Awaken Your Inner Light

Iwas talking with a man a couple of days ago who said, “Meditation is the hardest thing you can do.” This is a perspective shared by a lot of people. Yet, it is not exactly accurate. Real meditation is a state of consciousness. In fact, the state of meditation is the natural state of the consciousness, when it is unconditioned. The state of meditation is not separate from our true identity. When you access the state of meditation, you are accessing what you really are. The state of meditation in itself is not “difficult” or “hard” — to say that would be like saying it is hard for water to be wet, or for fire to be hot. The consciousness in its original unconditioned state is content, serene, wise, loving, diligent, insightful, joyful, and capable of seeing reality. That fundamental state of consciousness is what we call “the state of meditation.” Since it is the unconditioned, original consciousness, it exists in that way right now, inside of everyone, but unfortunately it is clouded, veiled, conditioned, obscured. Imagine a glass of water in which the water is dirty, filled with impurities. The water may appear dark, but the original clean water is still there: it is just clouded, obscured. We all know that it is possible to remove the impurities, and the original, pristine, perfect water is recovered, revealed. That is exactly the case with our consciousness. So, what is difficult is recovering that original state of consciousness, because to do so, you have to change. And as you know, no one wants to change. We have become so conditioned by psychological factors that we lost access to that natural state. We have too much anger, pride, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, laziness, and many other psychological conditions that filter our consciousness: those qualities prevent us from accessing the state of meditation. So that is what is hard: changing those qualities. Meditation appears difficult because of the conditioning that prevents us from accessing it. Meditation itself is not what is difficult, it is our psychological conditioning that provides the difficulty. This is a really important distinction. This is easier to understand when we know what the consciousness is, not from the theoretical point of view, and not from belief or terms we read in a dictionary, or what people have told us, but from our experience. Confirming the Facts about Consciousness In terms of facts and personal experience: what is our consciousness? Answering this question is the starting point for effective spiritual life. Spiritually, personally, from experience, we need to know: what are the facts? What can we observe? What can we confirm? What can we repeat? Here we take a scientific approach. We are not looking for something simply to believe or to aspire to, something to wrap around ourselves as a security blanket in order to protect ourselves from the terrors of the world. Instead we are looking for something that is confirmable, that is real, that can be experienced and known, not in the future, but today, now. The state of meditation is a reality that can be experienced. The consciousness is a reality that can be experienced. We start from our experience right now, we observe the facts about it, and we learn how to change it, and from change, we learn new facts. If there were no possibility of change, there would be no hope. But we know we can change. We have that power. So we start from a position of knowing the facts and knowing that we can change in a fundamental way towards achievable goals, towards realistic goals. If instead we start from lies we tell ourselves, lies that have heard from others, but believe anyway, believing things that that cannot be proven, then we have no idea where we are going. We have no idea of what outcome will result from our actions. This is the fundamental point of view that we emphasize over and over: beliefs do not matter. We really do not care what you believe. Believe whatever you want. Let's talk about facts. Let's talk about confirmable, provable, experiential facts. First, a fact must be observed. Observation is a perception, not an idea, interpretation, thought, judgement, or analysis. It is simply observation, the perception of something that is real. This is where we must start if we want to learn real meditation and have a really effective spiritual life.

Bhagavadgita, (Sanskrit: “Song of God”) an episode recorded in the great Sanskrit poem of the Hindus, the Mahabharata. It occupies chapters 23 to 40 of Book VI of the Mahabharata and is composed in the form of a dialogue between Prince Arjuna and Krishna, an avatar (incarnation) of the god Vishnu. Composed perhaps in the 1st or 2nd century CE, it is commonly known as the Gita. On the brink of a great battle between warring branches of the same family, Arjuna is suddenly overwhelmed with misgivings about the justice of killing so many people, some of whom are his friends and relatives, and expresses his qualms to Krishna, his charioteer—a combination bodyguard and court historian. Krishna’s reply expresses the central themes of the Gita. He persuades Arjuna to do his duty as a man born into the class of warriors, which is to fight, and the battle takes place. Krishna’s argument incorporates many of the basic teachings of the Upanishads, speculative texts compiled between 1000 and 600 BCE, as well as of the philosophy of Samkhya Yoga, which stresses a dualism between soul and matter (see mind-body dualism). He argues that one can kill only the body; the soul is immortal and transmigrates into another body at death or, for those who have understood the true teachings, achieves release (moksha) or extinction (nirvana), freedom from the wheel of rebirth. Krishna also resolves the tension between the Vedic injunction to sacrifice and to amass a record of good actions (karma) and the late Upanishadic injunction to meditate and amass knowledge (jnana). The solution he provides is the path of devotion (bhakti). With right understanding, one need not renounce actions but merely the desire (kama) for the fruits of actions, acting without desire (nishkama karma). Ravana, the 10-headed demon king, detail from a Guler painting of the Ramayana, c. 1720. More From Britannica Hinduism: The Bhagavadgita The moral impasse is not so much resolved as destroyed when Krishna assumes his doomsday form—a fiery, gaping mouth, swallowing up all creatures in the universe at the end of the eon—after Arjuna asks Krishna to reveal his true cosmic nature. In the middle of this terrifying epiphany, Arjuna apologizes to Krishna for the many times when he had rashly and casually called out to him as a friend. He begs Krishna to return to his previous form, which the god consents to do, resuming his role as intimate human companion of the warrior Arjuna. The Gita has always been cherished by many Hindus for its spiritual guidance, but it achieved new prominence in the 19th century, when the British in India lauded it as the Hindu equivalent of the New Testament and when American philosophers—particularly the New England Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau—considered it to be the pivotal Hindu text. It was also an important text for Mohandas K. Gandhi, who wrote a commentary on it.

The purpose of meditation is to bring about change and to address our fundamental problems. Real meditation is based on facts, and focused on facts. Meditation is not really useful if it is just about beliefs and theories. When we observe humanity and look at this world, we see a lot of problems, a lot of suffering, and much that seems impossible to understand or change. The amount of suffering that we see in humanity, that we see in the world, is truly overwhelming. Real meditation provides a way to work on changing that. For our spirituality to be really effective, it has to be based on practical facts and focused on dealing with suffering. We need to be dealing with fundamental problems that we face, not only as individuals, but as a society. If our spiritual practice cannot solve some of these problems or at least understand them, then our spiritual practice is useless. Genuine spirituality effectively transforms the individual, who can then help others. We need to understand how to use our spirituality for the benefit of not only ourselves, but other people. That is the basis that we start from in this tradition. It starts with observation of facts. Not beliefs, not theories. Facts Real meditation and real spirituality begin with facts. This first requirement is very difficult for some people. All of us have cherished beliefs, ideas, and theories, and we want life and spirituality to be certain ways. We all have religious or spiritual ideas, and ideas of who we are as a person, or how our culture is, or society. We have a whole huge collection of beliefs. But, in spite of our theories, beliefs, and ideas, we suffer. If we really want to deal with our suffering, if we really want to change it, the first thing that we have to be willing to do is set aside beliefs, ideas, and notions that we have about ourselves and the world. We have to set aside everything that we cannot prove. Instead, we must resolve ourselves to deal only in facts: observable facts, repeatable facts. If you think about this, and analyze this, you will realize that this forms a very powerful basis for your spiritual life. If you believe something and you cannot prove it, you could spend a lifetime believing in something that was not real. That is a waste of an entire lifetime. Wouldn't it be better to take the approach that all the great teachers gave, which is to pursue only what you can prove though your own experience? All the great traditions have that in their scriptures and teachings, but people set that aside. People prefer to just “believe,” because it is easier, comforting, and requires no effort. Everyone wants to adopt a theory, belief, or way of behaving for their redemption, their salvation from suffering. But: they cannot prove that their beliefs will liberate them. We prefer to deal in facts. (And yes, there are spiritual facts that you can prove through your own experience, but like any science, you must go step by step, scientifically, and set theories and beliefs aside). So observation of facts is where we must begin if we want to develop an effective spiritual life and an effective meditation practice. This is the first important basis of effective meditation practice: focus on the facts. Consciousness The second important basis is consciousness. We need to know what the consciousness is in ourselves, and how to use it from moment to moment. To observe the facts means that we need to perceive them clearly. Consciousness is the basis of perception. If we cannot be in a position to observe a fact, than we cannot become conscious of it. This is a critical and important basis of any spiritual pursuit. Consciousness is also the basis of genuine understanding. Once we perceive something, we can then begin to understand it. By understanding we mean comprehension, that type of understanding that is based on facts, repeatable, and absolutely without doubt. For example, when you experience being cut by a knife, you have observed and understood that the knife can cut you. That is a comprehension, an understanding, that you will never forget because you are fully conscious of it. Similarly, that level of knowledge can be acquired about life, nature, spirituality, the mind, the world, God, etc. if we use the consciousness in the right way.

Esoteric Christianity: The well and ladder of Jacob We have said that these three souls are Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah. (We say ‘primary’ because there are two other souls which are of a much more elevated and cosmic nature which will not discuss here, namely Yehidah and Chaiah.) The lowest one is Nephesh, which we can call the animal soul. Nephesh is related to our appetites and our instinctive impulses. It is a type of animal consciousness. In a literal sense, Nephesh is means something related to life or life force, vitality, blood, breath of life, soul, or appetite. Nephesh relates to these lower instinctual aspects of our consciousness and impulses. Ruach is called the thinking emotional soul; this is a soul that has a type of discernment that can rationalize. The real purpose of Ruach is to develop and understand ethics: to be able to perceive what is right and what is wrong. The problem with Ruach is we can use it in a very subjective way. We can rationalize our desires. We often feel Nephesh is very strong within us. Nephesh does not think about anything, Nephesh is already doing. So, while Ruach is thinking whether some impulse is right or wrong, Nephesh is already doing it. Ruach, similarly to Nephesh, can be translated literally as spirit, wind, or breath. Beyond the thinking emotional soul is the spiritual soul, Neshamah. This is spiritual perception, objective perception. This is our inner light, that which perceives God, and it can be translated literally as breath as well. As we have said before, the breath and the wind can be seen in all three of these types of souls. Today we are going to relate this lecture mostly to Nephesh, the animal soul, and what we must do. It is not simply that we need to transcend the animal soul, it is that we have to learn how to transform it, because within Nephesh is an immense power, and if we give up that power we actually will not have what is necessary to do the work. Nephesh is where the power is. The problem is, all of our powerful instincts are unconscious, subjective, animalistic. In order to clarify this we going to talk some more about the Samaritan woman speaking with Jesus at the Well (John 4:5). 5 So He came to a city of Samaria [שמר shamar, preservation] which is called Sychar [שכר shekar: intoxicating drink, or, recompense], near the plot of ground that Jacob [Ἰακώβ, יעקב Iokab] gave to his son Joseph [Ἰωσήφ, Ioseph, IO-Ceph]. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth [ו vav] hour. Samaria comes from the Hebrew word שמר shamar which means preservation, and within that land of Samaria was the city called Sychar, which comes from the Hebrew שכר shekar, intoxicating drink or recompense. In this place that means intoxicating drink or recompense there is plot of ground near of that of Jacob. Jesus sat of this well of Jacob and it was about the sixth hour. Let us understand more about Jacob, because he is such an important figure of the Old Testament. Jacob has a lot that can be studied, and all of it has a lot of importance, but we are not going to go in every detail at this time.

Esoteric Christianity: The well and ladder of Jacob We have said that these three souls are Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah. (We say ‘primary’ because there are two other souls which are of a much more elevated and cosmic nature which will not discuss here, namely Yehidah and Chaiah.) The lowest one is Nephesh, which we can call the animal soul. Nephesh is related to our appetites and our instinctive impulses. It is a type of animal consciousness. In a literal sense, Nephesh is means something related to life or life force, vitality, blood, breath of life, soul, or appetite. Nephesh relates to these lower instinctual aspects of our consciousness and impulses. Ruach is called the thinking emotional soul; this is a soul that has a type of discernment that can rationalize. The real purpose of Ruach is to develop and understand ethics: to be able to perceive what is right and what is wrong. The problem with Ruach is we can use it in a very subjective way. We can rationalize our desires. We often feel Nephesh is very strong within us. Nephesh does not think about anything, Nephesh is already doing. So, while Ruach is thinking whether some impulse is right or wrong, Nephesh is already doing it. Ruach, similarly to Nephesh, can be translated literally as spirit, wind, or breath. Beyond the thinking emotional soul is the spiritual soul, Neshamah. This is spiritual perception, objective perception. This is our inner light, that which perceives God, and it can be translated literally as breath as well. As we have said before, the breath and the wind can be seen in all three of these types of souls. Today we are going to relate this lecture mostly to Nephesh, the animal soul, and what we must do. It is not simply that we need to transcend the animal soul, it is that we have to learn how to transform it, because within Nephesh is an immense power, and if we give up that power we actually will not have what is necessary to do the work. Nephesh is where the power is. The problem is, all of our powerful instincts are unconscious, subjective, animalistic. In order to clarify this we going to talk some more about the Samaritan woman speaking with Jesus at the Well (John 4:5). 5 So He came to a city of Samaria [שמר shamar, preservation] which is called Sychar [שכר shekar: intoxicating drink, or, recompense], near the plot of ground that Jacob [Ἰακώβ, יעקב Iokab] gave to his son Joseph [Ἰωσήφ, Ioseph, IO-Ceph]. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth [ו vav] hour. Samaria comes from the Hebrew word שמר shamar which means preservation, and within that land of Samaria was the city called Sychar, which comes from the Hebrew שכר shekar, intoxicating drink or recompense. In this place that means intoxicating drink or recompense there is plot of ground near of that of Jacob. Jesus sat of this well of Jacob and it was about the sixth hour. Let us understand more about Jacob, because he is such an important figure of the Old Testament. Jacob has a lot that can be studied, and all of it has a lot of importance, but we are not going to go in every detail at this time.

Esoteric Christianity: The well and ladder of Jacob We have said that these three souls are Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah. (We say ‘primary’ because there are two other souls which are of a much more elevated and cosmic nature which will not discuss here, namely Yehidah and Chaiah.) The lowest one is Nephesh, which we can call the animal soul. Nephesh is related to our appetites and our instinctive impulses. It is a type of animal consciousness. In a literal sense, Nephesh is means something related to life or life force, vitality, blood, breath of life, soul, or appetite. Nephesh relates to these lower instinctual aspects of our consciousness and impulses. Ruach is called the thinking emotional soul; this is a soul that has a type of discernment that can rationalize. The real purpose of Ruach is to develop and understand ethics: to be able to perceive what is right and what is wrong. The problem with Ruach is we can use it in a very subjective way. We can rationalize our desires. We often feel Nephesh is very strong within us. Nephesh does not think about anything, Nephesh is already doing. So, while Ruach is thinking whether some impulse is right or wrong, Nephesh is already doing it. Ruach, similarly to Nephesh, can be translated literally as spirit, wind, or breath. Beyond the thinking emotional soul is the spiritual soul, Neshamah. This is spiritual perception, objective perception. This is our inner light, that which perceives God, and it can be translated literally as breath as well. As we have said before, the breath and the wind can be seen in all three of these types of souls. Today we are going to relate this lecture mostly to Nephesh, the animal soul, and what we must do. It is not simply that we need to transcend the animal soul, it is that we have to learn how to transform it, because within Nephesh is an immense power, and if we give up that power we actually will not have what is necessary to do the work. Nephesh is where the power is. The problem is, all of our powerful instincts are unconscious, subjective, animalistic. In order to clarify this we going to talk some more about the Samaritan woman speaking with Jesus at the Well (John 4:5). 5 So He came to a city of Samaria [שמר shamar, preservation] which is called Sychar [שכר shekar: intoxicating drink, or, recompense], near the plot of ground that Jacob [Ἰακώβ, יעקב Iokab] gave to his son Joseph [Ἰωσήφ, Ioseph, IO-Ceph]. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth [ו vav] hour. Samaria comes from the Hebrew word שמר shamar which means preservation, and within that land of Samaria was the city called Sychar, which comes from the Hebrew שכר shekar, intoxicating drink or recompense. In this place that means intoxicating drink or recompense there is plot of ground near of that of Jacob. Jesus sat of this well of Jacob and it was about the sixth hour. Let us understand more about Jacob, because he is such an important figure of the Old Testament. Jacob has a lot that can be studied, and all of it has a lot of importance, but we are not going to go in every detail at this time.

The topic of being born again is one of the more popular prevalent phrases in modern Christianity. When we talk about being born again, traditionally there are two categories of interpretation. The first type of interpretation is a conversion experience, a transformation or enthusiasm when someone turns towards a spiritual, in this case, Christian doctrine, turning their life toward that doctrine, in which prior to that they were not living in some spiritual way. Something came about which caused them to change and have a firm conviction about a particular sect of Christianity. Now they believe, they profess their belief, because that is how they interpret the scripture: if you believe and speak as if you believe in it you are born again, born again as a new person in the spirit because you are trying to live a spiritual lifestyle. The second common interpretation (some sects of Christianity combine the two), the second aspect is to participate in some kind of ritual, namely baptism, that if you are baptized with all of the elements of the ritual being present, by the authority of that church, you are baptized, you are member of that church, you are born again in that church and by consequence that now means that you are “born again.” We are not here to deride any of those things, because rituals can be powerful, they are meaningful, and very good. Having a spiritual enthusiasm is also very good, we can even say necessary. But to simply believe yourself now to be a spiritual person and to even honestly want to live a spiritual lifestyle and you happen to go back to your Christian roots in order to do that, that is also fine, but from an esoteric standpoint this all misses the point. What we will talk about today is exactly how to understand “being born again” from an esoteric component. In the previous lecture we spoke about the cleansing of the temple, just for some context, we have been going through the book of John interpreting various chapters and verses from the book of John, from an esoteric or Gnostic standpoint. Last time we had a whole lecture about the cleansing of the temple and the symbolism behind that. The basic gist of that is, whenever Jesus or another person in the Bible is doing something, it is not meant to be read as a simple historical artifact, it is not meant to be read like a newspaper. People believe today that they will be born again if they accept the stories of the Bible. They say “I believe that Jesus cleansed all he merchants out of the temple. Because I believe that happened I am inspired to lead a spiritual lifestyle.” The stories of the Bible can be understood in different levels. It is in the most introductory level to look at the stories of the Bible as a type of generic teaching of the past. The real esoteric, inner aspect of that teaching is: within us there is a temple and our own temple is our own soul, our inner psychological activity, but we have a mess inside, we have merchants inside of our own temple and we have to cleanse that. We talked about the meaning of the cleansing of the temple, that there is a actually a work of psychological meditation and learning how to extract consciousness from our egotistical desires. Now, talking about being born again is the other half. Cleansing the temple is about death, while our topic today is about birth. Because within ourselves we have a lot of problems, confusion, darkness, this is why the world is full of all of those things. Contradiction, confusion, darkness, hatred, anger… we do not find tremendous amount of peace, but it is very easy to find the opposite of that. That is all a manifestation, a symptom of what is going on inside of us, in our mind and in our heart. If we see a lot of craziness out in the world it is because there is a lot of that within each of us. What is important is to look inside of ourselves and see our contradictions. That is one part of it - that is a life of work, it is not a one, two-week process but continually looking, meditating, looking within yourself, introspecting analyzing exactly what is going on inside. You can say that there is a science to that. Not only do we need to extract or remove these egotistical elements from our soul but on the other half we have to actually develop something new at the same time. This is the idea of being born again: that what we are presently is not a complete human being, what we are presently is just the embryo of what a real human could be. A real Christian is someone who has completely developed their soul. In truth there are very, very few Christians, and we aspire to that.

Many people write or speak about esoteric Christianity. They often mention the psychological aspect that we are going to begin to talk about today. But they miss the beginning of miracles, which is working with the creative energies, that base energy of the water, the fertile or creative energy that we have. The esoteric tradition understands that within those waters is the power of the Lord, the creative possibilities. And from those waters comes forth the wine of Christ. This is an element that not only provides great happiness, great joy, and love, but which also radically transforms us and gives us that power to transform, to overcome, and to do the work. The second aspect, which goes in hand in hand with transmutation, is the psychological work. But without this first aspect of transforming our energies, as we clearly discussed in our prior lecture, the psychological work is not possible. Therefore, the beginning of miracles is related to the mystery between man and wife. And whether you are single or married, you can still transform or transmute that creative energy. The main point here is that if we waste our energies, if we always eject the creative energies from our body, then we are left with no power, no energy to do the psychological work. The very next verse of the same chapter of the Book of John, after the wedding at Cana of Galilee, continues to our main topic, the cleansing of the temple. Let us read John 2:12: 12 After this He went down to Capernaum [Καφαρναοὺμ, כפר נחום, City of Consolation], He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days. 13 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem [ירושלים Yerushalayim, “foundation of peace”]. 14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen [βοῦς bous, פּרה parah, cow] and sheep [πρόβατα probata, כבש kebes] and doves [περιστερὰς peristeras, יונה jonah], and the money changers doing business. 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said to those who sold doves [יונה jonah], “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” 17 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (Psalm 69:9). 18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?” 19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. If we read carefully, we can see that Jesus went down to Capernaum. It was the time of the Passover. And then Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, he found a temple, where there were people making commerce – selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and money changers. And he got a whip. With that whip, he drove out all of the negative activities of the temple. You can see many depictions of Jesus whipping or acting very strongly against these people in the temple. This is a story that we need to realize shows the aspect of Christianity that is very fierce and strong. But this strength, this type of activity or war, is never against people outside of us who we dislike or hate. This, of course, is happening within ourselves. We need to clean our interior temple because within ourselves are many negative elements. Our inner temple is our soul. And what do we find within our soul? In other words, what do we find within our minds, our psyches, and our hearts? We find a lot of elements that have no concern for the Lord, that take this temple and make it something just for exchanging goods, making money, and having no concern for the real purpose of the temple.

Love is the highest wisdom. We tend to use the word love in a way that lessens it or disfigures it. When we use it to describe very superficial, transitory type things. Real love is what the soul is always yearning for to be close to. Love is happiness which all of us, in our depth, wish to have. There is nobody who wants to avoid happiness. Everybody wants to have happiness. It is just that our ideas of what happiness is, tends to be confused. So, we end up not actually doing the things or behaving in the way that will bring us towards it. In our previous lectures, we introduced Esoteric Christianity as a form of Christianity is deeper than normally taught in the public today. There has always been the inner doctrine, which relates to certain ways of understanding the scriptures. Never forget that the true content of esoteric Christianity has something to do within us. The content of our soul of our spirit. That is the esoteric doctrine. The doctrine within, which unfolds itself through our experience, through our spiritual work. That is the real Esoteric Christianity. Because within us is a divinity, some spark of light, some connection, to the universal light that we call Christ: that light within us. We discussed the beginning of the book of John, and we took apart some of the Greek words. In particular, in the very beginning (John 1:1), when it says: En arche en o logos. “In the beginning was the word.” We normally view this temporally, meaning some point in time in the past. But we need to look at that beginning as a point in our interior space. Within that origin is the activity of the logos. The activity of Christ is at our origin. And the light emerges from our origin, or the beginning. Therefore, this is not something that happened a long time ago. This is something that we inspect, we can experience at any time. When we look within ourselves profoundly, we can find the origin of our activity, which is the Verb, the Word, the Logos. Unfortunately, what usually occurs is we only find is the activity of our mind, and our heart (emotions). Obviously, what is going on in our mind is not close to the qualities of Christ, Universal Love. Instead, what we will find within ourselves is suffering and contradiction, desires, conditioned ways of thinking and behaving, and ignorance. But if you keep our attention, and you follow the light of your consciousness, you can unweave the very fabric of your mind. There you will find there is a deeper level of activity. We must keep going deeper. People think that their “truth” is the thoughts and the emotions they can feel at any particular moment. They think that is their authentic truth. Yet, they have never inquired beyond that or deeper than that. We must understand that there is consciousness or cognizance, which is aware of those thoughts. If you follow that light of awareness, you can penetrate through your superficial mind, through your thoughts, and go to something deeper. If you keep following that then you will find a more radical origin. Any one of us can do that. That is what this doctrine teaches. Perhaps it is easier said than done, but perhaps we just need to make the effort. There is a lot to do with the way we behave in the world that prevents us from having that type of access, so that we can experience that universal compassion. We must perform a psychological work, to transform our soul, to develop our soul. In the book of John, the first miracle that Jesus performs, is at the wedding. Where he transforms or transmutes the water into wine. We are going to look at this scripture to understand how it has to do with our spiritual work. Obviously, the common interpretation that Jesus came to a wedding in some literal historical past and decided it was a good idea to help the celebrants become intoxicated with wine has nothing to do with Christianity. That is a very superficial, ignorant analysis. Let us read John 2. 1 And the third [Gimel ג] day [יום yom] there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee [גליל]; and the mother of Jesus [Ἰησοῦ, יהשוה] was there: 2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

Esoteric Christianity Part 3, Hidden Messages in the Bible, Jesus' True Teachings Everybody’s ego contradicts and conflicts with everybody else’s ego. But we have more than just a monolithic ego. Our ego is more like a large, complex structure with many rooms and each one of those rooms has been created imperfectly (in other words, in the wrong way). We have many different egotistical wills and desires. We can notice this when we begin to pay attention, we notice all the contradictions within ourselves. Just from one single event, we can feel many different things all at once, and we can want to do many different things. We intend to say one thing and we end up saying something else to someone because we have confusion within ourselves. Not only have we developed wrong structures, wrong patterns of behavior, wrong ways of thinking, wrong ways of feeling, wrong ways of acting, we furthermore contradict ourselves. We suffer within ourselves, our inner contradiction. Within all those false malformed structures, or we can say patterns of behavior, there is the original primordial mould, the original archetype which needs to be developed in the right way. It is only possible to do this when we destroy the false structures and we go back to the original primordial mould and work with it in the correct way. Then we develop all the beauty of our soul. We flourish like a garden, like a paradise and we become something psychologically very beautiful. The state of perfection can be achieved. Let us now understand the mystery of John. Of course, there are more than one John in the bible. The name John, even today, points towards the common individual: “John Doe,” meaning any particular person. In Latin, John is Johannes. In Greek, John is Ioannes (Ἰωάννης), in Hebrew, it’s Yohanan (יוחנן), “Jehovah has favoured.” When we read in the Greek, it says John did something, it will say Iōannēs (Ἰωάννης), which sounds like Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-Ss. There is a lot of vowels in the name John. Remember, vowels are the way we speak our words, as the sound comes out of our throat. So, the origin of our words, which is the activity, starts in our throat. We can even say it in our mind, because the mind moves the larynx and the larynx forms the words. We can see that John represents the Word, in a different level because his name is a name that points towards the activity of the Word, in other words, it’s all those vowels Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-Ss. John represents, on a lower level, any particular soul. We are all, from a perspective of a soul, we are all that activity, that Eee-Oo-Ah-Ne-S activity. At a more advanced understanding, John represents a particular level of a soul’s development. The authentic John is actually a very high level. Gnostically, we understand before you reach the stage of John, you must pass through the path of Peter and the path of Judas. In the path of Peter, you work with the Keys of Heaven. It is stated in the Bible that Jesus will found his church on the rock, the Petros (Peter), so, Peter becomes the first Pope. But, inside of ourselves, that path of Peter is to start with the foundation of building the inner temple, building the inner church. This means to work with the archetypes, as we have mentioned previously. The archetypes are the blueprints for building our inner church. The inner church is the soul. What we have presently today is the principle of the soul, we have a infantile soul, a baby soul, and we need to develop that into a completed soul. As part of that development of the completion of the soul, we also have to work with the path of Judas, which means psychological death. In the Bible, Judas hangs himself. We constantly betray our inner lord every time we act egotistically. We are Judas. We sell off our inner divinity for 30 coins of silver. We do this moment by moment, every time we harbour resentment, hatred, lust, envy, any of the imperfect qualities that we have. Which is a lot, we have a lot of bad qualities within ourselves. It is possible to destroy them, and that is the path of Judas, psychological death.

Justin Martyr here is making an analogy between the so-called pagan mysteries and Christian theology. Normally many of us are taught to believe that those old stories of pagans were very simple, superficial types of things, that had nothing at all to do with true religion. But in reality the very early Christian Fathers knew how similar the stories of the Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses were to the stories that were eventually written in the New Testament. Those traditions that were eventually replaced by Christianity, all of those old religions, those pagan religions, were in decline at the time. This is why they needed to be replaced. Yet, the true source of those old religions is the same gnosis underlying Esoteric Christianity. Whether we call it gnosis in Greek, or some other word, it does not matter. All traditions are susceptible to falling away. When a traditions usefulness begins to decline, new traditions are made in order to renew the teachings that lead to gnosis, the universal knowledge which all of us, all of our souls yearn for. Esoteric Christianity is really the true universal doctrine, the true Gnostic Catholic doctrine. As we have said, catholic really means universal, and by gnostic we are talking about knowledge. Gnosis is the knowledge we must possess in order to achieve theosis, the incarnation of the divine. Just like the old traditions of Greece and Rome, and all the other traditions of the world fall into degeneration, just as there are good and bad aspects of any tradition, when we talk about gnostic groups, many groups served the true teachings of Christ and there were other groups which were quite the opposite. Unfortunately, all these groups get mixed together today and this is partly why a lot of Christians have a very negative connotation of gnosis. We have to keep reminding ourselves that gnosis just means knowledge and the idea that there is a spark of divinity within us that can provide us with knowledge of the divine. This is something that many ancient church Fathers also agreed with. This is the fundamental basis of gnosis or gnostic doctrine, and it is no different than all of the true ancient traditions as well. When Jesus received Christ, he was receiving the universal principal, the universal intelligence, and was speaking from that perspective saying, “I am the light of the world.” Unfortunately, people interpret that to believe that there was one manifestation of Christ and that singular physical manifestation as Jesus was the one and only Christ. Actually it is different. Anyone who achieves that level unites completely with Christ, so becomes one with Christ. Christ is universal and beyond any individual, but an individual like Jesus purifies his soul to such a degree that Christ – the Universal Force – can individualize itself into that soul, and speak and bring teachings, found religions. All the world religions are founded by Christ, different individuals who reached the level of Christ. This is what is always happening, from time to time. According to inner or Esoteric Christianity, our role in all of this is to purify our soul, to work on our psychology, to do the inner psychological, and spiritual work. To truly follow this teaching we have to become practical. Many people who study religion, who are interested in these things, have a lot of theories and ideas about the differences, conceptually, of different theologies, different mythologies, different ways of understanding how God and man interact, how creation ‘really is’ according to one doctrine or another. All of this may have some relative importance, but what is the most important for us here and now is to make Esoteric Christianity a practical effort in our life. In order to do this we are going to study the Book of John, we are going to look at the very beginning, the first chapter, the first verse. It is a very famous verse often repeated: 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1: 1 -5

And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” Matthew 13:10-11 “The mysteries of the faith are not to be divulged to all. It is requisite… to hide in a mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God taught.” — St. Clement of Alexandria,The Stromata, ch. 12 (circa 200 AD) Esoteric Christianity represents the unveiled teachings of the mysteries of the Gospel normally concealed to the public. In our modern era, is now time to clarify all the teachings, and for everyone to receive them! "These are the mysteries of the Gospels that must be lived here and now, within ourselves. The life, passion, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ is not something that is strictly historic as people believe. It is something of immediate actuality that each one must perform in his or her laboratory. This is what the crude reality of Christ is. It is not something from the history of the past that occurred two thousand years ago, it is something to be lived here and now." —Samael Aun Weor, The Archeus #esoteric #occult #magick #spirituality #witch #alchemy #tarot #witchcraft #magic #spiritual #love #witchesofinstagram #art #meditation #astrology #occultism #pagan #consciousness #spiritualawakening #wisdom #awakening #mystic #wicca #divination #gnosis #esoterismo #enlightenment #esotericknowledge #energy #thelema