentence. But in actuality, the movement of life is altogether together we can study and study a single cell but that won't tell us at all about the movement of our lives from birth till passing on into the next sphere and in the same manner we can study single hebrew letters and single tarot keys all we like but not until we have all of them in our consciousness starting to integrate themselves and this is what they do with the studies this is what What happens with the studies that you're receiving? When they start integrating themselves, that's when we really start developing the ability to utilize them in the larger areas and the larger measure. Well then, we have here the emperor, who is certainly the figure, someone who's ruling.

And Mars being the ruler of Aries which this key represents also we have here being given to you in terms of symbolic pictorial imagery the positive image of what your ruling powers your power drives and your power abilities should be and indeed working with this tarot and all of the work that's involved with the work we do here at Temple we develop more and more of the ability to become constructive rulers to go from the negative aspects of attempt to attempts to have power or the power drive and incidentally when I talk about power drives we shouldn't any of us think that that we are really that free from them because we may be misinterpreting what they mean. When anyone tries to run the life of another person, that's a power drive whether we know it or not.

Power drives work in many ways.

When we try to force our idea upon another, that's a power drive. When we try to make anyone do anything, thing you know try to actually make them do it we're really using a power drive where you also attempting to use Mars whether we recognize we're doing this or not if we try to out argue people for example remember when Mars is attributed to the mouth is the organ of speech here again and And here we have the symbol of power, one of the symbols of a special kind of power. Even here, there are attempts to impose power upon others that we all use from time to time.

And indeed, we're so made that we can't help trying to use this power in certain ways. But the time comes when we have to be able to recognize where our legitimate areas of power and rulership are and where they are not. Remember, the emperor is ruler and this is a picture of you. Of you.

So that the function of reason is also assigned to this tarot key. Reason or the reasoning faculty now what is the reasoning faculty the reasoning faculty in our consciousness is the ability and the capacity to put things in order now remember the title that we gave the talk for this morning is is there divine order and what is it that we think of when we think of the word order most of us think of order in terms of whether things are orderly in the house they should be if they're not however I'll tell you another type of individual that has extraordinary problem with this key at times and this is the person who has never grown beyond the need to rebel rebel against authority now think about that a moment what is rebellion against authority all of us have to go through a certain period of rebellion against authority as part of the growing up process you know this need to rebel against authority is part of a whole process of the way life is it's part of the mars aspect of this key as a matter of fact it's part of the preparation that is a preliminary or being able to take charge of to take on the responsibility for our own lives in other words ruling our lives adequately and properly requires that we first develop the knowledge of what proper authority is and who is going to rule your thoughts.

No one else can rule what you think. Only you are going to be able to do that. Who is going to rule your emotions? No one else is going to be able to rule your emotions, you see. You are going to have to develop the capacity to do that. All of you have developed that capacity to some degree in some areas of the thinking in some areas of the feeling I trust in at least some a few of you in many areas but the ability to actually rule our thinking and our feeling is very vitally involved in this Tarot key amongst other things so that what we have to come to see is that the ability to utilize the authority that is in us given to us by the father our divine father incidentally by virtue of begetting us as children of god we automatically have been given a territory to rule. And that territory is us, each of us individually, our personalities, our particular lives, what we think and what we permit ourselves to think, how we interpret life, what kind of reasoning abilities we use in terms of our lives and our relationships, relationships, what kind of feelings we have developed or permit ourselves to develop.

We all have a territory. Call it a geographic territory, if you will, because after all, each of us has a physical vehicle, or that which we experience as a physical vehicle, which is a field of force and that's ours you know you can be as possessive about it as you like you know some say possessiveness is unspiritual and perhaps it is if it's negatively possessive but you know what I say I'm not possessive I'm a very reasonable person and this tarot key is assigned to proper reasoning and remember seeing Seeing is the heart of this tarot key, because it's assigned to the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, and each sign of the zodiac has a part of the body that is assigned to it also. And in this particular key, it's the head, and it's very particularly the eyes and the sight. And sight and incidentally when people become harmonious with this tarot key their eyesight will often improve actually even on the physical plane unless there is some genetic reason for it for one to be unable to utilize it as quite as effectively as that now then Then, when we have to keep rebelling against authority, though, what we're doing, in essence, is remaining a case of arrested development when it comes to taking control of our own immediate lives.

In other words, if I'm still busy rebelling against authority, then I'm not going to look at authority figures in a very good light.

Anyone that I identify with as an authority figure, I'm going to find myself disliking them in some way, and I'm going to find a reason for it. And that's why the reasoning faculty is an important thing to understand here. I'm going to find a reason, a very intense reason for not liking them, and it will sound reasonable. This is what you call unconscious rationalization. And not only will I feel that if I have not yet gotten myself to grow beyond this, shall we say, rebellious period, but I will not really be attending to the area of work that the Divine Father has given unto me. And so each of us has to look into our heart and we have to try to analyze and see and this is really trying to see how do I feel about authority figures at this point naturally we always go back and look at our mother and father they've always been authority figures and then there are things like teachers they are authority figures and then there are things like the rulers of different countries of the world these are authority figures and some of them are pretty evil incidentally you know in the in the western mystery training system we don't say don't have the ability to see reality but the ability to see reality depends on our ability to see the reality of what's inside of us we can't see the reality of anything going on outside we can't reason about it accurately unless we first have reasoned accurately about our own inner being only then is that window washed up you see the window out of which we look we look out at everything at everything and everybody through the window of our own consciousness this is the site involved here and therefore everything we see is colored by that window.

Everything we see. If we have biases inside our hearts and especially biases based on erroneous interpretation of experience we're going to see it that way on the outside and therefore if we still are rebelling against authority it means basically that we're keeping ourselves in a state of adolescence because we have not realized oh I've got to take charge of my own thinking and feeling and immediate acting here and now that is my rulership area but when we're still caught in that other our emotions are going off in the negative portion of the Mars that rules this key and remember that the Emperor is also dressed as a sort of warrior isn't he and I can assure you there's nothing more feisty than the negative areas part of our nature when it's going to want to be the executive around on things and all it can really do is mess it up but good but whenever we have those feelings one of the things you can be sure of is we can't really do it better because the very intensity of those negative feelings is a sign of this in other words we want to take charge of things outside when we haven't even learned how to take charge of the most important thing and that's our inside no one's a good executive outside who isn't well disciplined insight and you just think about that for a moment you'll see it automatically and this is true in every area of life in every area of life only to the degree that we are we can apply discipline to ourselves properly that's so that it isn't for nothing that Mars on the tree of life is assigned to the sphere the activity of severity you see it's even got the red color that's the sphere of activity of Mars and that's severity that's justice and it's also called judgment which means and one has to utilize good judgment so anyway it's it's been noted by those of us who have washed our windows a little bit or a lot that the ones who usually want to do all the changing out there and do all the criticizing are the ones who have the dirtiest windows you can imagine.

You see, true intuition cannot come until we have first developed reasoning faculties. That's a little something that you need to think on mightily because true intuition cannot come in until we have first washed that window of our consciousness, the window that looks out and looks in. Remember, it's been said of the eyes that the eyes are the window of the soul.

And one of the evidences of a truly old soul, of a truly well-disciplined soul, is the eyes that look out from the window.

Look out not only with discipline, incidentally, but with extraordinary perceptiveness. With an ability to see and to see things that others are missing.

And why can they see it? Because the windows of consciousness have been purified and cleansed and cleansed and it's been done by utilizing the power of authority using the ability to place in order one's own inner images. So this tarot key, remember, assigned to rulership has to do then with law. Cosmic law first and then what our laws is. It's called, the emperor's called the constituting intelligence because we can have that benign calm application of judgment, which is an essential part of what this key represents. This he sits on the cube the cube is the material universe the physical plane and he sits ruling it with peacefully overlooking the waters remember those are the waters of the high priestess which is the substance of the mind stuff of consciousness which is the mind stuff of you and me and everything that is and which is in its forms the images made through the Empress he's overlooking it he's ruling it in other words he's watching what he thinks and he's watching what he does in like manner when we watch what we think and watch what we do we can start seeing for instance wherever we get over emotional about a thing we can see we have a problem there and and again then with the idea of authority since we have to gain this authority in relation to ourselves ourselves. Just like anything has to have an order or you have chaos, a social system has to have an order or it's chaos. The ruler of his consciousness is the ruler of his world and the emperor will help you become that kind of a ruler. But we have to be aware of the importance of of putting our lives, our personal lives in order.

That means we have to get ourselves in order with not only ourselves, but those that are around us. We have to have a type of inner response that is very, very calm, that is serene that is full of faith that wants to obey the cosmic law and tries to study it in other words just as I pointed out the way a country has a constitution we have to have a constitution and we do with a constituting intelligence for our personal lives and in our Constitution we have to pass the laws for ourselves and follow them that are in harmony with the divine laws which means you can wash the windows of your consciousness easily it isn't really hard all you do as I pointed out is just learn to just use this tarot key and start overlooking your thinking and feeling with the Emperor and you'll discover you automatically start controlling it and ruling it more effectively then you'll find you'll see other people as they are not with hatred not with resentment not with rebellion you'll see all the good and beauty they have which you will love you'll see all the nonsense they have which you'll protect yourself against and you will have relationships that are beautiful beyond description because you will not expect nonsense from someone who's wise nor will you expect wisdom from somebody who's still full of nonsense the result is you will have relationships that are based on reality you will be seeing clearly then you will be able to see God looking out from behind the eyes of everybody and I mean everybody and you will be able to see God looking out from behind the stars all stars because you will see that this is the divine order being expressed and on different growth levels and so there's no reason to have to hate or be warlike but we can express the love of the Empress through the reasoning capacity and rulership of the Emperor and life becomes more glorious and beautiful moment by moment day by day and throughout foreverness