5. Geburah

The title of the talk is Qabalah and Cosmic Justice.

And I'm sure all of us must confess that when it comes to thoughts of justice, cosmic justice, in application to ourselves, we all have at least times or periods where we are afraid.

I don't think anyone can truly say that they're free of this.

We may have periods where we are free of this, but especially during times when we are in conflict with ourselves trying to make a choice regarding something or other. I think we can say there's something in us that's afraid of, shall we say, the consequences if we make what we think might be a wrong choice.

And this of course is because we don't know of whom shall we be afraid and this is one of the things we want to talk about in terms of the catalyst ik interpretation of justice or certain certain aspects of justice.

Now we are going to be talking, of course, about the fifth sephirah on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the red one before you. It is the number five, as you can see, number that way because in the order of the manifestation manifestation of the various aspects of consciousness, both universal, which in a sense is instantaneous, but it isn't expressed until it out-manifests, and then in another sense, of course, it is personal because we experience it as persons or as individualized aspects of that overall consciousness. So we have, in the Qabalistic teaching, and as shown in this Sephirah, we have the concept of cosmic justice which must be understood in order to be expressed properly. What is this concept, then, of cosmic justice? Of course, first of all, we have to analyze a few of the terms that are given to this Sephirah, because this is how those of us who've gone a little ways before and have received it from those who've gone a long ways before us, right down through the hierarchy, this is how we have managed to retain and maintain this wisdom teaching so that it continues to become available to all who are ready to receive it.

You are obviously ready or you wouldn't have been brought here. The point is, once we have been guided here in whichever way for that first time, after that, of course, we have to make our own decisions or choices. It depends on our drives. We are ready to hear the real wisdom teaching. We are furthermore not only ready to hear it, we're ready to go to work to develop a complete unfoldment in harmony with this teaching. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to complete that work in this one incarnation, unless we've spent so many past incarnations, that all we are doing is recapitulating the ignorance and nonsense and infantile aspects of the past in order to be able to go on in a more rapid manner, which some of us are doing. We all have different rates of speed.

However, a true understanding of this particular sefirah, then, is involved in knowing the different aspects or attributes given to these various sefirahs. And remember, the sefirah means not only emanation, but spheres of activity. So that these are the spheres of activity of the universal law, since there is none else, and they're therefore the spheres of activity of our lives, every one of our lives, of all lives. Now then, the sphere of activity of the ideas involved with justice assigned to the fifth Sephirah, involve, for example, the words justice or fear by the Hebrew word pahad.

And the interesting thing is that these two words are used synonymously, justice and fear. And you remember we started off by pointing out that all of us, at least at times, feel a little queasy about the ideas of justice. We think that justice should be applied to others, but we all want to get away with whatever it is we're pulling, if we can manage it. I know I've tried many a time, and sometimes it looks like we're getting away with breaking certain laws, you know, and that's where we're fooled more than anything. We don't realize it's a matter of the unfolding in time and space of all things, that we get away with nothing.

Once we've had even a slight experience that helps us to understand that time and space are other than it seems, we come to recognize that there's getting away with certain conduct.

Isn't anything we want, really? Not really. But the point is, until we understand it, we do have a tendency to have experiences which are, at least at times, fearful. When we think of the ideas of justice, for example, we're afraid that if we've done the wrong thing in relation to another person, then we're going to suffer for it. We're all afraid to suffer. And incidentally, this is true of all of us. I can assure you that Yehoshua, that great and extraordinary master, the Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, he was also afraid to suffer. We don't have to be afraid to be afraid, my loves. That's the first message, perhaps, that we should learn here together, to stop being so afraid to be afraid. Therefore, we have to be able to say, I'm not afraid to be afraid, because you have to be afraid at times. If you're not afraid of the maniacs behind wheels driving cars when you're going to try to cross the street in a busy intersection, you're not going to last in this vehicle.

It's very wholesome and healthy to be afraid of these people who because they have a power complex and have no other way to express it you know go that's the energy they're using from that fifth Sephirah negatively speaking since we all use everything negatively before we learn how to use it positively as a matter of fact that's why we should love justice because that's really the loving teacher Remember I said mercy is not really absent from justice, even when we think we don't see it. It's just our inability to see the two sides of the coin at once. This is what makes us think that they may exist separately. So that we must train ourselves to stop being afraid to be afraid.

Because actually, if you will think about it for a moment, in the Bible we hear the word afraid a great deal.

But the translation would be more accurate if the word A-W-E, awe, were used.

You know, it says the fear of the Lord.

Well, actually a more accurate translation would be if we would be in awe of the laws of the Lord of the universe. This is a more exact meaning. Meaning and being in awe of something may have a tinge of fear in it but some fears as we've been pointing out are pretty healthy they are something we may hold in awe certain kinds of power are necessary for the accomplishment of things so when we have shall we say a fear of justice in certain ways and things, it's not quite as negative as it seems because this, what does it do? It drives us in our aspiration to find more and more how to be receptive to the divine will and how to be able to walk in peace.

It's therefore a very wonderful thing to have. It's wholesome. And it is at least one indication that the higher soul is driving us lovingly towards the development of something that will help bring us beyond that requirement, except where it's necessary. Now, fear and justice then are interchangeable words, words, but another meaning that we're given there is judgment, Kabbalistically. And by judgment, they are not talking about sitting in judgment. Judgment is really involved here with evaluation. And I want to remind you that the whole left side of the tree, as you look at it, the black, the red, and the green sefiroth are assigned to the future. And you You have to have good judgment for anything to come out right. So that with the previous sefirah, we were looking into the past in order to have wisdom, in order to not only have the wisdom, but to have the compassion, because we've been there. You see, we've experienced all things and we can put ourselves in other people's places to the degree we've been there before in experience.

When we talk about the future here, we have to have proper judgment, that is, proper ability and capacity to evaluate. We have to be able to evaluate our goals, and we have to be able to evaluate ways and means of getting towards that goal. So that the idea of judgment here has to do with being able to properly evaluate what's going to happen. People who are forever having things go wrong with their plans haven't yet learned how to evaluate the consequences. You have consequences that will take place through evaluation, you know, proper or improper, within a minute or two, and you have other things that take many incarnations to take place. So that everything that happens, now we mean everything that happens, is the result of the kind of evaluation that we had, whether it's a minute ago or whether it's many incarnations ago, whether we are having what we think of as happy experiences or whether we're having what we think of as unhappy experiences.

It is poor evaluation, poor judgment, and therefore whatever we call unhappy, that which we often think of as being retribution, isn't that at all.

In fact, there is no such word in the true Qabalistic dictionary. Not really. Not really, not in the way people think of it. Because that means real vengefulness. And when you hear the term there, if you went to pure Qabalah, it would be, the meaning would be utterly different. It would really have to do with corrective aspects, not punishing aspects. There's a big difference. But when we're in pain over something, we feel we're being punished. We don't realize that we're being corrected.

And being corrected is something other. There's benevolence behind the aspect of pain and actually what has caused it, always consciousness.

The entire universe exists because the divine consciousness formed, intention forms, and is holding and forming and moving.

Everything that happens to us, happens to us because our consciousness has had and has intentions. It is our portion of the divine will with our degree of evolution using our lack of judgment or the degree of judgment that we have at this time with which to meet the situation.

So that now when we try to understand the the rest of the meaning of the Sephirah we have to go to the other attribution which is called strength how do we develop strength what do we mean by a strong soul now some people think a strong soul is just mainly only a stubborn soul in other words if you You can't get anybody to change their mind because they hang on stubbornly. Some people think that's being strong.

Well, people who think that's strength don't know what they're talking about because this can also be weakness.

It depends on what is it. There again, you have your judgment showing proper evaluation has to be involved with the real meaning of strength.

And unless you have all of these, you don't have anything in the ability or capacity to gain the proper controls over that which we call our environment.

Now the controls of our environment, again, are very much involved with this Sephirah because it is also assigned to volition. In other words, your ability to experience volition, your ability to feel willpower, is involved with this force flowing through personality.

This force is a force all of us have because it's really the divine force. There is none else. It's the divine will. There is none else. But it takes on a very specialized and particularized pattern when it flows through our personality. Now, our personality then, because of it being in different stages of development or growth, in various areas of our lives, go in for evaluating a condition or a situation, that's the judgment of this particular Sephirah, and we therefore go in for making goals or making plans in terms of the goal. And if it doesn't come out right, remember, what do we mean by right? It's our way of interpreting pain.

If we have not yet learned how to evaluate, then naturally, whatever the outcome will be is going to be unpleasant. How else could it be? It has to be corrective. The whole drive of consciousness is towards pleasure, incidentally. You know, we think of it as being towards many things, but the real drive of consciousness is towards pleasure. But what kind of pleasure? The pleasure, let's give it another word, the real drive of consciousness is towards rapture. All right, what kind of rapture? All right, let's give it another term. The real drive of consciousness is towards ecstasy.

What kind of ecstasy? The most exalted kind of ecstasy that exists, the ecstasy of the mystical union with God. Therefore the whole drive of consciousness is towards union.

And whatever way we interpret our experiences in and through the personality, our pains come because number one, we feel separated or separate, and we do things from that level, like out of selfishness, out of thinking that we can take advantage of another and get away with it, by exploiting another for our own personal benefit in the various ways, shapes and forms that exist, then what happens? Inasmuch as we are attempting to have our pleasure or our rapture or our ecstasy, in ways that are not in harmony with the one, the only, the indivisible, Yehida, the unity, all these are the names for the beginning, which is also the ending, because there is none else.

When we are trying to gain any kind of joy, pleasure or fulfillment, with the idea of it being at the cost of anybody, whether it be for our ego, for instance, we have to build up our ego at the cost of another person by tearing another down. Then we are invariably building with our own consciousness.

We are creating our future necessity so that the soul will learn and grow.

No matter what it is, if we do it at the expense of another, if we have a drive towards anything and use another for selfish purposes, we must have these repercussions. They are inevitable but we have to even learn what is selfish now an aspect that always rouses people in a very unpleasant way an aspect of this particular sphere which I'm afraid I'm going to have to bring up otherwise I would be untrue to you and to the teaching and we feel those who can't take it just can't take it, maybe next week When you've slept on it, you'll decide you can take it after all, maybe next year, maybe next incarnation.

But we have an obligation, you see. As you know, our work appeals to those who are truly serious or the appeal will remain. We are not out for quantity, though we want as many aspirants as possible who have developed the capacity for the quality that we give. But quality is what we look for and quality is what we attract because this kind of teaching will appeal only to quality and quality means we want reality and truth whether it's pleasant to us or not we want reality and truth because unpleasantness only means that somehow or other we haven't seen and evaluated properly we're not going to think of it in any other terms anymore So I have to bring in this aspect. This is also the sphere of the activity of Mars.

And Mars is assigned not only to volition, to action and to will, therefore to justice.

Mars is also assigned to that energy which on the physical plane brings about the growth of a body. Your body and my body and all bodies have come into being because of the activity of the energy of Mars the reproductive energy this is how the Lord of the universe shall we say begets I hope you heard me say it correctly begets the Lord of the universe begets vehicles in and through which to develop the personalities and the evolution of each individual.

That means then that the energy that is used for physical plane reproduction or what we call physical plane, remember, a body is condensed spirit and don't you forget it. And if you forget it, remember it over and over again until you stop forgetting it, because I guess we forget. Over and over again, until finally we experience it in a new way. So the sphere of the activity of Mars is assigned to this aspect. And indeed, there's another very profound teaching involved here then.

To utilize this energy, this power, which is the willpower, which is volition, which is the cosmic justice energy to utilize it properly that gives us the correct judgment means we have to also learn how to direct the sphere of the activity of Mars in our nature in other words the reproductive energy and so those who have not yet seen this dissipate like the prodigal son you know, they dissipate their riches all over the place. And remember, Gurbura, this red sphere, justice, is the direct reflection from the above in a special way, in a very special way. And therefore, it is only when we can use this energy, and we can use it only when we train ourselves to do so, because first as primitives we express this energy on a very innocent level so that when we're primitive there is a free innocent expression of the reproductive energy between creatures and when I say primitive remember I mean a very young soul it has nothing to do with the area of the world we live in it has to do with the age of the soul only so that the energy is sort of in an innocent, natural way.

It is utilized rather, shall we say, in a very uncontrolled manner, but it is done innocently, more or less. However, when we reach a certain level of evolution where we have to learn to direct all the various energies more appropriately, it is not corrected anymore because we haven't got that much innocence we've eaten of the apple to the degree where we have to start expressing it then in ways that direct it in the areas of sanctity now sanctity doesn't mean non-expression please remember this sanctity means that we use this energy or we come into union with our beloved in this energy with the knowledge of holiness and we work at developing holiness in our hearts towards its expression and we all have to work at it because in the mass mind exists all of the ills and the ill usage of all of evolution.

And therefore, in and through the mass mind, we receive drives that are not in accordance with the higher attainment. Remember, every spiritual aspirant has to learn to control thinking.

Every spiritual aspirant has to learn how to control feeling. Now, they're not told to stop thinking, and they're not told to stop feeling. Every spiritual aspirant has to learn to control the reproductive drive not being told to stop utilizing it control means to direct it in such a way that we train ourselves to express it with feelings of sanctity, the divine sanctity which means we will never use it in order to exploit another and you know what exploiting another is.

I will not go into details.

You know what it is.

And if you look in your own heart and you find you have done so, be comforted. Who hasn't?

This is part of what we evolve ourselves out of by working at it. In other words, we take this energy, which is so vital, and we keep sanctifying it by reminding ourselves that this is the energy of God that expresses the unity between creature and creature.

And as we develop this attitude within ourselves, we become aware then of what true justice means, we become aware of what true union means because we are taking energy that we've been dissipating in erroneous ways, We're taking energy which we've been using with which to put ourselves in union with mass mind drives. We're taking it and we're bringing it and directing it lovingly with holiness towards the area where we are preparing ourselves to have union with God. And how are we going to have union with God if we take the union energy and misuse it for exploitation? Can you see the principle?

Well, the idea of cosmic justice is very much involved with this because cosmic justice in another way can just be called the maintaining of equilibrium of all the universal energies of which the Mars drive is the most potent that we can know because, remember, it is actually the energy with which we experience union with God. And as I've pointed out to you previously in other ways, every mystic describes the mystical experience of union with God in erotic terms.

And I can certainly verify this because the flow of love that comes in and through the heart and the entire being, it is a sanctified flow, sanctified indeed, but it is not a different energy. It is a different quality because it's been used quality-wise and is used quality-wise. Therefore we must not misuse it. We must learn never to permit it to go into perverse areas because in the mass mind there are perversions galore. And we will be put through test and trial as spiritual aspirants.

And when we discover the tests and the trials, we will take and we will sanctify it. And by sanctify we will take and control it and direct it for holiness so that it will be expressed to the glory of God so that when husband and wife come together they are expressing the beauty and glory of the Most High to the most ultimate degree possible but we have to train ourselves to do it. Do not feel upset, my darlings. Do not feel upset if you find you have drives within you that are other feel upset only if you permit yourself to become the slave of those drives take and transmute them do not permit yourself to flow with mass mind evolution is developing our individuality so that it becomes free of the mass and that way we become free of the kind of pain that we are usually afraid of having to begin with but we have to go through it first justice rules the universe in every way because our own higher soul always is in harmony our own higher soul always is in harmony with the divine will with the divine plan for us. Therefore there's nothing we can really do finally that isn't in harmony with this divine will. Remember every mistake we've ever made in every yesterday is really that which is preparing us to appreciate the sanctity, the beauty and the holiness.

Everything we've ever done that's brought pain has not been a retribution.

It has been the divine love correcting us. Love justice.

In other words, love the divine guidance.

Cosmic justice is love incarnate growing us towards itself.