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the hebrew letter iod / yodThe tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is י called Iod or Yod. It is the smallest of the twenty-two Hebrew letters, and looks like a small dot or a little dash.

As you may have realized in the process of these lectures we have been giving about the Hebrew alphabet, every letter has significance in relation with the Tree of Life. Iod is the tenth letter, and as such synthesizes the entire Tree of Life, which is generally illustrated by an image of ten spheres [see below].

The Cycle of Existence

We have described to you in the previous nine lectures how the light of Chokmah, the Ray of Creation, descends downwards through all the levels of matter and energy. That light emerges from the great unknowable, the emptiness, the Absolute, what in Hebrew is called the Ain Soph. When that light first emerges from the unknowable region, the unmanifested, that which is a state of non-existence, the first emergent light is the Christ, the ray of Okidanokh, the Ain Soph Aur. That profound light bursts forth from the Divine Mother Space, Prakriti. When that light first emerges as the sun, the Christ, the spiritual light behind all existence, it emerges as a dot, a speck.

kabbalah-the-tree-of-lifeThat dot is symbolized in the Tree of Life as Kether (Hebrew for the “crown”), the very first sphere on the Tree of Life. So Kether, the Father of the Father, the “crown of life,” is related with the letter Iod. It is the first manifestation of existence. It is a supernal level of existence that is far beyond the capacity of our intellect to grasp. In Buddhism, it is called Dharmakaya, the body or vehicle of the law. It is Kether, it is the magician of the Tarot, that first primordial intelligence, that light. That ray of creation bursts out of that unknowable darkness, that non-light or non-existence, which is existence but not in the way we think of it. It is the emptiness, the Shunyata, Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit. It is the ultimate state Adhi Buddha.

When that light emerges, it is the light of that non-existence. It is, in other words, the Demiurge, the spirit between God and creature, the Ruach Elohim in its ultimate synthesis, the spirit which floats above the waters of life in order to originate life. That is Iod when it first emerges out of the womb of Divine Mother Space. That light descends like a lightning bolt symbolized in the hands of Zeus, Jupiter, which is Kether.

That ray of creation, the Son, as a lightning bolt flashes downwards. From it emerges all of this beautiful universe that we live within. Every galaxy, solar system, sun, planet, physical body, atom, and quanta finds its ultimate root in that primordial emptiness.

This entire expansion (which is illustrated in the Tree of Life of ten spheres) represents an infinite number of universes, levels of existence that completely overshadow the speck of dust that we call “Earth” and these insignificant little bodies that we inhabit, to which we are so very much attached.

As important as we feel we are, and as much as we love ourselves, we really are deeply ignorant. We go from day to day in our lives feeling to be the centre of the universe, feeling like great powerful beings. The truth is that we are specks of dust flowing in a cosmic torrent over which we have no influence. We scarcely comprehend existence, life, and yet in our mind we believe we are authorities about life, God, and religion. The sad truth is that we are in a state of complete ignorance.

We do not know the purpose of our lives. We do not know the purpose of this planet. We do not realize why we live, why we die, why we suffer. And yet we, in our arrogance, believe that we know. We study a few books, we read about religions, we study philosophy, and then we pontificate, theorize, and cultivate many beautiful ideas about religion and God, but when suffering descends upon us our theories prove useless, and when death arrives, then we are faced with the truth.

It is very sad to observe this humanity and to see the truth of it, to see the extent of our suffering, the depth of the pain that afflicts this planet. Nonetheless, we have a great blessing, that in these times the doctrine has been revealed to us. The doors have been opened to the temple, and it is available to those who want the knowledge. It is bitter to the ego, it is bitter to our desire, because it is Samael, that bitter potion or bitter beverage that God delivers when humanity is being prepared for punishment.

It is written in every scripture, in every tradition all over the world, that when humanity degenerates, first the divinity sends the knowledge through emissaries, teachers, avatars, prophets, in order to open the doors and offer an opportunity for humanity to change, to repent from their mistakes and to stop creating suffering.  Most of the time humanity laughs at them. This is why we saw humanity laugh at Noah, ridicule Moses, torture Jesus, and assassinate and otherwise persecute every prophet. Humanity is deeply ignorant, loves desire, and cannot accept the death of the “I”, the ego.

Nonetheless, that light which emerges from the unknowable, in its root is emptiness, it is nothingness, it is a state of existence which is beyond any “I”, any ego. In order to merge with that light, one must become that light. The personality, our name, our history, our memories, everything that we conceive of as “me, myself,” must die. We must pass through a mystical death, a psychological death. This is what all the great prophets and avatars, all of the Buddhas, have always taught. There can be no resurrection without death. There can be no birth without death.

All of this is represented in this flow of energy down the Tree of Life. The very flow of it, the very emergence of it, is “the breath of God.” When creation exists, when the worlds are suspended in space, it is because “God” has exhaled, and that is why we are here. We are particles floating in “the breath of God.” According to the symmetry of nature, our body itself is an expression, is a microcosm of that great macrocosm.

Just as the universe itself is the exhalation of God and the emergence of something in existence, our physical body is that also. The physical body is in a more rapid rate. Each time we have a physical body, it is a manvantara, a cosmic day, but our individual cosmic day. When death arrives, “God” inhales, and everything that we think we are is taken.

The same happens with a planet. This planet is approaching the end of an exhalation, and “God” is preparing to inhale at this level. This planet will pass through a great transformation, just as it has done at the end of every age. That is why we see the planet trembling, like a leaf on a branch just before the wind takes it. This is the state of our world.

That “inhalation” is a part of the function of nature. In Sanskrit, it is called a Pralaya, a cosmic night. In our physical body, we experience it between one existence and another. We experience a microcosm of it every night. When we lie down to sleep, we pass through a Pralaya where the body is in repose, and the consciousness escapes. Sleep is a microcosm of the period between death and birth.

Unfortunately, we do not have consciousness of these processes. We pass through those states in complete oblivious ignorance. Nonetheless, its possible to become conscious of them. Just as it is possible to become conscious of the state between life and life, between existence and existence, between body and body, it is possible to become conscious of the Pralaya between the existence of one planetary form and another planetary form. It is also possible to become conscious of the great Pralaya between the existence of one galaxy and another galaxy, and so on.

Each transitional state is a “Bardo,” a state of being. There are many such states, so there is a series of “Bardos.”

The great wheel of existence - at every level from an atom to a universe -  is condensed in the letter Iod. Yod represents the great cycle of life. The cycle of life and death is as true for all of existence as it is for a universe, a galaxy, a solar system, a planet, a physical body, a cell, an atom, and for a quanta. A quanta is one “particle” of light. For every single dot, every Iod that is manifested in existence, they are all subject to the laws that condition life.

Yes, life is based on laws, yet we remain ignorant of them. We like to think we can make up our own rules, that we can do whatever we want and there are no consequences, especially if we just act in the mind. We believe we can do whatever we like in our minds, ignoring that the mind that we experience here is but a pale reflection of a level of energy and matter that exists in nature. But we are ignorant of it.

Every action produces a result. This is inescapable, it is infallible, it is the Law. It is one of the only things that exists permanently and forever. In Sanskrit, it is called Karma. Even in the Pralaya, even in the Maha-Pralaya, when “God inhales” and the whole universe is pulled back out and everything reposes into a non-existence, into a great sleep, Karma is still there. The only reason “God exhales” again in a great breath, once more suspending all those particles in space, is because of Karma, because there are forces in motion that must be satisfied and that can only move when matter and energy are in manifestation. This is the Law.

Just as cause and effect perpetuates the existence of matter and energy on a cosmic scale, it is true of your soul, of your body. Death does not end your actions. A physical death is merely a transformation of matter into energy, but that energy will once again become matter because that energy has motion in suspension that must be resolved. Those particles have been propelled, they must act. In modern physics, this is called invariance. It is a law of physics. It is not just physical, it is energetic.

Every thought we have propels energy. Every emotion propels energy. The more we invest our consciousness, our will into thought and emotion, the more we propel that force. No matter what it is, whether the thought is positive, negative, or neutral, all of the mental forms that we have within us are packets of energy that must be resolved.

This is why the Gospels, the Sutras, the Tantras, the Vedas, all of the great documents, enforce again and again the philosophy of ethics. The importance of ethics is the basis of any spiritual life. It is not because someone is trying to impose upon us their moral values. It is because every single motion, whether physical, emotional, or mental, creates a consequence.

If our longing is to return consciously to the highest states of existence (what some call “God”), we have to become one with the Law. We have to be harmonized with those forces that return to those levels. Otherwise, we will return, but without cognizance.

The Living Soul

When God created man, Adam, it says in the bible, in the Book of Genesis or Bereshit, that “God breathed into him the breathe of life and man became a living soul,” in Hebrew this is Nephesh Chaiah.

And Jehovah Elohim formed Adam [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils Neshamah Chaim (the breath of life); and man became a נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah (living soul). - Genesis 2:7

Nephesh is one of the three souls in Kabbalah alongside Neshamah and Ruach. Nephesh Chaiah is a soul that has God alive inside.

חיה Chaiah means “life, living.” We talked about Chaiah in the lecture about ט Teth. Chaiah is life, the force of the Shekinah, the Divine Mother. When Chaiah force illuminates the soul, that person is the “Adam” referred to here: a soul that walks and talks with God, that perceives God.  A Nephesh Chaiah does not believe in God, but knows God. That person has real knowledge, they know.

It is important to remember that the word אדם Adam has many levels of use; it refers to a "man" (a mind) but there are many levels of Adam, from the worst, the sinner Adam (you and me) to the perfect Adam above, who is our Innermost.

Knowledge in Hebrew is דעת Daath. This word Daath is in the book of Genesis also, it is the Tree of Knowledge. But it is not just the Tree of Knowledge, it is Tree of Knowledge of טוב ורע "Good and Evil," “Tob ve Ra.” A more accurate translation would not be good and evil because those words are moral, they are subjective terms, influenced by time and place. “Good” and “evil” as such do not exist; they are mental concepts. What does exist is purity and impurity, and that is what טוב Tob and רע Ra really mean. טוב Tob is Hebrew for “goodness.” רע Ra is Hebrew for “pollution, impurity.”

Any knowledge reflects Tob and Ra. For you to have real knowledge, you have to see the Tob and the Ra, the pure and the impure sides. Otherwise, it is not complete knowledge. For example, we think we have a lot of knowledge, especially materialistic knowledge. We think, we believe, that we are the greatest civilization that has ever existed. How foolish we are, how ignorant. We know is “evil,” Ra, pollution… very well. We are experts in violence. Our planet is a shining example of pollution, in every level of this planet. Not just pollution in the waters, or pollution in the air, or pollution in the earth but pollution in the mind. Our minds are disgustingly polluted. Moreover, we daily indulge ourselves in polluting ourselves more. We love pornography, killing, filthiness. We are worshippers of the impure spirit, רע Ra. This is represented in the Bible, in many stories, and in every scripture in the world. Noah, for example, was warned by God:

And GOD saw that the רע [Ra, pollution or impurity] of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only רע [Ra, impurity] continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. - Genesis 6

Noah is given an Arcanum, a great mystery, that we call "the Ark." We gave several lectures about the Ark and explained the real meaning of it. Because Noah received the Arcanum and was faithful to it, he was preserved, and the rest of humanity was destroyed in a great flood. We see punishment descending upon the impure ones in every scripture. The same will be true of us, with our polluted mind.

Our taste for filthiness creates Karmic consequences which affect not only us but the universe and the planet; it affects everything, and it cannot be sustained. Periodically nature purges impurities, and this is a natural law; it is necessary.

Yet, when we are faithful to the Law (Torah, Dharma), also called the covenant, we receive guidance and protection.

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 'And I, behold, I establish my ברית (Beryath, covenant) with you, and with your זרע (zera, semen) after you...' - Genesis 9:8-9

The Iod represents the covenant, which in Hebrew is ברית Beryath, which is sexual. This is why the covenant ברית is represented in modern Jewish traditions in the ברית Brit or circumcision, called Brit milah (from ברית the same word as covenant), which unfortunately has degenerated into a merely physical ritual.

When the light of the Cosmic Christ unfolds creation, that ray descends as a great force of life: Chaiah. We have discussed many, many times how this process unfolds. That light in its final journey to manifest existence forms all the worlds, all the dimensions, but concludes at the bottom of thise graphic of the Tree of Life, in the sphere Malkuth.

iod-kabbalahIn Hebrew, Malkuth means “kingdom.” The other Hebrew name for this region of nature is Assiah. Assiah means “the world of action,” which refers to the physical world, not only the physical world around us, but our own physical world, our physical body. The Hebrew letter Yod represents Malkuth. Malkuth is the tenth sphere, Iod is the tenth letter.

So you see, Iod is Kether, the first sphere, and Iod is Malkuth, the tenth sphere. If you count from the bottom to the top, ten is Kether. If you count from the top to the bottom, ten is Malkuth. Iod is both Kether the Father, and Malkuth, you and me. Yet, Kether acts through Daath, and Malkuth acts through Yesod, so the Iod encloses two convenants: one above and one below.

Unfortunately, we are in ignorance of that; we lack knowledge of God. We lack the ability to perceive God. Why? Because we left Eden willingly. We decided to abuse the Tree of Knowledge, Daath, and we were separated from Eden. The fact is that we are not in Eden now. We are in the wilderness, in suffering, in pain, ignorant. What we need is religion, but not belief.

The word religion comes from the Latin religare which means “to unite,” and it is related to the Sanskrit root of the word Yoga, Yug, which means “to unite.” Specifically, it means to join with a truth, to merge with reality. This is to abandon ignorance, but one has to want to abandon ignorance, and this is not easy.

To leave ignorance is to acquire knowledge. In Hebrew, Daath means knowledge. Daath is a very mysterious sephirah that appears at the level of the throat on the Tree of Life. It is just below the top triangle, but it is hidden. It is the Tree of Knowledge hidden in the Tree of Life.

The Hebrew word Daath begins with the letter ד Daleth, which is the fourth Hebrew letter. The letter ד Daleth represents a doorway. That doorway is not outside of us, it is within.

The word for the Hebrew letter Iod is spelled יד (Iod-Daleth) or יוד. In the name of this letter is a door, Daleth. Why?

Because (1) Kether is the doorway into existence from the state of non-existence. Kether, the first sphere, is Iod at that level. Kether is a door, and that light emerges into existence through Kether, the doorway of Iod.

Likewise (2) you and I are Iod. We are the world of action, Assiah; we are a door. But passes through us? What is utilizing our doorway? Lust, pride, anger, revenge, jealousy, envy, fear, hate, rape, crime, stealing, covetousness, gluttony, laziness, fanaticism… impurity, Ra. Where is God? Where do we see God acting through us? We do not. We are in ignorance; we are disconnected.

We have ten fingers and ten toes; these represent Iod, the tenth letter. Our ten fingers should be the vehicle, the vessel, the doorway that our Inner Being can use to express himself in the world. But we do not allow him to do it. We are not on the path of Tob, goodness, Chesed, the Being. Instead, we worship all that is impure. We worship lust, pride, fear, envy, gluttony, jealousy, and all the other defects that we love so much.

We as a Iod with our ten fingers should be an instrument upon which God can play his symphony. Like a great prophet or even like an innocent angel, we should be the instrument for our Innermost to play his music, but he cannot, because we do not let him. We prefer to clothe ourselves with our fears, memories, desires, beliefs. We prefer to clothe ourselves with a lie: Avidya, which is Sanskrit for ignorance. We need Vidya, which is knowledge. To acquire knowledge (vidya, daath, gnosis) is possible through Iod. How do we know? Because the Hebrew word “to know” is  ידע Yadah: the word  ידYod with an ע Ayin.

But what do we want to know? When we approach the Tree of Knowledge, Daath, we bring our Iod, us, and we look with Ayin. The letter ע Ayin represents the eyes, how we see. Ayin is the second letter in the word דעת Daath, knowledge. So you see  ידעYadah is the first two thirds of the word דעת Daath, the Tree of Knowledge, the great secret mysteries, the Arcanum, but starting with a י Iod, which is you and me.

We have to seek knowledge, and we all have that longing, otherwise we wouldn’t be studying this information. But unfortunately, we persist in pursuing knowledge in the wrong way. Most people try to stuff the intellect with too much theory, too many ideas, too much analysis, too many concepts. Or we try to stuff ourselves emotionally with beliefs, with wanting to feel like we are part of a real movement or real school, wanting to feel like we are true spiritual people, wanting to feel like we know God. These are forms of ignorance.

The only way you can know God is through the consciousness, not the mind, not through belief, but by awakening, by creating the soul, by becoming a Nephesh Chaiah. This is the only way. In other words, we have to see God, we need to open our spiritual eyes; this is the letter Ayin in Yadah.

We need to awaken our consciousness, to awaken from our state of ignorance. This is not accomplished through theories or belief. We do not knock on the door so that it will be opened unto us through any belief or any theory. No belief can create anything that lives, no theory can create anything that lives, that has Chaiah. Life, Chaiah, comes from God.

The Force of Life

To create the soul, to be born again, is a work of Alchemy. It is a work that is not a theory or a belief, it is a reality. That work can be accomplished through the Tree of Knowledge, through Daath, and that is why we have these mysteries. The one who makes it possible is very controversial because he is also the one who made it possible for us to be in the mess that we are in. That force is represented in the letter Teth, the ninth letter which we talked about in the previous lecture.

Teth is the serpent. The serpent tempted Havah. It is the serpent that manages all the forces of life. This is why in the ancient traditions you will always see serpents on Tree of Life. This is true in Judaism, Christianity, in the Greek mysteries, in the Nordic mysteries, in the Aztec mysteries, everywhere. The serpent, the dragon, is called Nahash in Hebrew.

The serpent flows down the Tree of Life. It is the Ouroboros, that great dragon of nature that bites its own tail and creates the cycle of life. That cycle is Iod, but Iod only exists because of Teth, the serpent.

The word Teth is Teth-Iod-Tav. The Iod is in the middle. The serpent carries in its womb the Iod. The serpent is the one who gives the power to Iod, and this is why it is stated in the esoteric mysteries that without the serpent, God cannot do anything. This is why every prophet works with the serpent.

Moses was watching his people being killed by the serpent because they were abusing the Law, because they created the circumstances for their suffering.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the נחש serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a שרף fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. - Numbers 21

That serpent upon the pole is the Kundalini, Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent, the feathered serpent, the Nahash, the Seraphim, or Seraph. It is the serpent that rises up the Tree of Life, that carries the light of the Shekinah, the light, the fire of the Pentecost, up the Tree of Life, and illuminates all the churches (chakras) and awakens the soul.

The serpent is dual, just as you see how the ע Ayin has two arms; those two represent our two eyes, and they also represent Tob and Ra. In other words, by our use of the serpent we awaken in good or evil, as a prophet or as a soothsayer, as an angel or as a devil.

The serpent is the one who has the power, and that is why Samael rides his serpent. Samael (that “bitter beverage” which is the doctrine) is empowered by the serpent, and rides upon it into Eden in order to question Havah, Eve. But Eve succumbs to desire, falls into temptation, takes from the Tree of Knowledge and corrupts herself. You see? She corrupts herself. This is what we do when through our own Ayin, our own consciousness, we take the energies of life, the fruits of the tree of our knowledge from moment to moment, and we abuse it.

We take all the forces and energies that we receive everyday and we feed desire. We sustain our resentments, we imagine and indulge in our anger and lust, we want what we cannot have, we want respect, money, power, safety, security, love, and yet we do not give them. We want and we want, and we do not give.

The power of this serpent is related with Yesod, the ninth sphere. This is where we find the letter Teth, the serpent. When you superimpose the Tree of Life over your physical body, Teth, Yesod, is related with sex. It is the sexual organs. The word Yesod in Hebrew means “the foundation.” It is the foundation stone of our temple. Our psychological, spiritual temple is built upon Yesod, whether that temple is pure or impure. You see, even the devils rely on Yesod, even the demons, because in Yesod is the power of Chaiah, life: it is the power of sex.

We have learned that the Torah [the Law] is called "covenant." The Holy One, blessed be He, is called covenant and this holy mark, meaning circumcision, is called "covenant." So they are all intertwined and not apart one from another. Rabbi Yesa said to him that Torah and Yisrael are called covenant, and that is fine. But how do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, is called covenant? He replied: Because it is written, "And He remembered for them His covenant" (Tehilim 106:45) and it is well known that the secret of it is Yesod, as we have learned. - Zohar

Everything that exists is born through Yesod, sex, without exception, even the planets, the suns, the stars, the galaxies. They are produced sexually in the same way that minerals, plants, animals, and human beings are made, in the ninth sphere, Yesod. But that sexual creation has different levels and different forms.

What we know as sex is animal, not divine. That is why what we create through our sexual activity is animal, not divine. Nonetheless, we can learn how to use our sexual energy to create divinity, and that is the knowledge of Daath, the ancient secret wisdom hidden in every religion and withheld from humanity because they would abuse it, without question. That is why we were given the secret knowledge and the oaths of chastity: to allow a chance to those who would enter into the path to purity. This is hidden in Kabbalah by the mysteries of circumcision.

The Torah therefore adheres to this COVENANT OF CIRCUMCISION. Whoever keeps this covenant, it is as if he keeps the whole Torah. And he who is false to it, it is as if he is false to the whole Torah. - Zohar

Yet, this is not merely a physical, literal act. Real circumcision is of the energy, not the flesh.

For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. - Romans 2

These teachings have been preserved in secrecy in order to protect them from degeneration, and over the centuries few people have been interested in them. But now, time is up. The age is coming to an end. So the protectors of that ancient knowledge, out of compassion, have opened the doors and said “Behold the Aron (Ark),” the Arcanum, the mysteries of sex. If you take advantage of it and use it, you can restore yourself as a Nephesh Chaiah, a living soul. You can take the advice of Jesus of Nazareth and “be born again of water and spirit” - to be born of the spirit, not of the flesh. You can harness the power of Tantra, the continuum of energy of Chaiah that flows through all of nature but condenses in its most potent, powerful, dangerous force in our physical body as sexual energy.

That energy is the foundation of life, whether that life is physical or spiritual. But one must know how to use it. If one misuses it, one creates a devil. This is what happened to Rasputin. Rasputin knew the knowledge but misused it and created a great devil. This has happened to many people who have misunderstood the doctrine, who have used the sexual energy but not eliminated their desire. The result is they become split personalities, abortions of nature, causes of suffering.

The power of creation is in Yesod. Yesod is spelled יסוד Iod-Samech-Vav-Daleth. These letters have tremendous importance. It begins with Iod, why? Because Iod is the seed, it is the beginning, it is us, it is Kether. The second letter Samech is the serpent. We will talk about Samech in a later lecture. The Vav is the spinal column upon which the serpent must rise. The Daleth is the door. So you see the word Yesod, or foundation, hides the mystery in its letters.Very significantly, the word יסוד Yesod is יוד Iod plus ס Samech. Yesod is the result of the Samech working through the Iod.

Through the door (Daleth) of sex we have energy in our spinal column (Vav), our nervous systems. The ultimate expression of all the energy in our nervous systems is sexual force.

Yet we have a choice of how to use the Tree of Knowledge, whether wisely or stupidly. We tend to use it stupidly. We use sex to feed desire, we use sex as power, we use sex as a drug.

Sex is divine. Sex has been created by God for a reason, yet we are ignorant of it. We who think we are the masters of the universe, who are really just troglodytes in the mud, insects, fail to realize that sexuality is the greatest power that we have. It is the most powerful way we can change life.

Ask anyone who did not plan to have a child but did, especially if they are young, how dramatically life changes after bringing a child into the world. Such person have used that power but directed without will, without consciousness, and look at the changes it makes.

Observe the person who is addicted to sex, who destroys their mind because of their addiction to sexual conquest, or masturbation, or pornography. Those addictions destroy the mind because the sexual energy is atomic power.

Conversely, the opposite is true. All the great Buddhas, Master, saints, prophets, and avatars utilized the sexual energy in the positive way. That is how they became who they became. Jesus became Jesus not by accident. Buddha became the Buddha because of his deep knowledge of the sexual power. That is why he taught Tantra to the students who were prepared for it. He did not teach such knowledge to anyone, but to those who had the strength and purity of mind to handle it.

If we learn to use our sexual power wisely, the serpent becomes our best friend. That serpent previously opened the doors of suffering for us. Our sexual power previously created pain and suffering for us: we have brief moments of pleasure and then lots of suffering after. When that power is controlled, guided, purified, it opens our spiritual eyes, the Ayin in Daath.

In Hebrew, the word for fire is אש Esh, spelled Aleph-Shin. We all have fire within. Every atom in our body is filled with fire, Esh. We have life because have Esh. When we die, the fire is taken out of our body, it decays, it returns to the Earth. When we are born, the Esh manifests. That Esh is the same light that descends down the Tree of Life. That Esh is the Divine Mother, the Shekinah, Kundalini, Kali, Durga, Diana, etc.

The Divine Mother Kundalini is fire. She is not meek. She is not the way many religions have posited God, as a weakling. She, the Goddess, is the force of life itself. She is the flame that illuminates every sun, the flame around which solar systems rotate, in awe of Her.

You see, the solar systems have consciousness, galaxies have consciousness, light itself is consciousness, and even physicists know that now. But all of this light, the Esh that descended into existence, is now beginning its return back. The “inhalation” is beginning, when God is beginning to withdraw those forces on this level - not the whole universe, but this level where we are.

That inhalation is the inhalation of the Aleph, which is the air, and the Shin, which is the fire. When you put the air and the fire together, you have Esh, the fire of the Holy Spirit, the Kundalini.

The Covenant

We do not have that force awakened. In us, it sleeps, it is in repose. It cannot awaken without our action. So we have been given religion, and taught the first steps: be pure, use your energy wisely, help others. This is the teaching:

Not to do evil, to cultivate the good, and to purify the mind. This is the teaching of all the Buddhas. - Buddha Shakyamuni, The Dhammapada

This is the teaching in synthesis.

These three steps are explained as three factors: Death, Birth, and Sacrifice. By performing these three factors from moment to moment, we rise spiritually. Yet, we fail all three daily. We might do a good work every once in a while, but how often do we purify our mind of that which is impure? We should do it everyday. How often do we give birth to new conscious values in ourselves such as humility, charity, sanctity, happiness for others, unselfishness, generosity, diligence, temperance, humility, love? These are rare. Nonetheless, the teachings demand that we perform them daily, constantly, in every moment, because they create results. If we take advantage of those three factors and revolt against our mind, rebel against our impurities, fight against ourselves… God smiles upon us. We receive a great boon, we receive help… a lot of help.

When we look at the scriptures, for example, after God sent the flood, the waters to wipe out all the impure ones, Noah was left and God said to him:

I will make with you a covenant, as long as you are true to this covenant, I will protect you. And I will symbolize this covenant by a rainbow.

This is a very beautiful story, very touching. Noah received the covenant from God and perpetuated it through all the rest of the prophets of the Bible. The great covenant between God and his people, between Ish-Ra-El and Elohim, is Yesod and Malkuth unified.

The hand clasped is Yod.  When you write the letter Yod, it can mean a closed hand; why? Because we need to capture the forces within us, to preserve them, to hold them as holy, as sacred and to protect them. We need to unify Yesod and Malkuth, to return once again to be one sphere. Before the fall from Eden, they were united. Malkuth is a fallen sephirah. But we fell from bliss (Eden). Malkuth descended, and now we suffer. The Yod is the covenant, the science, the agreement of how to unify Yesod and Malkuth, to make them one; what does that mean? It means that Yesod, our sexual force, or vital energy, must be in perfect harmony with Malkuth, our body, and right now it is not, they fight.

Our sexual energy has become corrupted by desire, and we are in a great conflict all the time because that sexual energy wants to express. But because we have desire, desire takes it, desire uses it, our fear uses it, our anger uses it, our envy, our jealousy… but of course, our lust. Not just physically, but in the mind, in the heart.

We perform sexual abuse daily. This means that we abuse the sexual energy psychologically in ourselves. Not just physically, but psychologically, why? Because every action that we perform creates. It uses that energy in a creative way but in the wrong way.

When we think up a dream, a project, and when we begin to imagine “Oh I’m gonna get this job and then I’m gonna make a lot of money and then I’m gonna get famous” and we have all these images that roll through the mind, those images are produced by the sexual force in the body being harnessed by Yesod, the vital body, which directs those forces through the Ethers, which create our imagination, our memory, our perception… not just physically, but in the mind. All those force are being directed, creating, but creating lies, daydreams, fantasies, falsehoods, ignorance. This is why the true Gnostic does not dream. The true Gnostic is awake and does not dream. Of course, such a person is at the level of Buddha, Jesus, not us. We still have those generators in the mind that produce fantasies and illusions, that abuse our sexual force.

This is why we have to learn to meditate. This is why we have to learn observe ourselves, to awaken from moment to moment. In that effort from moment to moment to be awake is to direct all the forces of your Being, but in the right way, to be here and now, to act responsibly, to be a good person, not only outside by inside, this is the most important thing.

In a sense, our external behavior is irrelevant. What matters the most is our internal behavior, because as the Buddha said in the first line of his Dhammapada, we become what we think. If we control the mind, then we become something good. If we do not control the mind, we can act like saints but we will be devils. And there are many people like that who love to think they are spiritual and show themselves as spiritual, but inside, they are terrible. This why Jesus said,

Woe onto ye serpents and hypocrites, vipers, ye clean the outside of the cup but leave the inside filthy.

We are that. Nonetheless, the covenant exists, the agreement, the promise from God. God will not flood the Earth if we are true to the covenant.

The covenant has two main aspects. The first I explained: it is Yesod and Malkuth together, that is Yod. The other aspect is Kether. Kether is the Being of our Being, the root of our root, the Father of our Father, the Crown, the Ancient of Days, the Father who is in secret. Yet Kether works through Daath, knowledge.

So here we see two Yods: one above, one below. Here we see two covenants: one above below.

The Hebrew word for covenant is ברית Beryath, Beth-Reish-Iod-Tav. Baptism represents the entrance into the covenant. When someone receives the baptism - whether it is a Christian baptism, or they go into the Mikvah in the Jewish tradition, or they receive an empowerment or an initiation like Kalachakra Tantra where they receive the sprinklings of water - these are all baptisms. They represent the entrance into a sacred oath. This is a sacrament, a sacred act, that represents the promise of the Nephesh, the soul, which is still an animal soul, to enter into the covenant in order to become a Nephesh Chaiah. In other words, a Nephesh that holds within itself the forces of life, that preserves it, that respects it, that makes it pure. To become Adam once again, to return to Eden, Nephesh Chaiah, a living soul.

In every one of these traditions, originally the penitent one would take an oath, a promise, to not engage in sexual misconduct… in every one of these traditions. Now, this is forgotten. The water of the rituals represents the sexual force, the womb, the waters from which creation emerges. Those waters are a symbol of birth into a new life, a new Chaiah, to receive the purity of that water from above in order to hold it, to preserve it, to sanctify it.

Yet the water holds a secret, because inside of the water is fire. The word water in Hebrew is Mayim, written with two Mems, but in the middle is a Iod. In the midst of the waters is the covenant, the Iod, you and me. We are in the waters of existence. We have in our waters the potential to become something more, but that potential is hidden in the Iod. That potential is called Esh, fire. The fire of life is hidden there.

This is why when the person succeeds and enters into heaven, they enter into Shamayim.

And God called the firmament שמים (Shamayim, Heaven). - Genesis 1

Shamayim is made of מים Mayim, the word for water, but starts with ש Shin which means fire, thus the meaning is “fiery waters.” It is always translated in the Bible as “heaven.”  The fiery waters are the entrance into Eden, bliss.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that to be born again you have to be born of water and spirit; what is that spirit? Ruach Elohim. What hovers above the waters but the air? What is within the waters but the fire, the Esh? In other words, we respect the covenant, we sanctify the covenant, by preserving those energies and utilizing them well.

We create fire, Kundalini, through our action in Assiah, in the body: through action. The fire is generated within. That light which had descended downwards into the body as it final synthesis, when we take the covenant and begin to utilize it, that fire begins to go back but changed, transformed. This is how the Divine Mother awakens, through the covenant. When we harness that force, activate it and awaken it, that אש Esh emerges inside of the covenant, ברית Beryath. What do you spell when you put אש Aleph-Shin in the middle of ברית Beryath? You spell בראשית Bereshit, the very first word of the Book of Genesis, the word of creation, the method to create the soul: Bereshit Barah Elohim. Amazing, isn’t it?

בראשית

If you put the fire in the covenant, you spell Bereshit. If there is no fire in the covenant, there is no life, there is no creation. In other words, for God to create Adam, the living soul, the Nepesh Chaiah, he needs fire. That fire comes through the breath, the Ruach, the Aleph, the breath delivers the fire. That fire is what creates life, Chaiah, Kundalini, spiritual life.

This is how the serpent rises upon the pole. The serpent is the שרף Seraph, which is translated as “the fiery serpent.” Why fiery? Because it is written with Shin, for fire. The Seraph takes the fire (Esh),  and raises it up the spinal column (ו) to God, purified. The result is that Adam is born.

Look carefully here, you see we have two covenants, the one below and the one above, we have the spinal column which is the Vav. The Vav is the Bodhisattva, Tiphereth. Do you know what happens when you unify two Iods and a Vav? You make an Aleph. In other words, when the Human Soul fulfills the convenants and unites them within, the result is a perfect Aleph.

man-living-being

When we have the force of life within us perfectly pure and awakened, we are a Nephesh Chaiah, a living soul. We are Adam, in other words. Yet, the Human Soul, Tiphereth, is only the Human Soul, not God.

arcanum one of the tarot, the magicianא Aleph is the first letter of the name of אדם Adam. The second letter is ד Daleth, which is the doorway. The third letter is ם Mem, which is the water. But that Adam is not you and me, that Adam is Kether. The perfected Adam is the magician of the Tarot, the Inner Being. The perfected Adam is Anatman, the Being of the Being, the Father of the Father, the Ancient of Days. When the fire, the Esh, has been returned fully back to Kether, Kether becomes the magi, the priest, the magician, the fully awakened being, a Buddha, a Dharmakhaya, Vajrasattva, a diamond soul. Even if we accomplish that work adn reach those levels of development, we are not that. This is what has to be understood. We are just a Iod, always just a Iod: a dot, a speck, nothing. It is God who deserves the glory. It is God who receives the initiations. It is God who receives the power. We always are merely his servant. This is why it is ridiculous to hear people calling themselves “this” and “that,” “Holy Guacamole.”

It is absurd to call oneself by titles, to tell others of supposed initiations or degrees of development, because the human person, the terrestrial person, is just that: a vessel, nothing more. The one who is good, the one who is Tob, is God. This is why the Gospel says,

And, behold, one came and said unto [Jesus], “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?”

And [Jesus] said unto him, “Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God.” - Matthew 19

Even Samael Aun Weor, who is a great master, refused to receive such praise. So why is it that we see so many people even in the Gnostic tradition expecting praise? Because of pride, mystical pride.

The one who succeeds in this endeavor fulfills religare, yoga, unites the two covenants, upper and lower into one and becomes א Aleph: Adam, the magician, the priest. This is the purpose and goal, this is how you reach full realization of the Self. What is most beautiful and perhaps most perplexing is that realization of self revels that the self is empty. There is no “I” there. There is no ego, there is no me, there is only Him.

This is why the Buddha taught the doctrine of Anatman, “no being, no self,” because in the root, Kether is only an expression of emptiness (the Absolute, the Void). Kether is something, but nothing. Kether is inexplicable to our mind, and comprehensible only to the one who has experienced that. This is why we emphasize again and again to meditate. Only through meditation can any of this begin to make sense. We have to meditate and meditate and meditate.

Question: [...] do you think the Gnostic student should meditate daily?

Samael Aun Weor: Gnostics should practice meditation at least four or six hours daily, practicing in the morning, in the afternoon, and almost all night, until dawn. This should become our habit during our entire life. Thus, if they proceed that way, they will live a profound life and will Self-realize themselves. Otherwise, they will live a superficial, hollow life, a chronicle life, something—we would say—like a shallow puddle. We know very well that any puddle at the edge of a road is soon dried under the rays of the sun, and thereafter only rottenness is left. Nevertheless, the lakes are very different; they are profound, full of fish and life. We must, therefore, learn how to live profoundly, and this is obtained by means of meditation.

Question: Master Samael, we asked an instructor once how long meditation should last and he answered, “Ten minutes.” What is your opinion regarding this answer?

Samael Aun Weor: Any meditation must last hours: three, four, six hours.

Students think “that’s crazy, who could do that?” The one who can do that is the one who has tasted the truth, who has seen through this illusion of the world, this “Maya.” One who has seen real existence, real individuality, real truth, sees Anatman, non-being. This is in some traditions called the Void; in Sanskrit it is Shunyata.

You can only experience that state when you are out of your ego. Your ego cannot go there, it is impossible. So for us who unfortunately are 97% (more or less) trapped in ego, we have a 3% remaining consciousness but its asleep. We have to awaken that 3%, we have to train that 3%, we have to start freeing ourselves from the ego by destroying te desires, destroying illusions, taking this power of Kundalini, this sacred fire, and using it to destroy “the unbelievers.”

This battle is symbolized in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God promised not to send the flood, but in the covenant gave the fire. That fire is Christ. God says then “I will destroy the impure ones with fire, not water.” Then we see all of the degenerates in Sodom and Gomorrah performing sexual degeneration (like now), and God sends the fire and burns them. This is what we have to do in ourselves.

That power is the power of Durga, Kali Ma. This is Athena with her spear in her hand. The spear is the spinal column that is enflamed with pure fire. She has the power to kill Medusa. Only the Divine Mother has the power to destroy the ego, because she is Binah. She is Shakti, the energy and fire of God, which is the spouse of Shiva. Shiva-Shakti unite and in their union is the power to create or destroy.

We either can create more egos in hell or we can create soul. If you create egos in hell, you destroy the soul. To create the soul in heaven, you destroy the ego. Simple to say it, not to do it. To do it is very difficult, and that is why all the great heroes descended into hell to redeem their beloved: Orpheus, Aeneas, Heracles, Jason, Odysseus. All the great heroes have to go into the worst imaginable realm, which is their own mind, in order to save Persephone, Helen, Beatrice… the soul, Eurydice.

We have to do that, too. We have to take the fire (Esh) in the forge and create our armaments, which are the soul, the golden body, the Sahu, the Merkabah. Once armored, we have to enter the Second Mountain. Only the Bodhisattvas can do this, those who are on the direct path. They have created the soul, the solar bodies, the golden bodies, the wedding garment. They enter into hell to liberate that level of hell and gain access to the corresponding level of heaven, nine times: nine heavens, nine hells. Upon completing all of this, they die in order to resurrect, to become perfect like our Father in heaven who is perfect. This is a great work and every step is painful, every step is bitterness, because we have to pay what we owe. In the end, we return to Eden, but better, with knowledge, with Mastery.

In this way, we fulfill all the prophecies, we fulfill the covenant, we empower our Innermost, we fulfill the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to completely conquer suffering, to become a Dharmakaya, the perfect Buddha, which is not us, but the Being. Then, we become his exponent, his voice, his vessel. It is possible if you have the willpower to do it.

Questions and Answers

Audience: When you say the Master talked about meditation for 4 to 6 hours a day or 2 hours a night. Well obviously we have to keep observing ourselves throughout the day, comprehending ourselves, it’s a daily physical action I would think, upright actions, upright feelings and thoughts. Then we get to this concept of doing whatever we want during the day and then we sit down for meditation, where in reality we have to observe ourselves constantly.

Instructor: Yes, you are right: meditation cannot exist if there is no consciousness of oneself. In order to meditate, we have to be in a continual state of conscious awareness. That is all the time, 24 hours a day, even when you are sleeping, when you are going to the bathroom, when you are eating, whatever you do: be conscious of what you do and expand consciousness of what you do. That takes a lot of effort, especially for us because the consciousness is very weak and we are surrounded by distractions, by things that stimulate our desires. If we take advantage of our current circumstances, it actually is the most tremendous opportunity you can imagine. This is why many, many souls are coming from other places to incarnate here to advantage of those forces. It might sound strange, but it is true. There are incredible forces here that we can take advantage of. That is the basis of Tantra: to harness everything and use it for good. This is why great masters like Padmasambhava did things that to our terrestrial eyes look wrong or controversial. But such a great master has a kind of vision that sees far beyond our terrestrial subjective morality. He could see the karma.

For us to really meditate, we have to be in a state of meditation all the time, not just for a few minutes a day; that is really fruitless. The effort to meditate starts right now. If you really want to transform yourself, you should be meditating now, even with your eyes open, active, walking around - you should always meditating, reflecting upon yourself, watching yourself, subduing your mind, with your consciousness active, attentive, watching.

Then, when you have the time, anytime, you sit, close your eyes, and go deeper. This is simply an extension of what you have already been doing all day. There is no difference in the action of your consciousness, except you close your eyes and you retreat from all physical sensation, but the activity of your consciousness is the same. In that way, you can see that meditation is very easy. People complicate it with a lot of theories, a lot of complicated ideas, a lot of beliefs, but it is all “hogwash.”

Meditation is simple because it is the natural function of the consciousness. The natural function of the mind itself, the consciousness itself, is to be in a state of reflection, is to see.  This is why the letter Ayin is in Yadah, “to know,” and why the Ayin is in Daath, “knowledge.” Ayin represents the open eyes of the consciousness, the soul.

If you want to learn how to meditate, start right now: pay attention, observe yourself deeply, continually, and never stop. One day you will discover suddenly that you have entered a state of Samadhi. You will be astonished at how easy it is, and how sad it is that so many people do not understand it. To enter there simply takes proper effort. It is not complicated. Nonetheless, to reach that experience takes a lot of work, and is not contingent upon time. No one can say that you will reach Samadhi in six months or a year or two years. Samadhi not based in time, it is based in awakening. You could have Samadhi today. You can have Samadhi with your eyes open. The great masters exist that way, in a continual state of Samadhi.

The more ego you eliminate, the more easily you will access it. As you create the bodies of the soul, the more easily you will access it. The more Kundalini is awakened, the more easily Samadhi will spontaneously occur, naturally, on its own. Samadhi cannot be forced, because it is the natural state of the mind. You cannot force a tree to grow; we try, and we make monsters.

Samadhi is a natural function. Samadhi is that state of consciousness within which there is no ego. It is pure soul and it is beautiful. It is the natural state of our existence, something that we should have with us all the time… but we do not because we left it.

Audience: How do we know if have awakened the solar bodies and the soul?

A: How do you know if you have created the solar bodies and the soul? Well, the soul is the solar bodies. You will know because you can use them. Or, you will know because your Innermost will tell you. No outside person can tell you “Oh, hey you have made your astral body, good for you.” No. No one can come to you and say, “I saw you in my experience and you have conquered the fourth initiation.” These are lies used to cheat the naive. Do not be naive. Do not trust anyone but your Innermost. You can only know such things if your inner Being tells you, and not just once, but many times, because your ego will also try to cheat you. Your ego can come to you in a dream or experience clothed like God and say, “You are the great prophet such and such, go and be my vessel,” and then we wake up and say “I’m a great master now.” Thousands of people have fallen victim to this illusion, and they are falling victim today, and they will fall victim to it tomorrow, because they are naive and their pride is seduced by the devil.

The true Bodhisattva never praises himself. The true master never praises himself. The true master is humble, genuinely and sincerely, without faking. He or she is humble because he knows who God is and he knows who he is: a human being, and nothing more. These is the words of Samael Aun Weor, not my words.

When you have the soul created, you will know it because your Innermost tells you. Moreover, you do not need to tell anyone because its nobody’s business, only yours and God’s. All those that go around boasting about having bodies or initiations are proud fools who create suffering for themselves and others. We should not encourage that kind of behavior. We have to encourage humility, silence.

Samael Aun Weor said “The one who wants to become a magician (Aleph), has to know how to be silent, how to abstain, how to suffer, and how to die.” If we are not performing those four, we are not working in the right way.

Audience: Does every planet pass through the stage in which humanity suffers tremendously with the percentage of ego that we have right now?

Instructor: The phase of development that we are in, which is the fifth race in the fourth round of the terrestrial round related to physical matter, is a universal experience for every planetary humanity. That much, yes, every humanity experiences. But to have this much ego, no. This planet is very unusual. It is distinct because of a whole set of complications and problems that happened which created these karmic circumstances. This is why there are a lot of intelligences who are investigating this planet to try to understand what happened here. Many people call them “extraterrestrials” and they see things and imagine many things, but these visitors are just trying to understand why this planet is so corrupted. They are trying to help us, but unfortunately we shoot rockets at them and make movies about how evil they are.

No, this planet is unique. It is very sad, but this karma is specific to us.

Audience: During this lecture you mentioned several times memories and I know Samael Aun Weor in The Revolution of the Dialectic said that there are egos that are associated with, that are lined to memories. But I was wondering, it didn’t strike me that the memories themselves were the egos but rather maybe something that attaches us to them. Is that true?

Instructor: Memory is an encryption of energy. That encryption is created by a certain vessel or vehicle. In us, because we are comprised mostly of ego, most of our memory is egotistical. Yet, we also have a conscious memory which is a repository of objective knowledge, but most of it we do not have access to because we are asleep. So usually when we look into our mind and recall memories, they are projections or encryptions of imagery and energy related to particular egos. You can know that this is true when you observe how those memories change.  Have you noticed that? Through your life as you start reflecting, you look back on memories, there are differences, there are changes in what we remember.  Sometimes we are not sure, “Was it this way or that the way? How did that really happen?” Then we get confused. That is the nature of subjective memory related to the ego. Those egos are alive, and they filter and continually modify the memories in order to feed themselves, in order to “make their case.”  So we may have had an experience when we were young that was strong or traumatic, and later in life, even later that day, we start remembering it differently. And the next day and the day after and the year after, even if we start telling the story, the memory changes. We start to make it more dramatic, more intense, we add things, we change things, these are all subjective, they are lies.

Real memories are another thing. Real memories are conscious, objective, and unchanging, because they are facts. Yet to acquire real memories, you have to awaken your consciousness. All of that you will sort out in meditation.

Audience: You mentioned that we’re the fifth race in the fourth round which I guess the fourth round would be Yesod, correct? Because we’ve fallen from Yesod to Malkuth, or has all of Malkuth fallen from Yesod? Should there be nine sephira or just us, we’re in Malkuth when we should be in Yesod?

Instructor: The descent into the terrestrial level of existence, that dimension, is natural, normal. It marks the bottom most point for that light as it descends into matter. It hits the physical level and begins its return back up.

The problem that happened here was that it happened out of balance, out of sequence, because of the emergence of the ego, because of desire. When humanity fell, this was a psychological and spiritual process that accelerated the physical one. The descent physically was changed here because of the psychological and spiritual karma, the result of those actions.

I don’t know if you’re following what I’m pointing at. The process is normal for Yesod and Malkuth to separate and then later they are to be rejoined, that is normal. But in our case, it is extreme.

Audience: Can you clarify, you talked about Samadhi as almost an ending that we want to achieve but there are schools and monks that readily just meet Samadhi but do not work on ego. Samadhi is not really the final destination, you don’t want to get stagnant there.

Instructor: You have to understand that there are levels of Samadhi. The consciousness is a great ladder (Jacob’s ladder). Samadhi is a general term that refers to a whole series of states of consciousness, not just one; it is an vast range of states. A meditator in any tradition is trained how to access Samadhi; that is their basic training. If you do not access Samadhi (or whatever they may call it), then you are not successfully trained in that tradition. Nonetheless, that is only the prerequisite. It is only after you have learned to access that state of consciousness, that then you can effectively begin to work on yourself.

And as you mentioned, many students do not learn to effectively work on themselves; they only access Samadhi, hang out there for a little while, and then go back to their body. This is fruitless. It is nice, but it does not change their essential situation, because it does not modify their karma. Their karma is the ego, it is all that desire in the mind and unless that is removed, their fundamental situation will be unchanged. Some of them believe that remaining in that state purifies their mind, but this is mistaken. It is similar to believing that if you travel to China and stand around, you can learn Chinese. No: to eliminate the causes of suffering, you have to comprehend them. In order to comprehend them, you have to investigate them very deeply. It is not enough to simply enter into a state of Samadhi: you have to use it wisely.

Every tradition has had the keys and knowledge in order to eliminate the ego. Zen Buddhism, Chan Buddhism, Mahayana and even the Sutrayana schools, they all have that knowledge, but most of them have forgotten it or corrupted it. Even in the Christian and Jewish traditions it was there, in the Aztecs it was there, the Mayans had it, the Nordics had it, everybody had it.

But nowadays, nobody is interested in working on the ego. What people want now is just to experience pleasant sensations. Most meditators just want to experience pleasant sensations. That is not liberation. Liberation comes from the death of the ego. Samadhi just a state of consciousness, it is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is something else, far beyond, it is very high, permanent Samadhi, that occurs spontaneously because the causes of suffering are gone.

To be fully awake, to be fully enlightened, is to have the ego one hundred percent dead: no karma, no debts, a soul that is fully liberated from the wheel of suffering. This is very difficult to accomplish.

Audience: You mentioned the Demiurge, is it the same as the Abraxas?

Instructor: Is the Demiurge the same as the Abraxas? Yes, they represent the same fundamental force of nature. As I mentioned, the Demiurge is the spirit between God and creature, it is that creative craftsman or architect who organizes creation. The Abraxas represents that. The Abraxas is the ancient Gnostic symbol that has the head of a rooster, carries a shield and sword, and has the legs of serpents. Those two serpents are the polarities of the fire, the serpent below and the serpent above.  It is the same as Lucifer, the bearer of light.

Audience: I’m looking at Yod and I see Yod in every single character that there is, can you tell more about that?

Instructor: Yes, the Yod is the basis of every letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The Yod is the beginning of entrance into manifestation. This is where all the letters emerge from Kether. All the letters come out and form the Tree of Life, which is the letters.

So every Hebrew letter is a variation of Yod. The Vav is a Yod extended, the Aleph is three Yods, the Shin is three Yods. Samech, Teth, a Yod in motion. They’re all the same. Nonetheless, the Yod is just all of those forces in potential, like us. We are not soul yet, we are embryo, a seed, the essence. For the soul to be there we have to take all those archetypes, the potentialities that are within us, and elaborate them, to grow them. That is why the Yod represents the beginning of the covenant. It is not the completion of it. The completed covenant is ת Tav, the last letter. And the Tav is the last letter of בראשית Bereshit. That is the end of creation; Bereshit ends in Tav. Tav is the twenty-second letter, the end of the alphabet; it is the seal, the stamp, the covenant, the completed work.