Skip to main content

Glorian averages 100 donors a month. Are you one of the few who keep Glorian going? Donate now.


Often when we speak about the end of the world, or the end of civilization, the Apocalypse, a great deal of emotions are stirred up inside us. We may become solemn. This may be appropriate: this is a serious matter. We need to investigate what else appears in our mind when we begin to speak about the apocalypse, or great catastrophe, or cataclysm.  What bubbles up to the surface our mind? Usually, a lot of feelings: fear, feelings of insecurity, something uncomfortable inside of us. We feel a repulsion or an aversion from wanting to speak about such topics, uncomfortable feelings appear that we would rather often avoid. This is prevalent in our modern culture of not wanting to speak about these things, or even being accused of being a fear-monger and spreading fear.  Where is the source of fear? Where is it coming from? 

st john

When we talk about preparation for the Gnostic Apocalypse, we may first think about how to save ourselves, how to save this civilization, our little world, our material items, to save our life.

The word apocalypse or apokalupsis (ἀποκάλυψις) is Greek and it means “to unveil” or “the unveiling,” “to reveal.” When we speak about it something is unveiled inside of us.  We maybe start to feel that insecurity.

In Buddhism they talk about the Two Truths, the Two Truths doctrine... very profound.  All the schools of Buddhism deal with it in a little bit different way. They have different metaphysical and philosophical concepts related to these two truths.  Many times, those two truths are translated into English as “Relative Truth” and “Ultimate Truth” or the “Empirical Truth” and “Absolute truth.”  A preferable translation of this is: “Relative Truth” is “Obscurated Truth.”  The word “obscurated” means “to scour something” and “ob” means “to put on top of”. “Obscurated Truth” is truth that something is placed on top of.  If we borrow a Greek word, apocalypse, “Apocalyptic Truth” is the truth which unveils itself when the obscuration is removed.

Samael Aun Weor often speaks about the Apocalypse or final catastrophe. He writes:

“The physical, psychological, and spiritual worlds conjointly correspond with each other through the Thirty-Two Paths of Light which are the sacred the steps of the Holy Ladder. The Great Catastrophe which is approaching has consequence; physical, psychological and spiritual” - Aquarian Message

We are going to take a look at these three aspects: physical, psychological, and spiritual.

We are often very curious: “What is going to happen?”  In these studies, we talk about the “End Times.” Master Samael Aun Weor wrote several books regarding this topic such as The Doomed Aryan Race (a.k.a The Narrow Way), The Aquarian Message, and various lectures as well.  It is important to understand where our culture, civilization and world are going in a physical respect.  What is more important for us is to look at our psychological and spiritual process because the true apocalypse is something psychological and spiritual. The real truth, the ultimate truth, is that we are all physically here, born, we will have a life and we will die.  That is the nature of what we are right now. The nature of this civilization will pass away. To state something like “we are all going to die” is just a simple fact. What does that have to do with the final catastrophe or the final apocalypse?  If we are all going to die anyway, why is it important to look at this from a worldly perspective?

I was once was questioned by a student about some of these prophecies. I gave a response that tried to cut through, or I was attempting to cut through these obscurations, I said just that fact, "we are all going to die" and that we should be more concerned about what is going on psychologically because everything is going to pass away anyway. This answer caused a lot of distress for the student.  We are all going to die; we are physically going to die: that is going to happen.  Whether or not it is in some cataclysm or whether it is through some other process, of our own natural or accidental cause.  We should be more concerned with what is going on psychologically as opposed to being overly concerned with physically when, and what is going to happen.  Unfortunately, a lot of people do teach and talk about this topic based upon fear. A lot of teachers may even speak based on fear and may transmit that unconsciously to students as well.  This is incorrect.  It is one thing to be shocked; to have a shock of consciousness, to have a moment of wakefulness because of being presented with that unobscured truth and to use that as motivation further our work, to complete the unveiling. It is something else to work based on fear.

The motto of this whole civilization could be “The Search for Security.”  We are searching for security; how do we pursue it? We get a job, we accumulate wealth, so that we will not be poor. We are afraid of what will happen.  We want physical security.  We are afraid of people not liking us, afraid of not being loved, afraid of being abandoned, and even being spiritually abandoned. Many students ask “I have been practicing these teachings and things are getting worse,” or “I feel like things are getting worse” or “I feel like God has abandoned me.”  I have seen that statement many numerous times; the fear of abandonment. What is the antidote to this?

Obviously, there is a psychological work that we often speak of and we repeat it numerous times; of needing to analyze, to comprehend, to eliminate our ego, to eliminate our fear. When we see that fear or some insecurity or feeling of being uncomfortable, we cannot run away from it, it would be foolish to run away from it, it would be better to sit with it, to see it arising and passing away in our own consciousness, in our own mind.  If you are awake, if you awaken in a dream and you find yourself being plunged underwater, usually, if we are not awake, what do we do? We are afraid. We want to pull ourselves up to the top and breathe air.  If you were to awaken to that, if you were to awaken to your fear, you would realize you are dreaming, and there would be no harm in drinking the water. Learning how to breath in new circumstances is really the challenge.  We have to breath, in and through our fears.  To comprehend it.  If we run away from it, if we base our spiritual aspirations upon fear, what possibly could be the outcome? We have to base our work on love, wisdom, and compassion. How do we get that?

In Buddhism they talk about the impermanence of phenomena, the emptiness of phenomena, and the interdependence of phenomena. They also talk about compassion and loving kindness.  We can summarize this from a Western context as love and wisdom. We need to base our work upon those factors, but we can only truly know what it means to love if we truly understand what impermanence is and what emptiness is. There is no shortcut there, because without that basis, we will always be confused as to what our situation is.

What does it mean to base our work on compassion and love?

All things pass away.  Nothing exists forever.  Nothing exists in and of itself. We believe we understand that, but if those feelings of fear, if those feelings of insecurity, rise to the top, and we have the fortune to come in contact with them, we must assume that there is this feeling of insecurity.  What is the basis of it? It is a basis of permanence, of the ego wanting to sustain itself, therefore, we have not comprehended it yet.  These topics are very interesting, not just to learn a theory or a concept, which is useful, but to base it on how we relate to these facts.  What are the facts of our world? If you have read some of these books or some of the other lectures- we have a whole lecture series on the Book of Revelation. As mentioned previously, there are books about great catastrophes.  If we look, we see that we had the first World War, which was supposedly at the time, the “War to End All Wars”, but actually it was just the beginning.  It set the foundation for another world war very soon afterwards.  The question is,” Will there be another Word War? It is very interesting to contemplate that.

First of all, immediately, what rises in us? Fear? That should motivate us to awaken our consciousness. The question that I ask is “How could there not be another World War?” If you analyze the real root causes and conditions; is not about politics and borders, it is about human fears.  It is about the search for security. It is about myself and another person.  We will kill someone else for that security.  Has any of that changed? Have we changed our human consciousness in this civilization? Have those factors been dissolved? I would question that.  If we know that those factors were involved in the culmination of war in the past what would change it for the future?

We all wish for this Golden Age. We want the Golden Age.  We want this security.  We do speak about a Golden Age.  All these other New Age philosophers and mystics assume, erroneously, that a Golden Age can arrive from a pile of rotting rubbish; that a Golden Age of Peace and Light can arrive from our state of mind right now, but there is no foundation for it. 

If we wish to build a building, we need a good foundation.  The foundation has to be good.  You cannot build a wonderful structure on a faulty foundation. What is this culture based on? Where is the foundation? Where is the epicenter of this whole world, in the cities, in business, in the big cities in the business districts? Those big cities are like huge chakras transforming energy.  Our civilization is based on the transmission of mostly money.  What is going on in those places?  It is not love and compassion, it is people identified with this world. It is not really based on anything, right?

If we look at what humanity has learned, has it learned the value of impermanence? We had two buildings fall down in New York City.  What a catastrophe that was!  What an eruption of emotion that it caused in every individual, and in the nation, and in the world.  What did we learn from it? What is different now? What is different in the psyche than it was before? Has it taught us a lesson? Do we know more about impermanence now? I would think it is a good question to contemplate.  Where am I at? What can I assume about today? Where is my work at today, psychologically? Do I see through the eyes of impermanence? Do I see through that? What is my day to day?

I would estimate that we did not learn anything from it.  We got hurt, we were in pain, we suffered, we got afraid, and we got angry.  As a majority, as a culture, that was the response.  Then we settled down back to where we wanted to be again.  The veil was lifted just a little bit.  It upset us, we got angry, and we are trying very hard to put the veil back.  These are signs. This is where society is going. Is it a downer to talk about it? From a conventional truth, maybe. What about the Ultimate truth, the Reality?  Why are we so afraid of death? We want to veil it; we want to cover it up. We don’t want to look at that part of society.  We are attached to birth. We should be able to see both of those phenomena as just a continuum.  For a life that is well lived, death is a celebration of it.

In traditions that talk about, that have more of, that more clearly articulate the cycles of birth and death, it is stated that when that soul enters in to those realms between life and death, that soul undergos various processes. We have summarized them in other lectures so I will not go in to it. As Samael Aun Weor often states, that soul will be attracted, either by karmic forces or by fascination, into a new womb to live again in this valley of bitterness, and yet we celebrate it. I am not saying we are wrong in that. I am saying we need to look at the full continuum of what birth and death is. That life is just an in-between two other end points and those end points are just in-between two other end points.  Everything is a bardo - everything is a continuum, a transmission.

Really, the major content of this lecture is not to talk about certain facts and prophecies and put it all together and form an intellectual synopsis. That is something which can be helpful, but that is already well-outlined in numerous other books.  We will only talk about it from a general perspective. Firstly, if we talk about the physical aspect of the Apocalypse, if we continue on the stream of consciousness I was talking about, we can look at prophecy of Melchizedek.  I will read it for you.  His prophecy is as follows,

Men (or better said, rational mammals) will gradually forget their souls to only take care of their bodies. The greatest corruption will reign on earth.

Men will resemble ferocious beasts, thirsty for their brothers’ blood.

The half moon will darken and its adepts will fall in perpetual war. The greatest misfortunes will fall upon them and they will fight each other.

The crowns of the kings, great and small, will fall; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A terrible war among all peoples will break out.

The oceans will roar. The earth and the bottoms of the seas will be covered in bones.

Kingdoms will disappear, entire populations will die... Famine, disease, crimes not covered by the laws, never seen, neither dreamed of by men...

Then, the enemies of God and the Divine Spirit that lie in man himself will come. Those who raise their hands against others will perish as well.

The forgotten and the persecuted will rise later; they will be the center of the attention of the whole world.

There will be thick darkness, horrible storms. Mountains, until then arid, will be covered with forests.

Earth will be shaken. Millions of men will exchange the chains of slavery and humiliations for hunger, pestilence, and death.

Roads will be crowded with people, walking randomly from one place to another.

The greatest, the most beautiful cities, will disappear in fire... One, two, three. Out of ten thousand men, one will survive, and he will be naked, deprived of reason, and lacking strength to build a shelter or find food. And these surviving men will bark like mad wolves, they will devour corpses and bite their own flesh, and they will challenge God for combat.

Earth will be deserted, and even God will leave... Only death and night will be on the empty Earth.

Then I will send a group of people (the World Salvation Army), until then unknown, who, with strong hands, will remove the weeds from the cultivating field of vice, and will lead the few faithful to the Spirit of man in the battle against evil.

They will found a new life on Earth, purified by the death of nations.

- Prophecy of Melchizedek

We have to take the responses that we feel inside of ourselves when we read something like that. We have to cut straight through to reality. We have to go straight into the unobscured truth and work with it.  To not just read this and just turn away or to read this and get overwhelmed with sadness or fear. Rather, see how it can help us be liberated.   See how this can help us transform or revolutionize our own consciousness.

The word “catastrophe” means “a revolution.” This needs to a cause a great catastrophe in our mind, a revolution of our mind. We can remember this, not because we are trying to be morbid, but because we see a kernel of truth there and only with that kernel of truth can we make our way to the light. There is a group of masters called the Guardian Wall of Humanity. This is a group of highly ascended beings, resurrected masters, that manage the karma of the whole Earth. Guardian wall to what?

It is the guardian wall of our own karma. Such a wall can help us cultivate something. Without that guardian wall, everything would have already occurred. All the karma would have just caused the great catastrophe and calamity already.  We should be grateful. We can transform these feelings into gratuity, into one-pointed concentration.

To cut through all of our cravings and aversions for these daily nonsensical desires, things that we waste our time with, to cut through it, and take advantage of here and now, to awaken. We teach how to meditate.  We teach how to work and to cultivate our mind with a science. Science doesn’t care how much you believe or how much you pray to God; it matters how much you do that work and that effort. Of course, God is part of it - but God is scientific.

There was an analogy I recently heard related to the First World War, so I will bring it up. I think it was the first year of fighting, on Christmas Eve. People were killing each other the day before Christmas eve, and almost all of the people fighting were Christian. On Christmas Eve both sides, all the fighting sides, had this spontaneous desire to not fight, so they stopped. They sang Christmas carols.  I think they actually played soccer on Christmas. Then the next day all the generals wanted to force them to start killing each other again with machine guns and chlorine gas and they refused.  They said, “I was just having fun with my brethren, now you want me to kill him? I refuse.” So, the generals just moved the armies around to different parts of the line and then the fighting proceeded and they started killing each other again.

When we teach meditation, we teach more than just achieving a nice state of consciousness. We learn how to meditate; we can cultivate our mind. We can achieve a state of mental equipoise where the mind becomes very settled. It is a very nice experience.  But we also teach more than that. Many schools will only teach that.  They will only teach: you relax, you have a nice state of mind, and it is good.  It is good, but then eventually it ends. You go back and on your way. The battle continues.

When we achieve that state of mind it is like a truce in our own mind. The two things are not battling anymore; we have a little reprieve. It is called samatha in many traditions: mental equipoise. If we don’t combine that with insight, if we don’t combine that with looking into our self, then it is the same thing as the little analogy; the war stops, we have a nice little vacation but then you do nothing to look at the causes as to why people are killing each other.  If you were achieving meditation, if you were achieving mental equipoise, it is very nice, but If you are not looking in to yourself and analyzing the cause and conditions of your own mind then will you go out of meditation and the battle of opposites will continue.  

We need more than just mental equipoise. We need insight, imaginative knowledge, intuitive knowledge, clairvoyance.  We need to learn to go out of the body, we need to learn how to awaken in our dreams in order to look, to see, to gain knowledge. That is why we teach in this tradition more than just a certain stage of meditation: we need to change. There is that quote that Master Samael writes, “To change is fundamental...” .

If our life is not changing, if we are not looking back and seeing how we have changed for the better, then we really need to analyze what is going on.  From day to day it is very difficult to see that, but if you look back a year, six months, or two years, or five years, and you can see what kind of person you were. If you can see you have been developing something there, well then that is good, that is progress, that is evident. We always have to be careful, we need to continue to look into our problems further and further.

That is why the second World War, and now the inevitable other world war is going to occur, because all we are looking for are vacations.  We are looking to get away, to escape our life. How do we escape?

We go to another country where it is nice and warm and we can sit on the beach for a while. A vacation can be fine, appropriate. I am not totally saying vacations are never appropriate; they refresh us so that we can live life. If that helps us to continue to look into ourselves, then great. But mostly, people just want to escape. We just want to escape just for escaping. If we do not escape with a physical vacation, we want to escape with a mental vacation, an emotional vacation. We wish to sit in front of a screen and fall asleep so we do not have to worry about our problems of this world. We seek to get focused and identified with some drama on a screen. Or we want to subdue, or even cover up, our problems with more intoxicants.

We are already intoxicated with our state of mind but we want to put alcohol in there.  Our society loves alcohol, loves cocaine, loves marijuana, loves painkillers. There is an epidemic of pain-killers going on started by the doctors. People just loved the pain-killers so much they cannot stop taking them. Heroin has made a huge comeback, why? Because our mind is craving. We want to forget.  We do not want the pain.  We believe that our pain is due to something now (contemporaneous)  but our pain is due to the craving of yesterday.  Every time we become identified, or we crave something, we sow a little seed in our mind, and we do not know when that seed is going to come to fruition.  All that pain that we might receive when we get the unveiled truth, is not because the truth is painful, it is because our state of mind was sown and conditioned into such a lie that the truth hurts.   We put the seeds in there ourselves with past actions, with past deeds. We have cultivated a state of mind based on desires, based on permanence. We think everything is going to be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday. When it is not, we do not like it, it feels painful.

The pain is not outside. The pain is our conditioned state of mind.

In the The Narrow Way Samael Aun Weor writes,

One summer night, I was in that state which is known in the eastern world as Nirvi-Kalpa or Samadhi; what happened to me during that Meditation was very profound; it was something marvelous.

Before me, the third aspect of Prakriti took on the frightful and terribly divine shape of Proserpine or Hekate, and then She spoke to me in a language with apocalyptic significance: “This perverse civilization of vipers, this Great Babylon, will be destroyed, and in all of its cities, not one stone upon another will remain. The evil of the world is so great that it has even reached unto heaven. There is no remedy for this humanity; it is totally lost.”

Then, overflowing with great terror, I uttered, “Oh Mother of mine, we are on a dead-end street.”

Then with a parable, Proserpine asked me, “Do you want to make a covenant with me?”

“Yes, Mother of mine, I am willing to fulfill that covenant,” with great decisiveness came this answer from my lips.

Then Proserpine, the Queen of the Infernos and Death, took the floor again with a parable and told me, “Open the dead-end street, and I will kill them.”

I immediately answered, “I accept, Mother of mine, my lady.”

The way out of this dead-end street is through death. We need to understand such a statement, both physically and psychologically, because when we look at the civilization, when we look at this humanity, we need to also have that analogy of the cities inside of us, of all the inner humanity, of all the people.  What do we need to do? We need to work with the Divine Mother. There is no other way but through death will come new life. There are many pictures of Kali or various fierce aspects of the feminine divine force that have the ability to decapitate, the ability to work the serpent, and the energy to decapitate our ego. We can see here on this picture; she has a necklace of decapitated heads and a skirt of limbs. It is very gruesome. What do we feel when we see that? Psychologically we should contemplate that. It is a very profound and significant symbol that we can meditate upon.

kali death large

Many great yogis and Buddhas would meditate on death constantly.  Padmasambhava was said to have meditated in graveyards and he is a very high christified master. I do not necessarily recommend meditating in graveyards, in fact, I do not recommend it - but the symbol is there. Meditating on our own death - what a novel idea, a very profound thing to do, and I do recommend that.  I recommend meditating on your own physicality on, the impermanence of your own body.

Personally, I hope that when this body dies, it is cremated.  I hope it burns to liberate that energy.  Can you sit down and meditate upon that process and visualize that process? Not in an egotistical or macabre way, but just objectively visualizing it, that process. What appears in your mind: fear, attachment, worry? If we want to avoid that process, then what are we actually here for? Supposedly we are here to work on our fear, work on our attachments, and work on our worry.

So here is a practice that can be very helpful.  We should be able to get through that practice and be helpful; not only that, but it should help us achieve a single-pointed state of consciousness. It is very effective at getting to the point. We are very incredibly attached to our own physical image. How curious that we are attached to our own physical image yet we have no concept of our psychological image.  Our psychology has more permanence. Our psychological constitution is also ultimately impermanent that is something else we need to meditate upon.

If we look at the psychological aspect, the psychological Apocalypse, from a lecture called “Alcyone and Negative Emotions” the Master writes,

There has never been a more grandiose concentration in heaven like the one on the 4th of February, 1962.

Let us then not be surprised that from one moment to the next our solar system will enter within the rings of Alcyone. We must prepare ourselves now.

Many will not resist the radiation and will die!

Physical matter will become more radioactive, more fluorescent, and this will in some way be helpful for our spiritual work.

It is clear that we must review our daily conduct. We must become more reflective, more careful with our critical judgements, and especially very careful with our negative emotions.

When we are in the very field of psychology, we find many disorders within people.

Everyone is being dragged down by negative emotions, and this is very grave.

There is nothing more harmful for profound internal development than negative emotions.

“There has never been a more grandiose concentration in heaven like the one on the 4th of February, 1962.” He is talking about the beginning of the Aquarian Age,

 “Let us then not be surprised that from one moment to the next our solar system will enter within the rings of Alcyone. We must prepare ourselves now. Many will not resist the radiation and will die! Physical matter will become more radioactive, more fluorescent, and this will in some way be helpful for our spiritual work.

The next sentence he writes, “It is clear that we must review our daily conduct. We must become more reflective, more careful with our critical judgements, and especially very careful with our negative emotions. When we are in the very field of psychology, we find many disorders within people. Everyone is being dragged down by negative emotions, and this is very grave. There is nothing more harmful for profound internal development than negative emotions.”

I found it very profound he speaks of one topic and then immediately transition to negative emotions. This radioactivity is something both material and psychological at the same time. We are going to concern ourselves with the psychological aspect.

What happens is a polarization. The waters are separated. The wheat separates from the chaff. An energy occurs and we either are propelled up or propelled down. This is the real thing we should be concerned with: how we are behaving psychologically.

It is a matter of fact that we are all going to die, everything in society is going to fade away, but another thing is the Apocalypse of the world and the new humanity. That it is not just that we will physically die but the souls of this world are going to be impelled in one direction or another. The humongous waves of humanity are going to go down to be recycled, in order to be appropriate for the new Earth. Only those people who can resist, in this sense where we say these negative emotions, resist that energy, in fact, take that energy which can cause greater activity within our minds and liberate it so we can go on the ascending current. He says “everyone is being dragged down by negative emotions, descending.”

We believe, or often I have seen it said; that we are entering into a New Age, we are getting assistance, we are entering into a Golden Age, and we are going to be helped.  This is true but the help comes like this: the activation of our ego.  Are we going to use that activation to become more aware of it, and separate from it, and destroy it?  Or, are we going to use that activation of the ego to enjoy our lusts and our identifications more, because we will grow a fatter ego that way? This is what is happening.  If you look at society it is already beginning to be polarized in this Aquarian dimension; intoxication through sensuous pleasures or intoxication through the divine inebriation: this polarization is already beginning.

Along this matter, along with how to deal with negative emotions, how to prepare ourselves psychologically for psychological apocalypse, there is a text in Tibetan Buddhism, it is a mind training text.  It is called the “Wheel of Sharp Weapons Effectively Striking the Heart of the Foe.” I wanted to read some parts of this in order to generate some good motivation. It starts off with,

“I pay heartfelt homage to you, Yamantaka;” Yama is the being holding the Bhavachakra - the Wheel of Samsara, very fierce, that is the lord of death. “Tanka“means “to eliminate” so Yamantaka is the “slayer of death”, or the “terminator of death.”

yamantaka

I pay heartfelt homage to you, Yamantaka;

Your wrath is opposed to the Great Lord of Death.

 

(1) In jungles of poisonous plants strut the peacocks,

Though medicine gardens of beauty lie near.

The masses of peacocks don’t find gardens pleasant,

But thrive on the essence of poisonous plants.

 

(2) In similar fashion, the brave bodhisattvas

Remain in the jungle of worldly concern.

No matter how joyful this world’s pleasure gardens,

These brave ones are never attracted to pleasures,

But thrive in the jungle of suffering and pain.

 

(3) We spend our whole lives in the search for enjoyment,

Yet tremble with fear at the mere thought of pain;

Thus since we are cowards, we are miserable still.

But the brave bodhisattvas accept suffering gladly

And gain from their courage a true lasting joy.

 

(4) Now, desire is the jungle of poisonous plants here.

Only brave ones, like peacocks, can thrive on such fare.

If cowardly beings, like crows, were to try it,

Because they are greedy, they might lose their lives.

 

(5) How can someone who cherishes self more than others

Take lust and such dangerous poisons for food?

If he tried like a crow to use other delusions,

He would probably forfeit his chance for release.

 

(6) And thus bodhisattvas are likened to peacocks:

They live on delusions – those poisonous plants.

Transforming them into the essence of practice,

They thrive in the jungle of everyday life.

Whatever is presented, they always accept,

While destroying the poison of clinging desire.

 

(7) Uncontrollable wandering through rounds of existence

Is caused by our grasping at egos as real.

This ignorant attitude heralds the demon

Of selfish concern for our welfare alone:

We seek some security for our own egos;

We want only pleasure and shun any pain.

But now, we must banish all selfish compulsion

And gladly take hardship for all others’ sake.

It is a very beautiful poem. I believe there are about eighty or a hundred verses.  We can see how this is very much in alignment with our work.  It is very inspiring, this is the cultivation of an attitude. There is a Tibetan school, or series of texts, called “mind-training.” Another translation of that is “attitude-training” We are cultivating a certain type of attitude, and this is a Bodhisattva attitude.

The Bodhisattva can transform the poisons, but we cannot transform it from an egotistical perspective, we cannot transform it living as a crow, the crow is a symbol here, the crow being a type of egotistical worldly view. We have to, what we call in this tradition, transform the impressions, transform the poisons. 

On this slide, this is Yamantaka, very fierce. He has many sharp weapons in all of his hands. He is trampling many defeated foes underneath. He is showing his strength, his virility. He has a crown of skulls. He is very fierce but he is a very good and dear friend on the path. I will quote another section, beginning with verse forty-nine,

(49) As it’s true what I’ve said about self-centered interest,

I recognize clearly my enemy now.

I recognize clearly the bandit who plunders,

The liar who lures by pretending he’s part of me;

Oh what relief that I’ve conquered this doubt!

 

(50) And so Yamantaka, spin round with great power

The wheel of sharp weapons of good actions now.

Three times turn it round, in your wrathful-like aspect

Your legs set apart for the two grades of truth,

With your eyes blazing open for wisdom and means.

 

(51) Baring your fangs of the four great opponents,

Devour the foe – our cruel selfish concern!

With your powerful mantra of cherishing others,

Demolish this enemy lurking within!

 

(52) Frantically running through life’s tangled jungle,

We are chased by sharp weapons of wrongs we have done

Returning upon us; we are out of control.

This sly, deadly villain – the selfishness in us,

Deceiving ourselves and all others as well

Capture him, capture him, fierce Yamantaka,

Summon this enemy, bring him forth now!

 

(53) Batter him, batter him, rip out the heart

Of our grasping for ego, our love for ourselves!

Trample him, trample him, dance on the head

Of this treacherous concept of selfish concern!

Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher

Who slaughters our chance to gain final release!

Final release, of course, being Nirvana. I really recommend reading a text like this if you feel in the wrong state of mind: if you feel brought down or dragged down by negative emotions. There are different ways to cultivate positive emotions. Reading a poem like this or some other books of the Master.

That is a way to cultivate a positive attitude, to not be brought down by our negative emotions, to not take on a very dreary and depressing take on the work. Sometimes we can get into that mode.  Some students take some of the humility that we are supposed to cultivate to be humble, and they almost incessantly whip themselves: meaning to cause more pain, to really talk badly about themselves inappropriately. They kind of take on a very dreary aspect of trying to do the work. They miss that they are an Essence, which is a part of Spirit, a part of God, they have worth and value; just not as a personality, not as an ego. We need to cultivate the right view there, as well. As I said, this is a very good text.  You can read the whole thing in various places online if you search for it. It is very nice.

In the Book of Revelation there are many symbols. In Revelation 1:11, it speaks about sending the word; writing it in a book, and sending it to the churches which are in Asia. Really that word Asia is what we call a Kabbalistic blind or symbol of Assia; which is the physical world, which is related to physical and vital bodies, and even our soul. Those seven churches are related to our seven chakras. We have spoken about this many times in the past.

The final aspect of this Apocalypse that I want to talk about: we talked physically, psychologically so far, and spiritually is the third aspect.  Spiritually is the most obviously elevated.

There are many people who have made many  different interpretations of Revelation. The important interpretation is not so much physically, but what happens psychologically and spiritually, that is the important thing. Psychologically we begin by writing in a book. That book is written with our actions, with our deeds. We are that book, and we begin to activate or we send the words or those deeds to the Seven Churches, we activate those centers in our body.

In Revelation it is written,

“And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.” - Revelation 5:1-3

These seven seals cannot be opened by any man. This aspect of the Apocalypse is related to a spiritual revolution, a spiritual unveiling.  The very essence, at the very core at the very substance of our reality we can say is Christ. That lamb of seven eyes and seven horns that exists at the root nature of everything.  The seven seals are our process of spiritual purification. We do not want to achieve the seven seals in relationship to those seven serpents of fire that we often speak of. There are the seven serpents of fire, then there are the seven serpents of light. Only the person who is going beyond the stages of being a human, or becoming a superman or the steps of becoming a resurrected master achieve the loosening of those seals: only Christ can do it.

This is the real pinnacle of what the Apocalypse is.  It is not the physical Apocalypse, or the psychological Apocalypse that is more important. The pinnacle is the spiritual apocalypse. This is the true Apocalypse. This is the true unveiling. At the root, the true, unobscured truth is the substance of Christ. Christ is the true root. To achieve that is a very long process. This is a very short summary.

Those Seven Seals are related to those Venistic initiations, related to the serpents of light.

  1. The First Seal is related to the White Horse, the Physical Body.
  2. The Second Seal is related to the Red Horse, the Etheral Body.
  3. The Third Seal is related to the appearance of the Black Horse, which is related to the Chiristification of the Astral Body.
  4. The Fourth Seal is related to the Yellow Horse, related to the mind, the Christification of the Mental Body.
  5. Then there is the Fifth Seal related to Tiphereth, the Causal Body.
  6. The Sixth Seal is related to the Buddhic body
  7. The Seventh Seal is related to the Atmic body.

Even beyond that there are other degrees we are not talking about here. You must read The Three Mountains to learn about this.

It is written that, “He who is faithful unto death shall receive the crown of life” That is related to the top triangle.  When you look at the imagery of the book of Revelation you see cataclysms, you see death, you see war and pestilence, bitterness, and wormword. You see the Sun and the Moon turning dark. This is all true, but the end point is light. The end point is freedom. We cannot achieve that freedom without going through that process.

How do we prepare for the Gnostic Apocalypse? We do so by looking at ourselves physically, psychologically, and spiritually. How do we respond to it? How do we cultivate a good state of mind? How do we transform ourselves? Where is true security? How deeply do we know where that true security is? Can we rely on it? Do we have faith as conscious works, as experience, as knowledge? The two words “Gnostic” and “Apocalypse” are Greek; “Gnostic” meaning “knowledge,” “Apocalypse” meaning “unveiling”, so, the “unveiling of knowledge.”

The problem is, we have been obscuring that knowledge for so long, we have made bad mistakes, and we have to do a lot of work and a lot of effort for that unveiling. As the Apocalypse occurs physically, events are processing as they are processing.  That force is us, internally, to process it, to uncover, to unveil, to go through our own Apocalypse.  If we are unable to do it under our own will, through our own work, through our own deed, then it will happen for us but in an inferior sense. It will happen for us but we will gain nothing for it.  We will be cleaned, the Apocalypse will happen, but in a sense that no knowledge gained. It would not be a Gnostic Apocalypse, it would be an ignorant Apocalypse. We want to achieve that unveiling, and that cleaning, and that purification, through our Gnostic effort, through our knowledge. That is how we prepare,

Questions

Question: Is death a pathway to gnosis?

Answer: Everything that grows appears out of the refuse of death.  Every beautiful flower grows from the mud of the Earth.  All of our virtues will grow from our poisoned minds if we know how to break it down and use it for our virtues. That is how nature works, it is very beautiful.  We can take advantage of that. Without this Apocalypse of the Earth, there could not be a future humanity, there could be new ascension, a new Heaven and Earth, there would be no material for it.  All the material is stuck here, so it needs to be recycled.  When we use the word “recycled” it is not just an analogy, literally the energy needs to be taken out, the aggregation of the energy which are in our mind and our psychology needs to be taken out.  Our lunar bodies, our subtle lunar bodies related to our egos, have to go out, the energy has to be liberated. That same energy has to be used for the evolved essences and souls. It is necessary.

Question: One of the three universal thruths is karma.  I have heard it said that everything that is happening in this Earth, all the wars, pestilences, diseases it is collective karma. Can you talk about the difference between the energies of the Earth and mother nature needing to recycle all of those energies on that physical level through wars, through disease or whatever, compared to the work we are doing of killing our egos and how that balances out the energy. Is that what you are talking about in terms of that polarity and we either go down with that energy or we separate out and go up with the spiritual. Does that balance out what we are seeing in the physical world?

Answer: I think I understand the question, yes. When we sacrifice our ego we are liberating that energy and it can be used in the process of being recycled.  So, if everyone on this Earth, were able to sacrifice their ego, truly, then they would be moving enough energy to change the way that these events would occur. I do not want to say that would obviate the Apocalypse - that is different.  Physically we are going to die, one way or the other, but the events of how it would occur would be much different.  If we all developed an Astral Body, we would receive the first level of continuous consciousness; the physical body would die but we would be able to be in another space. Everything would be different, in many different factors.

Question: In the lecture Alcyone and Negative emotions, the Master talks in the first part of the lecture that everything is going to be obsolete; the matter, the energy, the molecules, Einstein’s, theory will all be obsolete, Is this where we become receptive in our egos, because these new energies have taken over for this Golden Age?

Answer: Yes, the answer is yes. If there is something happening related to Alcyone’s rings, and entering in to it is changing some of the correspondences and relationships; physically, chemically, molecularly, it is also changing some relationships psychologically in the higher dimensions as well - it is an analogy.

Everything is relative to something else.  If you are familiar with twentieth and twenty-first century physics and cosmology; space is only relative to time, time is only relative to space, energy is only relative to matter, ad matter is only relative to energy: the faster you go through space, the more time is affected. There is no one objective view of everything.  Everything is a relationship to something else.  Those relationships can change, while still the underlying ultimate reality remains the same, which is the Absolute.  That is my understanding.

Sometimes we talk about karma and we want to know “What is the karma of the world versus my specific karma here,” and “Am I really supposed to be here and the world is about to go through all this stuff and how do I manage all this?” There is no way to isolate one part of karma, and view it just as its whole unique entity. It does not work like that. Karma is everything. Our individual karma is directly tied to the karma of our family, directly tied to the karma of our nation, directly tied to the karma of the Earth ties to the karma of he solar system. There is no way to pluck it out and say “the karma of this box” It is all interdependent, Dependent on what view you focus it on.

Question: Why is the symbol always decapitation instead of anything else it can be any other way to die but it seems to always be decapitation?

Answer: Why is the symbol always decapitation? Most of the energy is up here, in the head. All of the senses are in the head. 

Question: Is it related to the three primary forces, the head?

Answer: Do you know what the City of the Nine Gates is? Most of the nine gates are above the neck, so we get rid of them. Actually, there are different ways that show the death of the ego. It is not always decapation.

Question:  In Revolutionary Psychology, Master Samael talks a lot about that we have thousands of egos and that the observation of an ego in any given moment and how they switch in and out of our psychology.  I do not completely understand.  I have heard other lectures about how it is eliminated by being in the the situation, and transmuting the situation, and making a positive decision and not strengthening the ego, but I do not completely understand; if there is an ego in this given moment and I observe that ego, and I decide not to act on the impulse given by it, that does not eliminate it, does it? How does that elimination process happen?

Answer: That is a good question.  You are correct. When you have an impulse, an egotistical impulse, but you do not become one hundred percent identified with it... The fact that there is an impulse means that is some part of yourself already in it acting; but, on another level, we can refrain from actually continuing it because we can catch it. That itself is helpful. It is related to the transformation of impressions. When we are challenged by an impression, the reason why we are challenged is that something is getting pulled out of our ego and we are acting in an egotistical way and we are being challenged to transform it.  Sometimes we transform it well and sometimes we do not, there is a whole degree.  How much does it grab our awareness and out us to sleep?

There are two lectures called “Gnostic Psychoanalysis Part One and Two” and other things, there is a lecture called “Retrospective Analysis Explained” that go more in depth in to how to do that.  What you do is you transform that moment the best you can, but then you have to go deeper into that moment.  The only way to go deeper, to comprehend that moment is to sit in meditation.  When you go through that moment, you deal with it as best you can, you transform it as much as you can, but you know there is still something there. You know there is more going on “I am still angry at that person,” “I was really identified with that moment”, “It really put me to sleep”, “I was really fascinated”, etc.  Then when you go in mediation, that is your food for mediation. You cultivate some level of stability, then you use your imagination consciously to visualize that momen;, to sit in it to marinate in it and see what else approaches you, what else comes up. You might find other things flourishing.  It is a technique and it is difficult.

When we begin to cultivate our mind, it might just be very difficult but we only learn through practice.  We learn how to visualize, how to concentrate, how to have the perfect balance between the two; because if we become too loose and too sleepy, we become identified with what we are visualizing and we start dreaming. If we hold it too  tightly, then nothing appears, and we get nothing out of it, so it is the perfect balance.  That balance, if you learn how to ride a bike, you only learn how to ride a bike by practicing,  getting on the bike and riding. So, we learn that by practicing.

Question: Thank you.  As far as that aspect is balance, I remember in one lecture it had been stated the goal of meditation is not necessarily to not visualize, that is not the exact quote, but I am trying to understand, when meditating, it is still the emptiness of the mind?  When visualizing the images are coming in... I guess my question is: I know the goal of meditation is to know the self, but what state is that Self?  Is it not visualization, is it nothing, is it nothing completely there, is it no energies, no sounds?

Answer: Usually an awakened state of consciousness is luminous, and clear and conscious. What appears in front of you - there are a million or myriad of different things that can happen.  What I was saying before, you can achieve a state of real stability and be very calm and be in a peaceful place. As you go deeper and deeper into meditation, you pull further and further away from the physical senses. Naturally what erupts from your unconsciousness, what the Buddhists call “storehouse consciousness” or “substrate consciousness,” things start to bubble up.

You have to, again, have that perfect concentration because if you are too tight nothing ever bubbles up, you are holding on too much, and if you are too loose when something bubbles up you become immediately fascinated by it.  When you get into that vacuity, you have kind of a state of openness and something fills that vacuum, something comes in to it. That has been my experience. Sometimes that vacuum state is filled up by just that slightest thought. The slightest thought, which is the beginning of a string.  It is like a thread that you call follow all the way through to the maze of the mind, which is the maze of the Minotaur... then you are really in trouble (laughter).  That is the analogy.  Sometimes that thought is very, very subtle, it is just a fleeting thought, and if you are not watching your mind carefully you are kind of like ”I am meditating, why am I thinking that?” Maybe that was the thought that you needed to follow to comprehend what your mind is going through right now.