Aries

Welcome. I am happy to welcome you to the beginning of our course on Gnostic Astrology. To begin, it is always helpful to understand the context of our studies. As you know, we will be discussing the science of Gnosis, and as many of you know, this term gnosis is Greek and refers to knowledge. It is the root of many words that we use in common, everyday language, such as "diagnosis."

The term gnosis does not refer to a simple intellectual form of knowledge or any kind of cultural or traditionally inherited knowledge, but instead it refers to a perceptible, experiential form of knowledge, something that is individual, something that is unique. Real Gnosis is not theoretical: it is one's own experience, it is one's own reality, it is the truth.

We all have Gnosis to some level, to some degree, because we have some degree of consciousness, and in truth, Gnosis is the science of consciousness. To understand what Gnosis is, we must recognize what the consciousness is, and to work with the science of Gnosis is to work with one's own consciousness.

From another point of view, we can say there are two doctrines that exist in the world: the doctrine of the eye and the doctrine of the heart.

The doctrine of the eye, related to the physical eye, is that collection of theories, collection of ideas, it is all the beliefs and traditions, all of the varying interpretations of spiritual knowledge. And as you know as an investigator of spirituality, the theories are as varied as the human beings themselves, and one theory will contradict another, and it is difficult to find any real truth.

But in the doctrine of the heart we find the experiential knowledge, the doctrine of Gnosis, the doctrine that one grasps through one's own effort. This type of doctrine, the doctrine of the heart, is not a cultural, it is not found in a book, it is not found in any school, nor in any religion. The doctrine of the heart exists within yourself, within your own heart. Residing in the depths of your own heart is a spiritual flame, a spark, which in Western traditions is called the Atom Nous. It is called an "atom" because of its relative size, not because it is a physical atom. The Atom Nous is a sort of architect, a kind of intelligence that resides in the heart of every humanoid, and it is from this atom within the heart that the Doctrine of the Heart can be discovered and learned.

When we approach the study of Gnosis, we have to bear in mind that if we limit ourselves to merely a theoretical analysis we will never grasp it, we will never find it. We will find only complication and contradiction, because theories always contradict other theories, and in this physical formation that people call "Gnosis" there are contradictions, but those contradictions are a matter of appearances: they are a matter that has to be comprehended in the consciousness. And the reason behind that is that the Heart Doctrine - or true Gnosis - is individualized as the Christ becomes individualized, as the Krestos, that Divine Intelligence, becomes individualized, and in that individualization the knowledge applies to the level of that aspirant, of that initiate. What is appropriate and good for an aspirant or an initiate at a certain level has to be abandoned by one at a higher level. Therefore, the one who limits his study to the intellect will perceive two contradictory instructions that apply to two different levels of development, and they will enter into conflict. The synthesis or the answer to that is to discover Gnosis inside of oneself, for oneself.

Gnosis demands exactly what the Buddha taught:

As the wise test gold by burning, cutting and rubbing it,  So, bhikshus, should you accept my words -- after testing them, and not merely out of respect.

You have to live these teachings, you have to apply them in your moment to moment existence, otherwise they have no purpose.

We can say that Gnosis, this doctrine of the heart, is directed towards the expansion of our self-knowledge. To "know oneself" is to gather Gnosis of the truth of life and death of reality. This is not something to be taken lightly; the fact is that death awaits everyone of us. None of us know when the moment of our death will arrive; it could be today, it could be in the next matter of hours, and that comprehension, that recognition, is important because it provides a foundation for us to manage our attention, to manage our will, to not be distracted. Some traditions in the West have this phrase "Memento Morte," "remember death." The purpose behind that is to always be mindful of the present moment, and when we are mindful and present and observant of ourselves, we are standing in the door of Gnosis.

Gnosis as a Science and as an Art does not exist in the past, nor does it exist in the future. The only way to enter into and access Gnosis, or experiential knowledge, is in the present moment, and to do that, to acquire that, requires discipline, it requires effort, but most of all it requires consciousness, to be conscious, to be attentive, to be aware.

This refers to one of the foundational teachings in this doctrine of the heart, which says that there are two lines that exist in life. There is the horizontal line that moves from birth through all the experiences we can have in life, to death. That line moves steadily in accordance with our Karma, in accordance with our karmic values, positive and negative, which are within us. Most of humanity remains on this line in ignorance, in confusion, in darkness, and this is because there are in truth four levels, roughly speaking, to the capacities of human consciousness.

If you can imagine a building that has four floors, most human beings (what we call "human beings") live the entirety of their time within a physical body on the bottom two floors and have no idea about the other two.

The first level, the bottommost level, is what we commonly call "sleep," but in this case we would say this really refers to the sleep of the physical body. And this state is when we need to rest and we lie down; the physical body goes to sleep and the consciousness leaves the physical body and we begin to dream. In our own experience as an individual person, as one humanoid entity, what is our own experience of dreaming? This is a key factor of great importance in your life because it indicates your own conscious capacities. Most people do not remember their dreams or if they do, the dreams are very vague or sporadic and the ones they remember obscure, incoherent, and this is because the consciousness is weak, conditioned, trapped.

The second state of consciousness is what we call the "vigil state" and it is when our physical body is active, moving around, doing things, but, according to the heart doctrine, according to Gnosis, this is really just another level of sleep. And all of the great masters and prophets, teachers have said so. Jesus repeatedly emphasized that we are asleep, so did Buddha, so did Moses, so did Quetzlcoatl. All these great teachers point out to us that our consciousness is asleep. We think we are awake and this is the problem. We believe that we are awake because we perceive and act and we think that is equivalent to being awake, but it is not.

The Four States of Consciousness

An awakened consciousness is something distinct, something different. The consciousness itself is the ability to perceive. It is perception, but it is not perception limited by the five senses. The consciousness can perceive more than merely the physical dimension, which is what we correspond to this second level of consciousness.

Many people have experiences of becoming very conscious and very awake in a dream, when the physical body is asleep. This is so commonplace that it cannot be ignored, and it in fact indicates precisely that the consciousness is not dependant upon the physical body. It is a separate entity, it is an entity which inhabits the physical body when it is necessary to do so, and when the physical body is discarded either at night when we sleep or at death (the great sleep), the consciousness moves to some other vehicle in order to operate. There are many vehicles that the consciousness can utilize, and it can even act without vehicles of any kind if it is trained.

When we are dreaming, the consciousness is inhabiting what we call the "Astral Body," but in fact it is a protoplastmatic lunar body whose very particles belong to nature and whose core is karma. It is, in fact, the ego. That is why our dreams commonly, typically, are mere manifestations of desire, whether craving or aversion, whether desires of craving things or desires to avoid things. Most dreams manifest from this fundamental pendulum of craving and aversion.

The consciousness can be trained to be awake while the physical body sleeps. Some people call this "lucid dreaming" or "out of body experiences." In the East, they call it Dream Yoga, which is one of the four yogas that Naropa taught. This science of Dream Yoga is an integral part of the Heart Doctrine of Gnosis because it is concerned directly with awakening the consciousness in the first level, when the physical body is sleeping.

But we also have to awaken the consciousness in the second level when the physical body is active. We commonly call this mindfulness, watchfulness, attentiveness, and we have practices of meditation whether walking or sitting, practices of concentration, Japa, many different types of techniques, the use of mantra or prayer, all of which exist in order to assist us as we train our attention. The training has as its purpose the development of the consciousness, the ability of the individual to maintain continuous consciousness. The difficulty is we feel we are already conscious. Why would someone try to get something they already think they have? This is the problem.

In truth, in the same way that the stars are not visible during the day, dreams are still there, we just don't see them. But when we learn how to observe, to start the process, to learn the science of Self-observation, to be present from moment to moment, to remain watchful of everything that passes within our own psyche, we can begin to see the shocking truth of the dreaming mind; that this mind that we have continues dreaming all day long. Obviously, we have daydreaming, which everyone is familiar with, but dreaming is something that is happening all the time, below our awareness. We say in Gnosis that our consciousness extends only to a small part of who we really are and the purpose that we have is to expand that, to extend that, to become more conscious of ourselves, to know more about why we suffer.

Why do we suffer? Why are there so many problems? Why do we make ourselves suffer so much? Why do we make others suffer so much? Because of ignorance, because of craving, because of aversion. These three aspects, these three causes are symbolized in the very center of the Bhavachakra, the Wheel of Samsara. You see there a pig, a rooster, and a snake. These three symbolize three destructive factors that keep us trapped in this wheel of suffering: ignorance, craving, and aversion. Gnosis is the method, the science, to train the consciousness to perceive the causes of suffering which are within and in that way to begin to conquer them.

Consciousness in itself is light. Wherever you find light, you find consciousness. To the great astonishment of modern scientists, they are proving this. If you have done any investigation into quantum mechanics, modern physics, you'll know what I am referring to. Scientists are amazed to discover that consciousness is far more than what they thought it was.

In Universal Gnosticism, it has long been taught (just as the Buddha taught) that every atom in nature has consciousness. Every atom is a combination of three parts: energy, matter, and consciousness. This is why scientists have been unable to create atoms, because they cannot manipulate the conscious aspect. They can manipulate matter, but that is all. The management of the consciousness belongs to the one who has consciousness developed, in other words, what our forefathers called the "Gods."

The Gods were human beings, human beings who developed themselves and became perfect, like Jesus, like Buddha. We call them "Gods" because they have powers that the terrestrial human cannot even conceive, but which lay dormant, nestled within our very atoms, within our very structure. All our spiritual traditions exist in order to indicate and point the way for each person to develop that on their own, inside. In other words we seek light, to become a transmitter of light, to emit light, but light is consciousness, perception, reality.

This is not a theory, this is not an idea: this is palpable, this is something you have to taste, you have to experience. You have to create the causes which produce the effects. Believing in it will not help you, rejecting it will not help you. One has to experiment, to work.

To awaken the consciousness is to accumulate light, to begin to see new things. The doorway to that is the third state of consciousness. The third state is what we call Self-remembering; but the Self is the Real Self, the Being, the One who Is, our own Spirit, our own Sather, our own God, our own Divine Mother: the divinity that rests within us and that has given us existence, but whom we have forgotten.

The third state of consciousness is a state of active, expansive perception, from moment to moment. If your consciousness is passive, you are asleep. To be active means to be under the active guidance of attentive will, that is: you are consciously choosing what you perceive and how you perceive it. This does not require thought, it does not require belief, it has nothing to do with theory: it is an activity, an action, which has to be provoked, produced by will from moment to moment. And this is why spiritual aspirants learn concentration practices, how to follow a mantra, how to visualize, how to imagine. These are training exercises. They are preliminary exercises, which develop the capacity to remain in the third state of consciousness.

Meditation is the most potent tool for the development of the third state of consciousness - but by meditation I am not referring to preliminary concentration practices. I am referring to Pratyahara, to Dhyana, to Dharana, to Samadhi: to the levels of perception which exist beyond mere concentration. Concentration is the beginning; meditation is the door itself.

In that state of observation, one comes to recognize that the consciousness exists separate from the intellect, separate from feelings, separate from sensations. These three realms are what we call the Three Brains, which exist within every intellectual humanoid.

The Three Brains are:

1. The intellect, related to thoughts and ideas and theories
2. The emotional center, the emotional brain related to feelings whether good or bad, liking and disliking
3. The motor instinctual sexual brain, related to sensation, to instinct and to the functionalism of the sexual energy

These three brains are all transmitters and processors of energy, each one having its distinct purpose and function. The consciousness is separate from those three, but in us it is weak and the consciousness is tossed about in this mess of craving and aversion as our dreams, as our desires, process through our Three Brains all night long and all day long, with the end result that the energy, the light, is processed through our three brains in a harmful way. In other words, we are victims of our own mind.

We have pride within, we have anger, we have lust, we have fear, we have envy, gluttony, laziness, many defects, many problems, many mistakes, so many in fact that in the gospels they are called "the legion." In the Egyptian mysteries, they are called the Red Demons. They are a multitude. They do not exist outside of us: they are inside, and they trap the consciousness.

By learning how to access and sustain the third state of consciousness, this profound, active, attentive state, we can begin to perceive those dreams, those desires, as they arise. We begin to perceive: "Oh here comes this resentment against my friend, which wants me to be critical and sarcastic and get revenge for something they said to me." If we are consciously attentive, we can say no to our mind. "I am tired of suffering and I am tired of making people I love suffer." So we can directly deal with that desire and conquer it. If not, we will continue to act mechanically, manipulated by all these hidden, sub-conscious, unconscious, and infra-consciousness desires. We are like puppets, like marionettes, manipulated by our own mind, by our own karma. This is the sad state of humanity.

Fortunately, there is a cure; there is an answer. The answer cannot be bought, there is no magic bullet, and there are no promises. The answer requires more energy and effort than you can possibly imagine. It requires your very life: the price is your life. The answer is to awaken.

You may recall that after the Buddha Shakyamuni had attained his comprehension, his enlightenment, he was approached by a Brahman, who, seeing that the Buddha was unusual, asked him, "Are you a man?"

The Buddha answered, "No."

"Are you a God?"

The Buddha said, "No."

The Brahman asks, "Then what are you?"

And the Buddha replies, "I am awake."

Any Buddha, Angel, or Master was once like us.

Humanity is a womb within the body of the Divine Mother Nature. This womb is receiving influences, forces, energies, in order to gestate something, to generate the birth of something. There are two potential outcomes: Angels or demons. If you survey our current state of humanity, what would you say is the most common outcome?

We are not saying that demons are what we classically imagine, like people in red suits with pitchforks. The true definition of a demon is an entity which is divorced from God, which is completely separated, in other words: which has no conscience. Such a creature is able to commit extreme acts of harm and not regret it. They hurt others and feel good about that: this is a demon in Gnostic terms, and the world is filled with them.

An angel is pure of desire.  An angel is not afraid.  An angel is not lustful or proud.  An angel does not have anger, or gluttony, or jealousy, or envy.

To become a demon is easy, very easy. A demon can pray and be religious, a demon can walk the streets like any person, can buy and sell and have children.  A demon can also awaken consciousness, a demon can meditate, a demon knows many sciences that are esoteric. A demon knows many things that the common man does not. The difference is that the demon remains enslaved to desire.

Therefore, how do you see humanity going? I am not asking what you want to believe, I am asking you to see humanity as it is.

So this womb within the Divine Mother Nature is encircled by many forces acting upon it. The one we have gathered to discuss is the Zodiac. Twelve rays, twelve stellar influences, which descend and provide light, in other words consciousness, elements, influences.

Where does that light come from? Where does our own consciousness come from?

In the Kabbalah, we understand that at the root, at the base of all things, is emptiness, the nothing, the Ain. This nothingness is beyond concept.

From that nothingness, from within it, emerges a light, which is called the Ain Soph. Ain Soph means "limitless light." The Ain Soph is the Being of our Being, our own inner star, a drop of that vast nothingness.

That drop extends itself and projects a light, a ray, which in Hebrew is called the Ain Soph Aur. Gurdjeff called it the ray of Okidanokh, the Aztecs call it Queztcoatl, in Sanskrit it is called Avalokitveshara, in Tibetan they call it Chenrezig, in English we call it Christ.

This light, the cosmic Christ, the light of the world, is the root of existence, the root of light, the root of life, the root of all things. It is not a person: it is an energy, a force, an intelligence.

That ray, the light itself, has three aspects. In the Pistis Sophia, these are called the three Amens. In Greek, they are the Three Logos (Logos means "word"). We are studying Astrology, Astro-Logos, or in other words, the Word in relation to the stars, in relation to the heavens. The Three Logos, the Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a trinity, a tri-unity, a three in one, which in Hebrew are Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. These three as one are the Cosmic Christ itself, they are God, the Father. These three are what give rise to the Kabbalistic world of Aziluth, which is the world of Archetypes. These Three are the root of all manifestation; they are the first manifestation.

When we look at these three individually, we see Kether, which means "the crown" in Hebrew. Kether is a state of pure becoming. Think about that. As this energy unfolds and emanates out of the nothingness, the first manifestation is a state of pure becoming. From this you may begin to grasp why the third state of consciousness is the doorway, because that third state of active, attentive awareness is a state of pure becoming when we perfect it. It is that means through which we can receive the influences and guidance of God. This is the doorway to the vertical line, the line of Being.

Being as a verb is active, it is present. "To be or not to be" is a very esoteric statement. Shakespeare was of course an initiate who knew Gnosis. "To be or not to be;" to be asleep or to be awake. When one learns how to be, to be present, to be attentive, to abandon the stale process of thinking, to abandon the identification with subjective emotion, to abandon the enslavement of sensations, one can Be. Therein lies peace, knowledge, understanding.

Through the doorway of the third state, when we become actively attentive and aware, our own inner God then has a direct connection to assist us. That connection is multi-faceted, but it has as its primary venue what Descartes called "the seat of the soul," the pineal gland, which is in the center of the brain. The pineal gland is in charge of our endocrine system. It is that mysterious and beautiful leader that manages our metabolism, which manages melatonin, manages our process of sleep; this is key. The pineal gland manages the sleep of our physical body, it produces drowsiness - not only that, the pineal gland is made of the same tissue as your eyes. The pineal gland is the Third Eye: the pineal gland is the root of clairvoyance. It is the gland that is activated in meditation. When you close your eyes and see darkness now, then when the pineal gland becomes active and enflamed with the fire of the Holy Spirit with the fire of Christ, you close your eyes and you see light, you see the superior aspects of all things.

The pineal gland is governed by Aries, is influenced by Aries. The symbol of Aries is the Ram. A Ram is a male sheep who has not been castrated, meaning that a Ram has all of his masculine forces intact. He is virile, he is dominant, he is strong. And of course the Ram figures significantly in most of our world religions. Why? Why is Christ called the lamb of God? Why is the blood of the lamb so significant in Christian Mythology? Because Aries is a sign of fire. It is a sign of strong, positive forces.

When we are in the womb of nature, when our spark of essence enters into manifestation, into a body, we receive this influence of Aries amongst the other eleven. Our own Being, our own inner God, the deepest levels, the Ain Soph, projects from itself another level, which we call the Spirit. This is the second triangle on the Tree of Life, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth. This is what we call the Monad, which means Unity. The Monad is our own spirit which has three aspects.

The Monad also emits from itself another triangle, which is our soul, the human soul, which is made up of Netzach, Hod and Yesod; this lower triangle on the Tree of Life. Emerging from that triangle is our own physical body, which is symbolized here by Malkuth, the lowest sphere on the Tree of Life.

The spark of consciousness that we have is like a baby. It has evolved, it has grown through countless manifestations in lower forms of matter. Evolving up through the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms and through each level gathering influences, understanding and guidance and becoming gradually more sophisticated. Evolving from a simple mineral to a plant to more sophisticated forms of plants, to animals, to more sophisticated forms of animals until finally having become sophisticated enough, it enters into the humanoid kingdom, and receives a humanoid body, which is the most beautiful creation of nature; this physical organism which is so incredibly sophisticated that we have a scant notion of what lies within it.

That essence, the consciousness, revolves, it maintains itself. It is an energy, which as you know cannot be destroyed. That energy simply takes new bodies, one after another, for a specified period of time according to a cycle of evolution. Through those bodies successively that conscious spark is receiving influences from nature.

According to the esoteric doctrine of Buddhism, we have the teaching of the Buddha's Necklace that we see symbolized in some wheels of Samsara by not the centermost wheel, but just outside of it. You see a cycle of human bodies evolving up and devolving down. The number 108 signifies the number of existences each essence is allotted in the humanoid kingdom. We have 108 opportunities to gather Gnosis, to gather knowledge, to perfect ourselves. Those 108 lives are equivalent to nine existences in each of the twelve signs. In other words, our consciousness passes through each sign of the zodiac in its progression, in its development. We have within ourselves those influences, the elements, the knowledge, the potentialities.

To look at this from another angle, we can see how the Tree of Life is related to the four worlds of Kabbalah, and as our essence descends through each of those successive worlds, or those successive trees, we are also receiving influences. Firstly from our own ray, the Ain Soph gives rise to that first becoming of Kether, Chokmah, Binah. That ray, that three-in-one, is modified by the law of seven, the seven spirits before the throne, the seven archangels. Those seven permeate our consciousness with influences, potentialities; these are the seven virtues of the soul; humility, chastity, love, temperance, happiness for others. These potentialities for virtues are placed there by the cosmic intelligences which manage those seven rays. They do this through Daath, the hidden sphere, through a creative process related to the throat.

If you analyze this tree and you place it over the human organism, from top to bottom, Daath, the hidden sphere, or in other words the Tree of Knowledge from the Bible, is exactly at the throat. So when God creates, He says, "Let there be light" - this is through the throat, through the Word, through the Logos, the sacred word.

When the forces of the seven rays are placed into that essence, it descends further and receives influences from the twelve, the macrocosmic zodiac or that stellar zodiac that we observe in the sky. Every one of those suns has within it an intelligence; everything in nature is intelligent. Every atom, likewise every planet has an anima-mundi, a spirit, a soul, an intelligence. In other words you could say the suns, the planets are the bodies of angels and archangels, cosmocreators.  The conscious essence of those cosmic bodies learned how to create mineral bodies, plant bodies, animal bodies, then humanoid bodies, perfecting themselves in each level, until they began to make more sophisticated forms of life, like planets, like suns. This is why the Christ is called the Sun, the light of the world, the solar light, because the Sun itself is a vehicle itself of that Christic force.

So as the essence descends through these four worlds to finally enter into manifestation, it receives all of these potentialities, gifts, virtues from the Gods. This is why in the Pistis Sophia, the Christ speaking through Jesus says as much. He says.

For this cause have I chosen you verily from the beginning through the 1st mystery.

The 1st mystery is Kether, the 1st Arcanum.

Rejoice then and exult, for when I set out for the world, I brought from the beginning with me twelve powers, as I have told you from the beginning, which I have taken from the twelve saviours of the Treasury of the Light, according to the command of the First Mystery.

The twelve saviors are twelve Masters, Angels, Gods, Devas, Buddhas, who were human beings, who elevated themselves to the degree of sophistication and wisdom that they are in charge of a zodiacal sign. It is their duty to deliver the influence of that stellar force to all the creatures that exist in the inferior levels, and to guide them, to assist them. Those are the twelve saviors, who deliver onto the Christ the twelve powers. The twelve powers are those virtues.

Related to Aries, there are certain virtues, certain capacities, that we receive, and in particular it is the potential for Penance, or the gifts that Penance can deliver onto the soul. This is the capacity to withstand suffering, to transform it, and make it into something beautiful, the way the great saints and martyrs have always done. This capacity comes through Aries, the virile force of the lamb, the Christ, whose very essence is sacrifice; do you follow that? If the lamb, the Christ, if his existence is determined by love, by sacrifice, then through Aries he gives us the gift of Penance: the ability to suffer, but to suffer with virtue, to suffer with humility, to suffer with strength.

There are four conditions to become a magician. When we say "magician" we are talking about the real meaning of the word, which comes from "magi," which means "priest." To become a priest - to become a magician - there are four conditions:

1. You have to know how to suffer; this capacity comes from Aries.
2. You have to know how to be silent.
3. You have to know how to abstain.
4. And you have to know how to die.

Eliphas Levi explained them, as did Samael Aun Weor. They have esoteric meaning: "to die" does not mean physical death, it is referring to the death of the ego, the death of the psyche, all of the animal elements that condition us and cause suffering.

Jesus continues:

These then I cast into the womb of your mothers, when I came into the world, that is those which are in your bodies today.  For these powers have been given unto you before the whole world, because ye are they who will save the whole world, and that ye may be able to endure the threat of the rulers of the world and the pains of the world and its dangers and all its persecutions.

This is why Aries is first. These gifts of the twelve powers or these potential virtues begin with Aries: the capacity to withstand persecution, to withstand criticism, to withstand attacks, to be true to oneself, to one's Being.

For many times I have said onto you that I have brought the power in you out of the twelve saviors, who are in the treasury of the light.

These twelve saviors assist humanity by giving these virtues, gifting them onto the essence and by providing assistance and guidance to all the souls that seek the light. This means that any person who sincerely, honestly wants to change, wants to escape suffering, wants to make a difference, can appeal to those twelve saviors, can ask for help, can beg for assistance. This is where we arrive to the true nature of this course, which really should not be called Astrology. It should be called Astrotheurgy.

Theurgy is derived from a Greek term which refers to a form of activity, or action whereby you appeal to the Gods. It is a kind of magic, but it is opposed by Black Magic. Real Theurgy, the power of the theurgist, comes from "theos," which means God, our own inner God.

When the Gnostic practitioner wishes to receive help, to have guidance, to have assistance from those divine forces, there are hundreds of practices that he or she can use to meditate, to use mantras, to ask, to pray, to beg for help, but what is different is that these practices result in direct experience. These practices will place you, if you are a sincere and disciplined practitioner, face to face with these divinities. Not an imaginary experience but a real one. The practices give you the capacity or the doorway to be face-to-face with an angel, with a master, with a guide.

That is the purpose of religion, to unite with God, to converse with God, to talk with God, but we are talking about God as the "multiple perfect unity." That is intelligence or energy which illuminates all his limbs, all his arms, all his hands, which are the Angels, the Masters, the Buddhas, the Gods.

Through Astrotheurgy, we can walk through this door of the third state of consciousness, which is the prerequisite for direct experience. You can never have this kind of experience if you remain asleep as a cosnciousness, because even if your Being, if your God - out of compassion - or some master, such as Jesus himself, out of compassion grants onto you an experience, physical or internal - and you are asleep as a consciousness, you will forget. The same way you forget your dreams, the same way you do not remember what happened last week or the week before that, or last month, or last year. You will not realize what is happening in the same way that you dream now and are not aware of it.

We have to develop the consciousness to receive those experiences and keep them, to take advantage of them, to benefit from them. In other words, nothing is given to us for free. We can all have these types of experiences: they are our natural birthright. That is why religion exists, that is why guides exist, to help, to provide assistance, but they cannot help us if we do not help ourselves. It is impossible. That is the Buddha emphasized that he cannot save anyone. People always asked him, "Can you save me, can you save my father, can you save my mother, can you save my child?" He always said, "No, you have to save yourself." Jesus said the same thing. Jesus continues:

For which cause I have said unto you indeed from the beginning that ye are not of the world.  I also am not of it.  For all men who are in the world have gotten their souls out of [the power of] the rulers of the aeons.  But the power which is in you is from me; your souls belong to the height.  I have brought twelve powers of the twelve saviours of the Treasury of the Light, taking them out of the portion of my power which I did first receive.

These twelve powers are potentialities which we have to develop. In other words, just as the zodiac exists in the macrocosmic universe in space around us, it exists within. We have that zodiac within our own universe in miniature or the microcosm: as above, so below. We are a reflection of that, which is why the Oracle of Delphi said:

Man know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and its Gods.

The zodiac within is a source of light and those twelve powers are in reality the twelve apostles, the twelve great gods of Olympus, the twelve stones in Heliopolis, the twelve aspects of the celestial Jerusalem from the Book of Revelation. It is that celestial abode which has to be illuminated from our own works. In other terms, we say that as we awaken consciousness, we develop this capacity to be attentively aware, transforming the forces. We start to develop those apostles within us.

The great misunderstanding that Christianity entered into was to take the scriptures as literal truth. There is literal truth in the scriptures, there is no question, but that is not why they were written. All of the ancient scriptures, all of the religious teachings, were given as a form of practical guidance, practical knowledge, indicating things within us, and the drama that Jesus passed through, as an embodiment of the Christ, as an incarnation of the Christ, as a transmitter of that light, that drama from his immaculate conception to his resurrection and ascension, is symbolic. The entire process also exists in the mysteries of Mithra, Baldur, Quetzlcoatl, Buddha, all of those great teachers, Moses, Krishna. Most of them were born of a virgin, most of them were born of the waters. There are too many similarities - even from a superficial, terrestrial point of view - and the reason is they all refer to the same core teaching - the Heart Doctrine.

The influences that we receive are placed within our consciousness and are there for us to activate and utilize as we awaken the consciousness. If we do not, those influences are polarized the opposite way.

The same polarization occurs when we receive the influences from the seven rays, those seven spirits before the throne of God. For example, the fifth ray gives us the capacity of love as a virtue within our consciousness, this is unconditional love, Christic love, but when we are asleep and enslaved by desire, that force inverts and becomes hate, anger. We then become creators of suffering, creators of Karma.

In the same way, the twelve powers can also be polarized. We receive the influence of our astrological sign but we make that negative. The Master Samael Aun Weor gave a key example of Hitler. Hitler was a native of Aries and he took that aggressive, masculine, virile force and used it in a destructive way. That capacity is within everyone, to use their own forces in the wrong way.

Those energies, those forces, are within our Three Brains, and they are within our body. In fact, they have a physical aspect where those forces are crystallized into our very being, our very physical existence. They are the twelve salts that exist in the world of Yesod.

Yesod is related to our vital or ethereal body. Yesod means "the foundation" in Hebrew, and it is the foundation of the temple. The columns of the temple rest on Yesod. Yesod is our energetic body, the body of Chi, which is a mere counterpart of the physical body, it is one aspect. These two are really one; Malkuth and Yesod from this point of view. Malkuth is a fallen sephiroth, meaning the physical body is fallen, it is inferior in its current form. Within that energetic body are many forces and energies which give rise to all of our capacities. Without the vital body, the physical body would be dead. It has four primary aspects which deliver onto us the capacities of perception, memory, imagination, metabolism, all the chemical processes but most importantly the sexual energy. And again if you take this tree and you hold it over the physical body of a person, Yesod sits on the sexual organs and Malkuth is related to the feet and legs. So Yesod points exactly at the sexual energy and it is there that these twelve salts are deposited. Twelve salts, interesting, isn't it? These twelve salts are vital for the existence of life. If you study biology, you know what I mean.

What's interesting is if you compare this to the Greek Olympians, the labors of Hercules, the months of the year, the hours of the day, all twelve, but it is here in Yesod that we find a great key, because within the sexual forces are the very creative forces of God. The human being has the ability to create because of sexual energy. That is the capacity to produce life. We have no greater power, no greater responsibility, but unfortunately we treat it like a game. We do not respect it.

In ancient times, sex was highly sacred, marriage was highly respected. It was considered a holy and spiritual union, something very profound, and the priests were the ones who provided guidance to the couples, not merely just to be there and say, "Now you are man and wife and you can go and do whatever you want." It was not that way. The priests, the guides, who in ancient times had their consciousness awakened, were able to provide guidance to those couples so they knew how to utilize their twelve salts, in order to refine the forces and energies of the consciousness.

Now here we find a very interesting connection. The pineal gland, which is within our brain, rules over our endocrine system, and the endocrine system is the energy of the sex, the sexual forces, hormones. Modern doctors and biologists already recognize that when someone reaches puberty, the pineal gland begins to degenerate: but they do not know why. But in Gnosis, we know why that happens, and we know how to avoid it, or reverse it.

Previous to puberty, the pineal gland is very robust, very active, flooding the whole organism with hormones, with life. (By the way, hormone means "the force of being.") So the pineal gland guides the development of the human organism through the first 12 to 14 years. But at the time puberty arrives, that human organisms begins to repeat past mistakes and begins to abuse the Tree of Knowledge, sexuality, and those forces start to drain out, to be thrown out of the human organism through the orgasm. The result is that the pineal gland atrophies; the imagination of that child begins to weaken; the child become conflicted: emotionally, spiritually, mentally. The child then only seeks approval from others, to have its ego fed, to have comfort in the acceptance of others. All the capacities that the vital body was providing through those sexual forces, like imagination, like memory, like self-awareness, all weaken and even go away. Everyone of us can recall how beautiful life was, even if we had a hard time, we had moments of perception as children which were distinctly different from our moments of perception as adults. Everyone can agree on that!

The reason is that the child is saturated with transmuted sexual energies. In the child, the brain, the pineal gland, is saturated with hormones, with those forces which are descending from God. So we have moments of brilliant self-awareness when we are children, of perceiving things that the adults cannot see. The fact is that very young children are quite clairvoyant, this is why they see things the adults do not. Some of it may be what we would call "imaginary" or "fantasy," while some of what they see is real, but the adult always says, "It is just your imagination, there is nothing there," and the adults squash the development of the child.

Little by little, those capacities are atrophied, they degenerate, and they are lost. From 12 to 14 onwards, the pineal gland dies because all the sexual energies are drained out, wasted.

This is why in all of the ancient esoteric traditions, practitioners were required to keep the sexual forces, to transmute them, to hold them in the body, to learn techniques like Pranayama, in order to harness those forces and make use of them. What happens then is that those forces begin to circulate, to activate, to grow the pineal gland even more, to help it develop and become mature.

Within those individuals who have transmuted in the past, the pineal gland was very well developed, like Beethoven, like Mozart, great artists who knew this science and thus were able to produce by the guidance of the divine, works of art that we cannot even comprehend. That is a capacity that the Being has when its vessel is intact, when its vehicle, the human person, becomes a very strong and robust light bulb through which that light can be transmitted.

When we look at, as an example, the Olympian Gods, we find a little bit more interesting display of these twelve forces because if you recall the Olympian Gods there are 6 males and 6 females. What is curious is that if we look at the seal of Solomon, we know that we make that seal with two triangles. But if you analyze it, this triangle actually has 12 aspects: 6 projective points that go outward (which are masculine) and 6 receptive points that are receptive and feminine. The seal or star is made by two triangles that unify. This symbol is universal; if you go to India you will see it everywhere, if you go to China you will see it everywhere. If you go to Israel, obviously you will see it. You will also see it in the Native American traditions, in the Aztec tradition; you' will see it everywhere because it is universal, just like the cross.

The two triangles have many levels of meaning, but most important to us at the moment is that we see the integration of an active or masculine triangle and a receptive feminine triangle; these two are integrated, bonded. That symbol in India represents the creative power of Shiva, in other words how Shiva and his spouse Shakti unite to create. What is curious is that if we learn the science of Yesod, if we learn how to take advantage of these forces, sexual forces, in those salts, in the vital body, in the physical body, we learn how to take this triangle of the soul, related to all our three brains, to our processes as a psyche, and we learn how to elevate that sexual force of Yesod up to Daath, to learn to create like the Gods through the mantra, through the Word. And when we do that, this triangle turns upwards and what do we make here? The seal of Solomon in the center of the tree of life. That is the ancient key of Daath, the hidden tree of knowledge, the union of the Spirit, the Monad, and its soul - and these two become unified.

That seal, that star, represents a polarity. It represents on the positive side the supreme affirmation of the light of the consciousness. But it can also have the opposite meaning, the supreme affirmation of the ego. The reason is that this energy that circulates throughout our psyche, throughout our physical organism, throughout our vital, astral and mental organisms, can also be used in the wrong way. So that unification of forces, male and female, can also happen in the wrong way, where those forces, those energies are harnessed but in order to serve and feed desire. In Sanskrit, in the Eastern traditions we call this Black or negative Tantra. This is a form of practice whereby the forces of the human organism are utilized in order to fortify desire, to fortify lust and pride and anger and fear. In other words, that is the way to create a demon. Sadly, the vast majority of the teachers and teachings about tantrism in the world today are teaching Black Tantra and they are utilizing desire as a hook to say that you can have more sensational sexual experiences. They may say it is beautiful and lovely. They may talk about love and truth, but anyone who is teaching how to use the sexual forces at the same time desire is present, and active, and allowed, encouraged, is teaching Black Tantra.

The Master Jesus addressed this: he said "anyone who would come after me must first deny himself," deny desire, deny the animal.

In our process of evolving, we develop a kind of mind through the lower kingdoms; it is a form of collective mind, which is very easy to see in the animals. It is also the type of mind that most of humanity has; this is why we tend to move in groups, even though we don't like that. We like to think we are individuals and we do our own thing, while in reality we are just copying everybody else. In fact, we love to take someone else's opinion and defend it as if it were ours, or to take someone else's experience and defend it as if it was ours. That collective mind is a mind that was developed in the animal kingdom, which behaved as an animal, acted as an animal, and continues to do so. This is why we see humanity now being more animal than anything else. Most of our television and movies are encouraging animal behavior: to be lustful, be aggressive, be cruel. Very rarely do you see anything that promotes a real virtue, to develop a real virtue, very rare. And usually the ones who do are squashed, and rejected and made fun of.

To develop a real creation within the womb of humanity requires birth. Jesus said we have to be "born again" and "that which is flesh is flesh," born of flesh, but "that which is spirit, is spirit," borne of spirit: the soul. He also said that we do not have soul:

With patience will ye possess your souls. - Luke 21:19

He said with patience you will have it. The harnessing of those sexual forces begins or initiate the process of creating the soul or superior vehicles: the solar astral body, the solar mental body, the solar causal body; these are the Mercabah, the Chariot, those figures that were in the fire in the book of Daniel. To create the soul is a work of art that the Being orchestrates through the consciousness. This is done through all these laws that we have discussed, the first law, the third, the seventh, the twelfth. All those forces conjoined and harnessed by conscious will, by will over desire, by will over fear, will over lust, will over pride, will under the service of God.

This is the meaning of the word Thelema, it comes from, "Thy will be done," the will of God on Earth, this physical body, as in heaven. "Not my will," as Jesus said, "but Yours" - to follow that guidance, to receive the instructions of how to create the soul; how to exit the womb of humanity as something more than just an animal. To do that requires that we take advantage of all those forces.

Whatever sign we have, whatever astrological influences, we have to master it. To say, "Well I can't help it, it is my sign," is an excuse. What creates problems between people is not the astrological sign, it is the ego.

In fact, any common astrologer nowadays is really just a follower of the doctrine of the eye, someone who is stuffing themselves with a lot of theories, a lot of books, a lot of ideas, but who has never really experienced those intelligent forces which manage the energies of the zodiac, which guide them.

If you awaken consciousness, you can negotiate your karma. You can get help from those stellar influences. Karma is not a blind mechanical thing: it is conscious, it is guided. So it is not entirely accurate to say, "Well, as this sign we are not compatible with this other sign," there is a little bit of truth in it, simply because each sign provides a certain influence, could be fire, or water, or air, or earth, but in reality the main influence is the use of the consciousness.

If we are asleep, then we are mechanically thrown around by those forces, karmic forces that exist within us.

If we learn how to activate and utilize the third state, to become conscious, to develop the ability to negotiate directly, to ask for help from these intelligences, we can negotiate our karma, we can change the course of our life, we can enter into this vertical path that leads to greater comprehension of the Being. That capacity is entirely up to us; that experience is ours to acquire.

To do that, we have to be born in the womb of our Divine Mother. That birth is real, it is not because we believe something. Nothing in the world is born because of a belief. Everything that is borne is borne of sex, everything from the simplest microbe to the planets themselves, to solar systems. A nebula is simply is a womb, a conjunction of sexual forces on that level. Therefore the soul itself also has to born within the womb of our own Divine Mother and this is that symbol, the universal symbol of the Divine Mother with the Christ child in her hands. That is not just in Christianity, the Egyptians have the same symbol the Greeks, the Romans, all of them. Even in the East you see the Divine Mother cradling the birth of the Christ, giving birth to that child. What is even more curious is that in Christian churches and in Mediterranean artifacts you find images that demonstrate and show the Divine Mother with the Child, surrounded by Twelve people. And those are the twelve powers which are there to give influence and assistance to worship, to assist the growth of that Christ which was born inside the heart of the human being.

When the child of Christ is born in our heart, it begins to live out that drama of Jesus in us. To begin to grow, to develop, to assist us, to become free. This is how that Christ saves us, teaching us about ourselves, assisting us in our process inside. In other words this is what we call a bodhisattva. Bodhi means wisdom, the same as Chokmah, wisdom. That Christ is born into the heart, into Tiphereth of that initiate, begins to grow and develop little by little as a process of understanding, a process of comprehension, a process of awakening. Eventually when that Christ becomes mature he calls his apostles, those apostles are of course within, they are symbolic.

If you read the Pistis Sophia, you are reading a treatise of initiatic wisdom which is explaining certain levels of the process of initiation which are quite elevated, that is why it is difficult for us to understand. But those twelve apostles are within us. We have our own Matthew, our own Mark, our own Judas inside. Those masters, those twelve, exist in reality as well, but our most important focus, the main thing we need to know, is what is inside of us. It doesn't really make a difference what is outside if we don't change. Those twelve saviors are there in our own consciousness, they are parts of our own Being which can provide wisdom and guidance to us. Each one has its function, each one has its gifts that it can impart. In order to receive that, we have to awaken. We have to take advantage of all the forces that are being provided to us.

Some say that times are too difficult, that karma is too heavy, and they want an easy path. In reality, right now we have an unbelievable opportunity to awaken. All of the energy and force that is flooding this planet, creating so much upset, is actually energy that we can harness and utilize. When we entered into the Aquarian era and society went into upheaval, that energy is being proved as assistance for humanity. Unfortunately, what happens is because everyone is asleep, they are using that energy in the wrong way, so instead of wanting to awaken the consciousness by freeing themselves of the ego, they are trying to awaken consciousness by enslaving themselves to the ego. And thus we see a lot of abuse, a lot of problems, a lot of suffering.

Aries governs the head, the upper most part of our organism, and within this region we have many glands, many physical parts of ourselves that we need. The pineal gland of course is central. When we sit within the pineal gland to observe, to remember ourselves, we activate it. We can harness those forces of Aries, that gift, in order to awaken. That gift comes in the form of fire, the divine fire, fire of conscious assistance. If we misuse it, then we misuse those forces of Aries and become aggressive, we quarrel, we fight, we have problems. And you see this in the natives of Aries who have an extra dose of that influence. They tend to fight with great courage, great energy, but can go in the wrong direction, and fight, and fight, and fight for the wrong thing. The forces of Aries are the forces of the Ram, of the Lamb, of Fire and that force can help us or it can hurt us depending on our will.

Questions and Answers

Audience: What is the fourth level of consciousness?

Instructor: Thank you. The third level of consciousness is what we call Self-remembering or continuous consciousness. And this is what any initiate of any tradition is trying to develop and perfect. This is developed and perfected by the transmutation of energies and by the direction of those energies through meditation. When that continuous consciousness begins to crystallize, when the consciousness is awakening, there is a degree of development that the initiate can approach which is called a Turiya. It is a very advanced level, in some terms it can be called Nous, in the same way I mentioned the Atom Nous, but this would be the perfection of that. So we have to understand that there is a distinction. That degree of consciousness - Turiya -  is possessed by Buddha, by Krishna, by Jesus, very elevated masters who have accomplished incredible works upon themselves to awaken the consciousness to that degree. That type of perception, that type of consciousness, can see many levels of life at the same time without obscuration, without subjectivity.

Approaching that we are coming up through these lower levels so we are constantly being conditioned and filtered by subjective levels of perception. Even if you awaken consciousness in a dream you may only be seeing subjective things, in other words projections of your own mind. Just because you awaken in a dream does not mean you are objectively awake. That is another thing and that takes a lot of discipline, a lot of work. Little by little, objective consciousness starts to become one's reality and when that is perfected, one has reached that level, the fourth level. Even then there are levels, even then there is work to do. Don't think that just because someone has achieved Self-realization that they are finished: they are not. There are levels, and levels, and levels. This line of Being goes very high and it also goes very low. Unfortunately, most people are descending upon it, going deeper into sleep, deeper into animal behaviors, deeper into destruction. 

Audience: I mean but if you look at the consciousness of the planet I think it looks like its always been growing. I think consciousness has poles who align. If you just look at like going from even homo sapiens becoming erect and then being able to use energy systems...

Instructor: Well that is according to a certain perception that we have nowadays. The idea that humanity is evolving on an upward arch is a theory. There may be certain evidence to support that and what is often quoted is our technological development right, or the sophistication of our culture, we often take that as an example. But when we look at the bigger picture, particularly if we examine the doctrine of the heart and what is taught in the esoteric doctrines, we see actually that humanity is at the lowest level of development of this current age. We are in the Kali-Yuga, the Dark Age, the Iron Age. One easy comparison we can make, if you have an artistic sensibility, compare the works of our contemporary civilization with the works of the Greeks, the works of the Egyptians, the works of the ancient Chinese, the works of the ancient Meso-Americans. There is a striking contrast. You see great beauty in those works, tremendous beauty, awesome unimaginable beauty, but what do you see in our modern cities? Pollution, decaying structures, people living in abysmal conditions. This is a fact, and it doesn't answer everything, but in the esoteric doctrine, the secret doctrine it is stated that we are in the darkest of times.

The process of awakening the consciousness reveals that. You start to see things that our current conditioning blocks. This is a key factor as well. The organism that we are inhabiting now, this physical body, has been carrying our consciousness for a given number of years within a certain environment. That environment is a conjunction of conditioning forces, or factors which are applied to the consciousness by our karma, by our environment, by factors such as that. That conditioning is what pushes us to sleep, to dream. To dream about the kind of possessions that we might one day have, to dream about the kind of admiration that we want, the envy of others that we want. Whatever our particular goals are, whatever our particular conditioning is, it is generally to keep us asleep whereby we won't perceive what is really going on in the world, what is really going on in our lives. Sometimes you find this. Some of us have a conscience that becomes stimulated by the suffering, by all the problems and we want to do something about it. But it is very easy in our current state to become overwhelmed, to become traumatized when we start to see the vast sophistication of all the problems we face as a society and as a world. So, oftentimes people who have the intention to help become traumatized, become shocked, and they abandon that. They may even start to contribute to the problem unknowingly and it is because all of these issues that we face are so complicated, so inter-related that our little intellect, this little bucket that we have can't contain it all. And you see that trauma a lot nowadays.

The way to solve it is to awaken consciousness. Each person is the society itself. Each person is connected to every other person, no one is independent. We are all dependant on one another for everything. Everything that you are wearing right now was produced by someone else, everything that you are eating was produced by someone else, pretty much, not many of us grow all our own food and make all our own food. But we forget that interdependence when it comes to our mind, when it comes to our feelings, to our actions.

We can promote tremendous change by being honest, by being sincere, by trying to change ourselves, by becoming to know God inside. You can see that in some individuals who remain true to that like Gandhi, like Yogananda, like Jesus. Even some that never awakened consciousness but remained true to an inner ideal, an inner purpose which is sincere and truthful and they manage to render change for the benefit of others. We all have that capacity.

So what I am saying in synthesis is, it doesn't really matter so much what our historical perspective is, what matters is how we perceive right now. What is past is gone, it doesn't exist, and there is no future. What exists is right now and that is the door. That door is inside your own heart, it is in your pineal gland, it is in your psyche, it is in your consciousness. To stay focused and standing in that door takes so much willpower and discipline. It is the greatest work any person can ever undertake, not only the most difficult, the most terrifying, the most risky, it is also the most rewarding. The process of awakening the consciousness, receiving the influences of our own Inner Being is the gateway, the door to serenity, to the experience of a tranquil heart, to comprehension of the nature of reality. And again that doesn't come easily, it doesn't come one day to the next.

Audience: How can we harness the new Aquarian energy pounding the Earth now? Are there any practical exercises?

Instructor: Well we are going to talk about that in the lecture about Aquarius but yes there are. There are many practices and techniques we can use related to each sign. There are several related to Aries. I will give you one simple one. When you have some time to relax, to abandon all your worries and concerns, and probably you are going to have to make that time, to decide you are going to do it. Sit down and relax yourself very well, close your eyes and begin to imagine a light. Imagine the forces of Aries, the light, descending from above, illuminating your brain, flooding the pineal gland and the pituitary gland with light, with fire and chant to yourself, you can do it aloud it is even better, the mantra AUM. Three letters; and extend the vowels. It is very good if you vocalize this because that vibration produced by your throat, will affect the brain, the pineal gland, the pituitary gland and the rest of your organism. Do that practice everyday; don't think, just do it.

Take a period of time and work with it, open your mind, open your heart, and pray and imagine that force and vocalize the mantra. Be serious. What are you doing with your life? What is the purpose of your life? To merely exist? To go from one form of suffering to another until death? What is the point of that? Most people live that way scrambling to get one material possession after another or one worldly honor after another only to be stabbed in the back, only to be betrayed, only to be disappointed. Talk to any older person and you will find that.

Take advantage of this moment, train your consciousness to awaken. This is how we take advantage of all these forces and to begin to develop the twelve senses. We have the five physical ones that we know, or how we interface with this physical world, but there are seven superior senses related to our seven chakras. Those are the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life, which Revelation says he who overcomes can consume can eat those fruits, the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life. Also in Revelation there is a woman who stands upon the moon clothed with the sun who has twelve stars circling her head as a crown, right? We have this crown, Kether, that crown of those twelve powers which are developed in the fully developed soul, who wears the Sun, the Christ as her vesture, and who trods upon the moon, the forces of the animal, the lunar forces.

Audience: When one is perceiving subjectively in the Astral Plane does someone with an objectively awakened consciousness perceive the same thing (the projection)?

Instructor: Well, if your question is that, say you are in the Astral Plane and some Angel or Master comes to visit you, you are there dreaming, seeing your subjective world, yes that Angel will see that like a bubble, like a mirage, and see you sleeping inside of it. You can develop the capacity to see that as well, with the help of your Being, with the help of God. To have objective perception is possible for anyone, as a matter of willpower; this is not a matter of time. Time is an illusion. The only thing that exists is right now. If you have sufficient will, you can walk right through this door of the present moment, consciously, into superior levels of perception and see objective truths. In other words, you can enter into Samadhi, which is a perception of truth without the interference of the ego. Anyone can do that. The problem is you need to have sufficient will, and as we are, all of our will is trapped in desire, so instead, we desire that experience, we crave it. Right there you are blocked, you can't have it because that desire is conditioning your consciousness and trapping you in that level.

Audience: That is why it is so easy to imagine about, like in one second you can elaborate this big imagination about some kind of desire you have because you have so much willpower trapped in that type of desire?

Instructor: Precisely. We have so much will in desire, it is very easy to imagine desires, very easy, but to imagine something consciously without desire we become frustrated because we haven't developed that capacity. The consciousness, the free consciousness, is weak like a baby. When we are born into a physical body, we have this very scant development of the consciousness because in all our previous lives we have ignored it, or worse, we have betrayed it. So we have trapped it into all these subjective constructions in our own mind. So when we are born that ego is not there yet, it is just the consciousness. That is why babies are so beautiful. That is just the consciousness there but is very simple it is not developed. Little by little as the Karma incorporates, the ego incorporates, the baby starts to demonstrate really negative behaviors and that is all its own Karma. We have within us that same child, our own consciousness, but it has to be grown.

So now when we meditate, when we imagine, it is very difficult. To imagine something free of desire, free of ego, is not easy, but we can do it, we just have to be patient. Nothing in nature grows by leaps; the consciousness is the same. It takes patience, tenacity and work. Now you have to keep that in mind at the same time I say time is not a factor, it is not. The factor is will. The factor is keeping the consciousness active and aware, working, that is what grows it, not time. You can study this doctrine for ten years, for thirty, for several lifetimes, and never awaken. You can study this doctrine for a couple a months, a couple of days, a couple of hours, and awaken, and that is entirely up to your use of your own consciousness inside, not to anyone else. No master can come along and awaken you; no teacher can do it, only you.

Audience: So then regardless of what sign you are, Aries is one of the most important influences for all of us all the time or mainly during that sign in the calendar?

Instructor: That is a good question. All the signs are important to everyone, yes. But of course, during the process of the year, as everything is moving, the signs have a particular influence, stronger. So we go through these periods of time where Aries is stronger, more influential, and there are exercises like the ones I gave you to harness that force, to take advantage of that extra energy, and this is true for each sign. And we are going to study that over the next few weeks. With each sign we will study the influences and some exercises we can use to take advantage of them.

In addition, our own birth sign, the sign we were born under, also provides an additional influence, but typically within us, it is negative because we are not consciously transforming it. We have to convert it into something positive, in the same way as with the periodic influence.