Sexual Transmutation, Alchemy, and Tantra

The topic of our lecture today is obviously an important one, a profound topic: sexual transmutation.

In this lecture we are going to attempt to start right from the beginning explain what all of this means. To explain why it is so important, and to introduce how this topic is elated to all the world’s traditions. Let us begin with a few stories from major religions. The first one coming from Buddhism.

The Golden Bowl of Buddha

Here we see an image of Buddha, in an emaciated form. Many of us may not be familiar of this image. Most of the time the Buddha is displayed as someone who is always in the prime of health.

The complete story of the Buddha is long, elaborate, and beautiful, but in short: he was born into royalty, in extreme wealth, luxury and opulence. Then, after discovering that he was still experiencing suffering regardless of his position, in all this wealth, he rejected that and went out into the wilderness. He entered the forest and became an extreme renunciate, an extreme ascetic. He was existing on the bare minimum amount of food every day and spending all his time meditating, in order to achieve his goal of complete and final liberation.

After tremendous austerities and some advancement in meditation (he experienced very elevated states of meditation) he did not experience what he was looking for. He found himself in a state here, that is depicted in the statue: a very emaciated state. One day, while he was meditating, he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. As they were tuning it, obviously, tightening the string and loosening the string just right just to make that note perfect, a realisation was said to come across to him in exactly that moment: he needed to be not too extreme. Just like that stringed instrument needed to have its string at the right amount of tension, neither too tight nor too loose.

The only way that instrument was going to play the beautiful melody was if the strings were at the right amount of tension. This was the birth of the doctrine of The Middle Way of the Buddha.

Just at that time when he came to that realisation a milk maid, a woman named Sujata, came to him. She had in her hands a golden bowl of rice milk, rice porridge. Now that he had this realisation of the Middle Way, he accepted the rice milk from the woman. Prior to his realization he would have never broken his extreme form of asceticism.

Immediately after eating the rice milk his body regained its full health. He took that golden bowl and placed it on the river and proclaimed that the bowl of rice milk would flow against the stream of the water. It would flow upwards. This is called the story of the Golden Bowl of Rice Milk of the Buddha. So that proclamation of, “If this bowl is to flow upwards I shall gain enlightenment” is a profound teaching.

Turning of the River Jordan

Our next story, moving from Buddhism, is a story from the Old Testament. This is a story of the Ark of the Covenant, about the Israelites being led by Joshua. Joshua was the leader after Moses. Joshua led the Israelites and the Ark of the Covenant across a river. They crossed the Jordan river.

If you are familiar with the events of the Bible, both in the Old Testament, and the New Testament, the river Jordan is often mentioned. What is interesting about this story of course is because of the power of God, the power of Jehovah, the water miraculously moved upstream. This allowed the Israelites to take the Ark of the Covenant, the most important and holy thing, across the river. They took it to a very holy place called Gilgal.

When the people set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap [נד - Pillar of Water] very far away…

Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.

Joshua 3

The interesting thing is that in the Bible when you read this story in Joshua 3, it says that “the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap [נד - Pillar of Water] very far away…” That word heap, “rose in a heap” sounds strange. That word two Hebrew letters: נ Nun and ד Daleth. If you look up נד “ned”, it means a pillar of water. The Jordan river stood up in a pillar of water going all the way into the sky, and this is what allowed the Israelites to cross that river.

Samudra Manthan: Churning of the Milk Ocean

Now on to our third story. We return to the eastern world again, to Hinduism which also involves water. This is the story of the Churning of the Ocean, the Churning of the Milk Ocean. It is a very deep symbolic story as well. There are many details, we will only cover the basic elements.

The premise of this story is the redemption of a Suras (Devas, Gods) who wish to gain (or regain) immortality. This is done because they know that if they churn this ocean it will be transformed in to the drink of immortality, Amrita.

Amrita occurs if you churn the ocean, and they decided that the way to churn this ocean is to take the serpent from Shiva and coil it around a mountain called Mandara. Mandara means “heaven.” They coiled it around and they were going to pull the serpent back and forth, churning this water until it turned in to Amrita.

Of course, the demons, the asuras, also wanted to gain immortality too, so they grabbed one end of the serpent, the head. The Suras or the Gods grabbed the other end, the tail, and they pulled back and forth. In that way Amrita is the result of the milk ocean being churned. There is a lot more to this myth, but for the purposes of this lecture we will stop.

All of these are beautiful stories. Many times, these stories are taught as a historical remembrance, to pay homage and to remember the ancient ways. However, we are not interested in viewing these from a historical perspective. Instead, what do they teach? In fact, all these stories have to do with sexual transmutation.

When you understand the many ways that these words can be understood you will see that all religion, in terms of having spiritual experience, is related to sexual transmutation. Normally today, any common religion is based upon some combination of believing in a certain set of things, a creed, and a certain way of living, a certain philosophy, and perhaps a certain set of rituals to perform. It is less common to talk about the actual experience, to have experiential knowledge. Of course, the foundation of our doctrine we are teaching here is gnosis, which is direct experience.

The real foundation of spiritual experience, experiencing something beyond our normal state, is founded upon sexual transmutation. These stories that we have just spoken about, they give us a certain understanding of things from a very superficial level, but they hide the true doctrine of sexual transmutation within the symbols.

Water Into Wine

We can of course talk about the miracles of Jesus. His miracle of transforming water into wine is also especially important. It should not be lost upon us that the very first miracle that Jesus performed was a transmutation or transubstantiation of the water at the wedding feast into wine.

“…the beginning [ἀρχή, arche] of the miracles of Jesus.” – John 2

When we examine the way that this is written in the bible you see that the word arche (ἀρχή) is used to describe the miracle. It is the beginning of the miracles of Jesus. That arche is the same word that we see in “Archangel.” So what is an Archangel? An Archangel is a Chief of Angels.

In the beginning [ἀρχή, arche] was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John  1

That same arche is in the very beginning of the book of John where it says, “In the beginning [ἀρχή, arche] was the Word…” Well, that is the same arche. Of course that “beginning” in Hebrew in the very beginning of the Old Testament, the word “Genesis” in Hebrew is בראשית Bereishit, which also means in the beginning.

We have to see that “beginning” it is not something that happened in terms of a timeline, but it is pointing towards the principal element. When we say the transmutation of the water into wine was the “beginning” of miracles, what we are saying is that it is the chief miracle. It is because of that miracle that Jesus performed, that all the other ones can be performed, and if the transmutation of water into wine does not occur, none of the other miracles will occur because it is the chief one. Why is that? We are going to talk about it.

Regarding the transformation of water into wine, we would be negligent if we did not go into the Greco-Roman mysteries as well. They have a god called Dionysus which is also associated with Baucus. This god is associated with wine, intoxication, and religious ecstasy. He is known to transform water in to wine.

Unfortunately today these gods, particularlyBacchus, is mostly associated with a degeneration of this teaching. We have the word bacchanalia which means orgies and sexual indulgence. People think that the Bacchanalia was always about that, this is not the case.

The original, upright, pure, aspect of these teachings is related to chastity. The cults that rendered devotion to these gods of wine, this wine was not literal wine but symbolic wine. This is the same Amrita. The same symbolic waters that we transmute that gives us a spiritual ecstasy, that gives us a spiritual intoxication.

We have circled around the world religions, and of course we could keep going on and on, into the other different religions as well. What we are hoping to show you is that the doctrine of sexual transmutation does not belong to one particular school or teaching, it is everywhere. Unfortunately, almost everywhere it has been forgotten, lost, or degenerated, and no one understands their hidden meaning anymore.

What is Sexual Energy?

For us to understand this, let us get down to the topic at hand. If we are going to talk about sexual transmutation we need to know exactly what sexual energy is.

Normally, whether we think about it or not, the status quo understanding of sexual energy has only to do with chemicals and hormones in our body. From an esoteric perspective or understanding, sexual energy is a lot more than just molecules, hormones, just material and fluids.

We must understand that the sexual energy is the essence of our life. It is a reduction of all the factors of our life, coming in and reducing to an extract. That extract is our sexual energy.

Let us review this graphic regarding sexual energy. It shows all the channels that the sexual energy is reduced to what is within us in this moment.

On the left side it starts with the Mulaprakriti. The Mulaprakriti is the cosmic origin of nature. The Mulaprakriti is the root of which everything originates from. It is a base, super abstract, undifferentiated energy which everything emerges from. That whole left column is a stratification or a condensation of different layers of subtle energy descending until it reaches us, and every part of nature, every planet, everything. Everything comes out of these abstract super subtle forms of energy.

The Mulaprakriti descends into a more manifested state, the Prana. Prana which is another Sanskrit word that means life force, it is the great breath. This is the universal vitality which then gets differentiated in to the Akasha, in to the ether. Then the ether can be subdivided in to the four elements, the four Tattvas which is tejas, vayu, apas and prithvi, which is the fire, air, water and earth subtle elements.

From there we have our chakras. Now this word is very popular today. The word chakra means a disc or a wheel. The primary reason why we are interested in them is because they are the place where energy is transformed from the more subtle dimensions into the more external concrete dimensions that we are normally used to.

Our chakras are like a vortex of energy. Often, we talk about the main seven chakras but there are many more chakras. The most important ones are usually associated with a gland, an endocrine gland. So, at that interface between a chakra and a gland, or other times a chakra and a certain organ, there is an energy transformation going on there. Life force is coming into the body. It is this interface between our physical body and what is called a vital body which is the subtle component, the energy body, or the body of chi that many people may be familiar with. That vital body is what interfaces the physical body with even more subtle aspects.

The basic thing to understand here is that there is a cosmic energy coming down into our system. There are cosmic energies coming down through the endocrine glands, and endocrine glands obviously excrete certain chemicals or hormones into the blood.

Our sexual energy is an outcome, or a reduction, of aspects of our blood.

Moving on to the column which starts with food. Obviously, we need food, we digest the food, we absorb the nutrients of that food from our small intestines, which goes into our bloodstream. Again, a reduction of our blood forms our sexual energy.

Our breathing: we breathe in, and we have what is called a gas exchange. That is where the carbon dioxide which is the waste of our cells becomes exchanged for oxygen that we breathe in through our lungs. Those oxygen molecules attach themselves to our red blood cells, to the haemoglobin, which is the iron element that makes our blood red.  The red blood cells transport oxygen to feed oxygen to all the cells in the body. That oxygen of course keeps the blood pumping, the heart beating, it keeps all the cellular machinery going.

Finally on the right side we have the condensation of the impressions of life. When we are experiencing things like, right now, you have sensations when you listen to me talk or you see this slide. We can have extraordinarily strong impressions when we watch something intense happen. Those impressions, they strike our psyche and inevitably we have some type of response to that. That response, it should not be a surprise that there is a physiological response to any mental or emotional response, just like when you get stressed out, those stress chemicals are released into the body. That is going to change the quality of our blood.

Our sexual energy is a reduction of what is in our blood. The blood and sexual energy are very closely related. Obviously, the sexual organs, in other to reach a state of excitation needed to become appropriate for sexual union, blood enters the blood vessels of the sexual organs.

More than that, the sexual energy is a culmination of all these factors, so it is like when you buy an extract, it is a reduction of a lot of different things into a little powerful potent vessel. Our sexual energy is to be understood as that.

Furthermore, when we talk about sexual energy, we need to understand it is not just a physical thing. Sexual energy is not just the material, it is not just the hormones or the fluids that we normally associate with the sexual energy.  We say energy because beyond all those physical aspects, the physical vessel there is what we can call the soul of that energy and the spirit of that energy. There is the body, the soul, and the spirit of the sexual energy.

These are more subtle and superior aspects. Just like we have physical body, but we are not merely the physical body, what is many times more important than our physical body is our soul, and what is even more important than our soul is our spirit. So, we have aspects of the sexual energy that are related to these aspects. Ultimately we should understand that the sexual energy is our creative energy. All creative expressions: mental, emotional, sexual, is some refinement, some expression on a level of the sexual energy.

Aspects of sexual energy:

1. Body: physical fluids, hormones
2. Soul: the energic component, or subtle aspect of the physical
3. Spirit: the image of truth; the basis of spiritual archetypes.

In esoterism, “semen” refers to all levels of the sexual energy, in both men and women.

The more vital, subtle aspects are more important when it comes to the sexual energy. We can say that there is a spiritual component to our sexual energy, which is related to the divine imprints, the divine archetypes, which allow us to develop into our full development. Just like any seed contains within it the instructions to produce a magnificent creation. An acorn can become a gigantic oak tree. Any seed contains within its full development. This full development is not just a physical development it is also beyond that: to develop our whole soul.

We say: the image of truth is deposited within our sexual energy. The reflection of our own being, our very essence which is rooted in the Absolute Abstract Space is found as a reverberation within our own sexual energy here and now.

Finally, when we use the word “semen” sometimes in our different lectures or books, the word “semen” is not referring exclusively to a masculine thing. Semen is just another word for sexual energy whether it is the physical part, the more energetic part, or the more spiritual part and whether it is in a man or a woman, semen as a general word means sexual energy from an esoteric perspective.

We now have a better understanding about what the sexual energy is. Next: what do we do with this energy?

Functions of Sexual Energy

The three basic functions of sexual energy are:

1. Procreation
2. Pleasure
3. Psychogenesis

The first two functions of sexual energy are obvious. It is what everyone knows: procreation and pleasure. We do not need to give a lecture on how to procreate, and we do not need to give a lecture about how to derive pleasure from sex because that is obvious.

In terms of procreation: we would say it is a very inferior type of procreation that everybody is engaging in today. We are engaging in something that is against the doctrine of sexual transmutation. We will return to this topic later.

The third, however, is something we need to discuss: Psychogenesis.

This word we can break up in to two parts, psycho and genesis. Genesis means creation. Psycho points towards the psyche, to soul. Therefore, psychogenesis means the development or creation of our soul. Another word we could put here instead of psychogenesis would be spiritual development, spiritual realisation. You cannot build the soul without spiritual development.

The fact is that we, in our current state, are not a completed being. We have a physical body, we have mind and emotion, but we have not completed our development. In order to complete our development we have to take conscious direction, conscious control over our sexual energy. Sexual energy from a mechanical aspect can only develop up to a certain level, the level of an animal. To develop beyond that, to awaken in the internal worlds and to achieve everything that we are meant to achieve, requires something more.

We must become conscious, and work with our sexual energy. Within sexual energy, as we said, has the “image” of our Being, it has all the instructions and all the potential to develop our soul completely. We are just a small fraction of what we could be, and it is only by using sexual energy in the right way, through transmutation, that we can develop internally.

This is not some type of moral code where we are saying “If you believe in sexual transmutation then it is good.” No, this is not what we are saying at all, what we are saying is that there is literally the material in the energy that we need to develop our soul. It descends all the way from the Absolute down into us. We are a vessel, and it is our job and our duty, our decision, to work with that energy to make something spiritual in us. We have the free will to do it. God does not make us do it. God is not a tyrant. We have to choose whether we want to do it or not.

Psychogenesis is possible because there are other ways for the sexual energy to flow within us other than the “normal” way. Better said, the common way. The common way of course is through orgasm and ejaculation. This removes the energy from the body. This is done in hopes for (1) procreation and (2) pleasure.

There is another way, and this is precisely the topic of our teaching here. The reason why there is another way is because we have been made with another way. There is the existence of subtle energy channels in our body. There are ways in which subtle energy can flow within us that is different than if you were to orgasm. When you orgasm or ejaculate, one or the other it does not matter, the energy is obviously going out of the body, it is being removed.

If you want to practice sexual transmutation the first thing you must do is stop that behavior. Only then will you finally have the material to work with.

Transmuted sexual energy travels primarily up through two energy channels. These two are called in Sanskrit Ida and Pingala, one is Solar and the other is Lunar.

Solar Channel

• Sanskrit: Pinagala
• Hebrew (Kabbalah): Adam, Od
• Tibetan: Rasana

Lunar Channel

• Sanskrit: Ida
• Hebrew (Kabbalah): Eve, Odb
• Tibetan: Lalana

The solar channel can be called Pingala, it can be called Adam, can be called Od, it can be called Rasana.

The lunar channel can be called Ida, it can be called Eve, it can be called Obd and Lalana in various different traditions.

Regarding these two channels, the basic thing we should understand is that they are polarised. They are connected between the gonads and the nasal cavity.

In man Pingala is related with the left testicle and the right nostril. Ida is the opposite: the right testicle and the left nasal cavity.

In women that polarisation is reversed. Pingala, the right ovary connects to the left nasal cavity and for Ida the left ovary goes to the right nasal cavity.

The Caduceus of Mercury, which is the image universally accepted as the image for health care or medicine shows these channels. You see a staff and two serpents intertwined around that. The two serpents are the two channels.

We also can see, for example, a Tibetan image of three energy channels going up the back of the yogi with fire on top of his head.

Sometimes it is shown as a serpent is coiling around and other times like in Tibetan iconography it is straight. The main thing here is that the channel is connected from the sexual organs up to the root of the nose which is of course right next to the brain.

When a man and a woman connect sexually, they are making use of these energy channels. However, they are only truly put into activity if the energy is not let out. If the energy is emitted from the body, then no transmutation occurs. It is that simple.

There is a method to refine sexual energy. The subtle component of the sexual energy then ascends up these channels. It gives health, life, and spiritual development.

Secret Language of Alchemy

Sometimes when explaining these things some people do not quite understand why we will say a certain teaching is symbolic for sexual transmutation. People sometimes think that it is not possible that there is some secret language going on, but in fact that is exactly the case that this teaching has been, historically, completely obscured and hidden from the normal individual who might have contact with these teachings.

Universal across all religions there would be an exoteric or introductory level, and there might be an intermediate level, but only in the most inner or esoteric advanced levels is where they begin to talk about the real meaning and purpose of sexual transmutation.

Here in the west, we see the doctrine of Alchemy. Alchemy is what we call a polysemic language. Poly meaning many and semic meaning meanings. The polysemic language of alchemy is using things like retort, receptacle, furnace, tube, boiling… all of these words that mean something normal or something people might associate today with chemistry or something like that. However, for those in the know, they actually meant something else.

In the Tibetan tradition there is a polysemic language called the twilight language. This is the language which the tantric doctrine is written in. Unless you were educated orally from mouth to ear what the true meanings were of certain phrases, certain words, you would not know what the teaching was, even though it was right there in front of you.

This is a way of hiding teachings in plain sight is common among religions. This is a way of preserving a tradition. If someone is looking to change it, they do not even know what they are changing. they do not even know it is there.

This type of secret language is everywhere, and in our teachings, we just call it: alchemical symbolism, Kabbalistic symbolism, tantric symbolism… whether we call it that or polysemic language it is the same thing.

There are multiple levels of meaning. We can see in these images here in alchemy the imagery is extremely sexual, phallic, and there are receptacles which relate to the feminine sexual organ. Obviously, these are relating to some type of sexual activity happening between a man and a woman.

Let us now talk about polysemic language (kabbalah) in the Old Testament. Unless you were initiated into the esoteric teachings, you are not going to really know what it is talking about.

This is the symbolism of the olive trees and the golden candle sticks in Zachariah. In Zachariah it says;

And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. 

And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:

And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. - Zechariah 4:1-3

Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?

And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?

And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.

Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. - Zechariah 4:11-14

These two candle sticks are the two energy channels we have just spoken of.

The golden oil that is traveling from the bottom up to the top to the bowl, well this is the energy traveling from the sexual organs up the energy channels to the brain (the bowl).

That golden oil, we can say is the olive oil. Olive oil is a symbol of transmuted sexual energy. But why olives?

In this case it is remarkably interesting to just look at an image here of an olive. Look at the very shape of that olive and compare it with the glands of the body. It is obvious that it is the same shape as the testes and the ovaries. It is such a beautiful symbol because it is from those olives, if you know how to work with your energy, you make olive oil, you make that golden oil that rises within the body and enlightens the mind.

Zechariah means to “remember God.” Yes, you must remember that your sexual energy comes from your inner divinity. And if you make olive oil, you light the seven lamps of your soul.

These are the type of symbols that unless you have the eyes to see, unless you have been educated then you will not know what these meanings are. As I mentioned many times already, for sexual transmutation to work we have to conserve the energy, and in fact we have to become what is called hermetically sealed.

The Hermetic Seal

What is the hermetic seal? It is a phase used in medicine, it is a phrase used in engineering, in chemistry, it is used in preserving food: you have a hermetically sealed jar.

The origin of this term comes from alchemy, it comes from the word Hermes, the Latin word for Hermeticus. Hermes, who is associated with Thoth and the Ibis god of Egypt, is where we get the phrase hermetically sealed.

According to alchemical tradition Hermes invented the process of making the glass tube air tight using a secret seal, and without a hermetic seal in alchemy, nothing occurs.

We must emphasize a third time: without the hermetic seal, nothing in alchemy could possibly occur.

We see here an image of a beautiful peacock inside a hermetically sealed jar. There is a lot of symbolism here. We have an entire course just on alchemy that goes into these types of symbols. The one thing I am making an emphasis on is the hermetic seal.

Without the hermetic seal nothing happens. There are some people talking about sexual transmutation, but they do not perform the hermetic seal, so what they are doing I do not know. They may say they are working alchemically, that they are working to transmute their energy, but if you do not have a hermetic seal there is nothing to work with. If you want to get in the car and go somewhere you have to have the fuel. If you want to develop yourself alchemically you have to have your fuel. If you do not have any energy, you must collect that energy.

Thankfully, our body is constantly regenerating itself sexually (as we get older, this capacity diminishes in relation to the frequency of sexual depletions). Energy is descending from the cosmos into us. We are eating and we are drinking, we or experiencing all these things and they are all condensing into our sexual energy.

Secret of Alchemy

Hermes Trismegistus is the mythological parent of alchemy, and he wrote a treatise called the Emerald Tablet. The Emerald Tablet is not actually that long. We quote one phrase here.

“Separate that spirituous earth from the dense or crude by means of gentle heat with much attention.”

Here is really the crux of sexual alchemy: to create heat. Now what is heat? Heat is sexual excitation. Heat is that force that is called Cupid or Eros.

We always confuse Eros, erotic energy with lust and our desires, and that is wrong. In its pristine essence, Eros is a type of fire, a type of movement of energy within us. The problem is our ignorance. We do not understand what to do when sexual heat starts to build. We do not know how to work with it. We have only been taught how to orgasm and ejaculate.

We have become beguiled by the energy. Remember the Caduceus of Mercury? It has two serpents. And what is Mercury? Mercury is the Roman god that is related to the Greek god Hermes. They are both related to sex. It is stated in the Bible that “Eve becomes beguiled by the serpent” and thereafter eats the fruit. Well, that serpent is the same energy channel, the serpents on the Caduceus of Mercury. Eve is beguiled because when sexual heat begins to flow, it is very enjoyable. Yet, when she eats the fruit, she orgasms and loses all the energy. In other words, Adam and Eve are thrown out of Eden. In Hebrew Eden (עדן) means “bliss, pleasure, delight.”

In Kabbalistic symbolism, Adam and Eve are within every single man and woman. Each man has an Adam and Eve. Each woman has an Adam and Eve. Adam is the brain. Eve is the sexual organs.

Sexual energy is circulating through us always and particularly you feel that energy very well and pronounced in the moment of the sexual act. Sexual energy is like a serpentine energy within us moving everywhere, and we become beguiled by it, a type of bliss. At this moment we are not talking about the orgasm; we are simply talking about the enjoyment of sexual connection. However, with orgasm comes a very deceitful, it costs our whole life and our soul. Therefore, in the symbol of Adam and Eve, the kicking out of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden occurs. Within man and woman are Adam and Eve, and the Eve within becomes beguiled by the heat of the serpentine energy (sexual energy flowing in the blood).

Instead, we need to learn how to work with a gentle heat. The heat caused by sexual excitation causes a transformation of energy to occur. This is called sexual transmutation. The transmuted energy moves through the subtle energy channels. Orgasm only pushes the energy out of the body, and the subtle energy channels remain dark and empty.

Recall the story of the Buddha at the beginning of this lecture. He lived extremely opulently, extremely wealthy, but then he flipped over to the other side and become a renunciate, an extreme ascetic. The milk maid Sujata came and gave him the rice milk. This is precisely a teaching of sexual transmutation. Our life, our spiritual life begins to become full and developed when we learn how to transmute the sexual energy.

Why rice milk? Rice milk is the same symbol as the olive oil. The rice is our sexual energy, and to drink the rice milk means to transmute the sexual energy.

This is meaning of transmuting water into wine. Instead of rice, it is now grapes. The wine is the transmuted sexual energy.

The churning of the milk ocean? It is the same story. The ocean is churned into Amrita. The Amrita is the transmuted sexual energy.

The turning of the Jordan River? The Jordan River is the flow of sexual energy. Jordan literally means “descender.” Turning the Jordan River means to make the energy flow upwards, just as the Buddha laid the bowl on the river and made it flow upwards.

The Buddha did not reject the rice milk. It is wrong and bad to reject our sexual energy. It is unfortunate that many spiritual aspirants think that to be spiritual you simply forget about, repress, and reject sexual energy. It is wrong, you become deprived. You stop developing your soul when that happens. You can start developing a lot of bad negative things at the same time. We need to have that middle way to neither reject the sexual energy but neither to engage in the throwing out or the emission of this very precious thing within us. This is the middle way of the Buddha: the very secret of alchemy is to in a loving relationship have sexual connection but to remain in chastity.

The very secret to Alchemy is to maintain chastity while sexually connected. What do we mean by chastity? We have to define that very carefully. Chastity means first of all no emission of energy occurs neither for the man neither for the woman. We say this very clearly because there is a lot of wrong doctrines out there that try twist this in a very subtle and bad way.

No orgasm, no ejaculation, neither from the man and neither from the woman. You simply have to stop before that occurs. That is the base rule. If you do not stop before that occurs, you emit the energy then you do not have the energy for it to be refined. You cannot make wine of intoxication if you do not have the water, it is that simple.

More than that chastity means that you are in a relationship that is committed, not a fling, not based on spiritual ambition but based upon love and sympathy for your partner. It is based on purity of heart and mind, a continual refinement and elimination of lust. This is easier said than done, but it is the goal.

When we engage in this activity, obviously, some sexual excitation is necessary. The sexual organs need to become appropriate and prepared for sexual union. That is that sexual heat is different than lust. We must check and guard our mind and not to engage in lust. It is difficult because the sexual energy and our lust are entangled together like two knotted balls of energy, so this is not a simple thing.

We must keep refining. It is not that one day you just know how to do this perfectly. However, so long as you follow the base rule of maintaining the energy, not emitting the energy, you progress. You must meditate again and again and refine the practice.

This is a lifetime of understanding your psychology. The process becomes more and more refined. Beginners of this practice will first and foremost need to be very astute. This is not something to play around with. In the beginning many people should only connect for short periods of time because our mind and the physical body is very used to fornicating. It is very used to knowing how to emit the energy, and you must educate the body to retain it, and that can take some time. That can be emotionally difficult because it is not something easy.

When man and woman come together, in that moment obviously sexual energy is circulating. You are activating that energy, and it is going to go somewhere just like a combustion engine, or a steam engine. The energy develops and it moves. When you create that movement of energy, of course the animal within us wants it to explode and move it out of the body, based on an attachment to sensations.

We are attached to the sensation of orgasm. We must realise that if we renounce that, then that energy that is continually active, now finds itself another place for it to go, and it goes up those energy channels. The physical aspect of the energy gets re-absorbed physically but the vital essence, the superior subtle aspect of that energy goes up. We call this the seminal vapours. It is just like steam rising.

Just like you have a pot of water: you apply heat to it and that water turns to steam. That steam goes up and that steam collects somewhere above. If you were to not to do anything with the water eventually there would be droplets of water on the ceiling because the steam would collect up there.

That is precisely the symbol this alchemical image. You see here in this magnificent image, once you understand the symbolism it is extremely beautiful. On the bottom, on the left and on the right, you have a man and a woman kneeling, which is a symbol of humility. Tou see in the middle a furnace, and in the centre of that furnace is a drop. That drop is then going down being reduced to the very bottom of the furnace where there is a flame. It is actually being reduced to that cone and the flame is heating up that cone and the water is transmuted in to steam.

The steam is released from those three pipes at the top of the furnace. The steam rises to the upper half of the image where you see the two angels collecting a large drop of water. That is the transmuted sexual energy in the world of angels. Within the large drop is Poseidon. Poseidon is there, you see him with a trident, he is the god of the sea, God of the waters. You see there his trident.

You know who else has a trident in mythology: Satan. This is how the trident which is locked within our own infernos (the furnace) gets transmuted into the trident of Poseidon, that same core energy, that same fire of the devil is the same fire of god. We have to learn how to liberate, we say you have to learn how to steal the fire from the devil, how to transmute it, how to separate the dense crude by means of a gentle heat with much attention. That is what Hermes is saying and by much attention means to be aware, to guard yourself against the spasm.

Now the more you try to transmute the more your ego rejects it. This dynamic psychological pressure occurs and your subconscious works to satisfy itself, it wants to relive those sensations, it is very attached to it. Those desires are actually subconscious, unconscious, infra-conscious willpower. Willpower that is trapped inside our desire to experience orgasm, so when we begin this practice, we are fighting our own self.

Little by little we are liberating ourselves from willpower trapped in desire. All those creative energies collect in the superior worlds, the superior aspects of our self.

Bodhichitta in Tantra

This topic is obviously very profound, very wide and there is a lot we could say about it. I think the very first things that people ask is “But how do we do this, how do you actually do this? We are confused about what we do.”

First let us look at what Yeshe Tsogyel says. Yeshe Tsogyel is the wife or the consort of the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. The founder of Tibetan Buddhism is Padmasambhava and Tibetan Buddhism is a completely Vajrayana system. It is a system that holds the tantric teachings. They hold all the different levels of Buddhism and if you get to the very top then they start teaching Tantra. So Yeshe Tsogyal is seen here sexually connected with Padmasambhava and with a lot of Tantric symbolism.

She says;

To allow the bodhichitta to be spilled outside is like slaying the Buddha Amitabha…

I was able to reverse the bodhichitta upward…

I remained attentive to the bliss but did not crave it…

Not for an instant did I give way to laziness.

Yeshe Tsogyal

What is Bodhichitta? Well here the Bodhichitta means the sexual energy. Bodhichitta is a profound topic related to Mahayana Buddhism.

Bodhichitta at its base level means an intention to awaken. In its greater level Bodhichitta means the profound wisdom, the profound perception of all things, to see the reality of everything which is Prajna (another Sanskrit word).

This very word here (bodhichitta) which means compassion, which means the altruistic intention to awaken so that you can enlighten other beings, this word that means the absolute perfection of wisdom, also means sexual energy.

This is not a contradiction. This is one hundred percent in alignment with everything we already mentioned in this lecture. Sexual energy contains the very archetype of our development, it contains the very image of truth within it.

When she says, “To allow the Bodhichitta to be spilled outside is like slaying the Buddha Amitabha” this is like saying western language to emit the sexual energy is to murder the god Mercury. The god Mercury is our inner being, our inner Buddha, and we are all unfortunately guilty of murdering our inner Buddha.

In Christianity it is said that sins against the Father can be forgiven, sins against the Son can be forgiven, but sins against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. Why is that?

Well, the Father is related to our intellect, related to the truth, so anytime we do not speak the truth we disconnect ourselves from the Father, from our inner Father.

The Son is related to wisdom and superior emotion and anytime we inhabit hatred we sin against the Son.

The Holy Spirit is related to our sexual energy. It is the Holy Spirit that engendered or fecundated the mother Mary, the birth occurs through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our sexual energy and that is the very core root of how we should understand that. If you do not work with your sexual energy, you cannot develop spiritually.

The very spirit of God is within us, but only in a very latent state, we must know how to work with it in its full developed state.

We are like a person who is very uneducated, who has a stack of money. We have figured out that if we burn the money we get warm, but that is all we know what to do with the money. Then, someone comes up to us and says, “You know, you should not be burning that.” We respond, “Well what do you mean, every time I burn this it gives me warmth and it is good, I feel good when I burn the money.” We do not understand that our money or in this case, our sexual energy, can be used for a lot more than sexual pleasures.

All we have known about our sexuality is that we can please ourselves with it. In terms of children we know how to have children with orgasm and ejaculation but there is actually a way to have children without that. There is the possibility of having children without the need of spilling all that energy. What we would say is that it is the will of God if a few sperm are emitted without ejaculation. If there are a few sperm emitted, that can cause a type of birth not related to orgasm. This would be an “immaculate conception” by the will of God. This can happen and that would be a type of regulation, or birth control, which is completely in alignment with these teachings.

Three Types of Alchemical Mercury

Yes, it is true, we must sacrifice something to gain something else. We must educate ourselves, there is a lot more to sexual energy than sexual pleasures.

When we say sexual alchemy, other terms are sexual magic, and Sahaja Maithuna. Sahaja maithuna means sacred intercourse.

When we are talking about sexual energy in Alchemy there is the substance of Mercury.

Mercury is one of the most important elements when talking about things in an alchemically. Understand that the element Mercury of Alchemy is related to the God Mercury and therefore the God Hermes. They are all related, and it is not an accident. Right now, we are talking about the Alchemical mercury (the substance).

Physically, in chemistry, mercury is a metal that is also a liquid. It is also called quicksilver. Alchemy is always using the symbols of metallurgy, melting, and combining metals.

Our base mercury is our base sexual energy. When we transmute sexual energy, we can do that in one of two ways. In one we have talked about through sexual union in a marriage but if someone is single there is a way to transmute the sexual energy through breathing techniques which is called pranayama. The only way pranayama is going to work is if we have the Hermetic seal. If we are not hermetically sealed what is pranayama going to do if there is no energy there?

The transmuted sexual energy is just the first level though. This is called “liberating the metallic soul” of the mercury. The energy then saturates we can say, it builds up to a certain amount until a phase shift occurs. A phase shift is like when ice turns to water. The third type of mercury which is the most elevated and this is the type of mercury that creates something new within us. This is the mercury fecundated with the sulphur (the fire of sex).

To transmute the sexual energy is good as it creates health, it creates better meditations, it develops superior emotion but what we are really after is that third type of mercury which only occurs through successive or elongated lifestyle of always working to transmute the energy.

There are three degrees of mercury:

• Base sexual energy. Brute mercury.
• Transmuted sexual energy. The liberated “metallic soul” of the Mercury.
• The crystallizations of the transmuted sexual energy. The metallic soul of the Mercury fecundated with Sulfur (Fire).

How does it work? What do we do?

When the sexual impulse to fornicate (orgasm / ejaculation) is refrained, the base semen is transformed into subtle vapors.

The subtle seminal vapor is the metallic soul of the mercury, which ascends up ida and pingala.

When those subtle vapors reach a saturation point, the kundalini awakens, and superior crystallizations of the soul occur.

Each refinement of sexual energy activates deeper and more occult forces which bring about terrible tempests of the soul.

The kundalini ascends in strict accordance with the purity of the heart.

The transmutation occurs when the ego gets out of the way. The intelligence of the Divine Mother is doing the real work.

The couple’s responsibility is to remain in chastity, remembering the divine, while applying the correct amount of “heat” (sexual arousal).

In terms of sexual magic, when the sexual impulse to fornicate, which means to orgasm or ejaculation, when that is refrained, the base sexual energy is transformed into subtle vapours, it is transformed into energy, that is what we call seminal vapours.

The seminal vapour is the metallic soul of the mercury that ascends those energy channels: Ida and Pingala. When those subtle vapours reach a saturation point then the Kundalini awakens. I have not explained that but many people have heard of what the Kundalini is, it is the advent of fire. It is a process through which superior crystallisations of the soul occur.

Those superior crystallisations are manifold, they relate to the superior existential bodies, bodies of the Being, and the awakening of our consciousness.

“The refinement of the sexual energy activates deeper and more occult forces that bring about terrible tempests of the soul.”

What that means is that our sexual energy right now is comingled with the devil. What is the devil? We are the devil! Our whole psychology is corrupted, and the depth of our corruption is profound. Some people do not believe how deeply engrained we are in this darkness. The truth is there is a tremendous amount of ourselves that we are not aware of that is attached to sensation and to desire, which is our subconscious.

Working with sexual energy, transmuting it, brings light to these deeper aspects. The deeper and deeper we go, the more profound the potency of our sexual energy is to create the light within ourselves.

When we are working with the forces, ascension to a higher level of being requires a descent into hell. That is a symbol that we see throughout all the myths, a descent into hell, a decapitation, a death, and of course the story of resurrection, is a culmination of all of this.

Little by little, we say, we have to die to our ego, and we have to be born in to higher levels of being. That Kundalini, that advent of fire, the fire in the Book of Acts, the tongues of fire ascends with the strict accordance with the purity of our heart. So the Kundalini does not ascend mechanically. It is the very cognizance or wisdom of Christ, of our inner divine mother, of these extremely elevated aspects, it is not something that ascends mechanically.

The actual transmutation does not occur by our own dint of will, but we do play an important role.

Consider the process of eating food. We get to select the food, we chew it, and then we swallow. The body then takes over, the intelligence of our body knows how to work with that food to extract the minerals. In a similar way we should understand sexual transmutation. We must enter into the act, and we control a certain aspect of it, particularly when to remove the heat, when to stop the act to refrain from the spasm. The particulars of how that energy is transformed, however, is done through the intelligence of the body. Our Divine Mother is doing that which we are connected to, but is not under our direct will, we can say.

So, we apply the energies and set up the conditions in the right way. If you take a pot of water and you apply the heat eventually that water is going to turn to steam. In the same way, if you sexually connect you refrain from spasm, and you remain in an environment of love and divine devotion, paying attention to your inner being, not paying attention to all these sensations which we lust after, if we succeed in that then the energy will be transmuted in the same way.

There are things we can do like mantras, prayers, and visualisations too. They help with all this, but what we should understand is that we are not involved with the fine minutia of how that energy is transformed. We are responsible for setting up the environment and conditions. By environment, we mean the psychological environment related to your consciousness.

It is the couple’s responsibility is to stay in chastity, remembering the divine, while applying the correct amount of heat: sexual arousal.

Now this is easy to say, but difficult in reality, for the beginner. Our egos are very quick, very subtle, very serpentine, we can become beguiled by our lust. If we refrain from spasm, from lust, etc., then a different type of bliss arrives. This is not a sensation, but a wellbeing, this is a blossoming of our soul, this is a religious intoxication, it is not sensual intoxication. This experience is not like a big orgasm which is being said by other schools, it is not like that, that is a wrong teaching. This is a vastly different type of thing. Transmuting this energy, when you are filed with this type of wine, this type of energy when you sit to meditate, your meditations are more profound, and there is a type of pleasantness, they call it bliss in the ancient meditation manuals, that bliss is the vapours of the wine of our transmuted sexual energy.

Pranayama

We talked about what sexual transmutation is for a couple, we also need to talk about sexual transmutation for someone who is single. This is called pranayama.

There are many different types of pranayama. The basic thing is that you sit in a very relaxed way, almost like you were sitting when you meditate. You can then do a very simple pranayama called the Ham-Sah pranayama.

Inhale very deeply, very slowly, and imagine the creative energy ascending within those channels up to the brain. During this, mentally pronounced the mantra Ham: haaaaaaammmmmmmm.

You say that mentally, as you are breathing in, and that breathing in is causing that energy to ascend. You are breathing very slowly, so by the time your lungs are full, you have visualised the energy ascending up to the brain. Then you will have lungs full of breath, and you may hold it for a second or two, but the fact you have been breathing in very slowly you have been already holding your breath in for some time.

Then you exhale with a short and quick pronunciation of the mantra Sah. It may sound like this: sssahh.

Undoubtedly you inhale through the nose, and you exhale through the mouth. When inhaling you mantralise the sacred syllable Ham mentally since you are inhaling through the nose but you can articulate the syllable Sah with sound when you exhale. It is a very simple type of pranayama and we know why this works because those channels are connected between the gonads and the nose.

Three Forms of Tantra

It would be remiss not to talk about the Three Forms of Tantra.

There is a lot of information on the internet that talks about Tantra, about Kundalini, about sexual alchemy. Almost all of it fails to talk about the Hermetic seal and therefore they are invalid, they are wrong.

Any doctrine that talks about sexual alchemy, mingling with spirituality, and does not have the hermetic seal is a black doctrine and it will create your ego, it will cause you to suffer.

The problem here is that some of these doctrines actually work in the sense that they cause something to happen internally, you can awaken inside of your ego, this is like awakening inside of hell. So, you can have a type of power in that, a certain type of awakening but it is a terribly bad thing.

In the past the way this was battled against was to not speak of Tantra at all: to not speak about this clearly and keep it hidden. Now we are in a different phase, we are in a different time. We have to speak about everything very clearly.

You will find all over the place all types of Tantra, Kundalini yoga, etc., that do not mention about transmuting the sexual energy. At best they are nonsense, and most of the time they are horrible. They are teaching Black Tantra even if they say otherwise.

You must combine your sexual energy with chastity, with the Hermetic seal, otherwise you are going to awaken within your ego, which is terrible, you will cause yourself to suffer a lot

All the real schools, the real religions, you will see they have a type of protocol for those who are like the priests, the monks, the nuns: they are told to not waste the sexual energy. Today that is called celibacy, but the real teaching is not celibacy. It is unfortunate because a lot of these traditions they forgot there is another level beyond celibacy. Celibacy means to not engage in sexual activity, the right word here and the right way to look at this is chastity.

Chastity means the proper use of our sexual energies. We must properly use our sexual energies. If we are married then that means it is sexual transmutation through sexual alchemy, and if you are a bachelor that means you are conserving your energy and working with pranayama, and other activities related to that, such as the Rites of Rejuvenation, Runic exercises, meditation, mantras, etc. All genuine spiritual actions move the sexual energy in a positive way.

The 14^th Dalai Lama, which is the current one, says the following about Tantra;

“In the view of Tantra, the body's vital energies are the vehicles of the mind. When the vital energies are pure and subtle, one's state of mind will be accordingly affected. By transforming these bodily energies we transform the state of consciousness.” - The 14th Dalai Lama

The more that we look, the more that we find this tradition supported by all the great schools and religions of the world. We just need to know where to look.

Unfortunately, most of the people within all these traditions have lost the inner teaching, they have lost the alchemical teaching. They only have maintained the outer vestures, outer symbols and traditions that point towards something, but they do not actually know what the true teaching is.

Let us end the lecture here. I think that is enough.

Questions and Answers

Question: Are all types of pranayama performing transmutation?

Answer: Yes. If it is a truly a pranayama then it is transmuting the energy.

The word there, prana, that is the vital energy in our body. Yama means to restrain, control, or to work with. So pranayama is to control the winds, the vital energies of our body. All true pranayamas are transmuting sexual energy.

Now, there are traditions that teach “pranayama” that I would not practice. Investigate the nature of the school. There are popular schools that teach “Kundalini Yoga” and “pranayama” yet do not talk about sexual transmutation, chastity, etc. These are false teachings. As far as true teachings: Swami Shivananda, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Yoganada all have proper pranayama techniques. There are proper breathing techniques found in the Philokalia and from many Buddhist teachers. Beyond the Ham Sah pranayama, we also teach the Christic Egyptian Pranayama.

Question: Can a woman transmute if their menstrual cycle is occurring?

Answer: A woman should not perform any sexual transmutation during her menstrual cycle. This is not something against women this is simply the way our bodies work.

Women have a cycle, they are collecting energy throughout the weeks, and of course if the egg is not fertilised then energy must be let go, that energy has to get out of the body.

A woman is absorbing energy not just physically, but environmentally, and this actually makes some slight advantage at times because they are more susceptible to, if they are in a good environment, to take in a good environment

The other side of this is that during that week of menstruation all the vital winds, the currents of energy, particularly the lower half of course, the uterus is trying to push that energy out. This is a process that is not simply physical, but this is an energetic process related to the subtle vital body.

During that time if a woman were trying to transmute that would be taking that part of the body and turning the tide, turn the flow of energy up to channels, and at that time that would be wrong. That would be bringing bad substances up those channels. It is not the right thing to do.

So, no type of pranayama is good to do during menstruation. The sexual act is obviously completely absurd during this time as well.

What a woman should do during that time is meditate. This is a perfect time to meditate and reflect upon her ego. This energetic process involves hormones of course, and those hormones bring to light difficulties and psychological irritations. Of course, not feeling good physically either, this may be a challenging time.

The correct view is to take this experience and work with it psychologically. Meditate on what irritations and what powerful emotions might be coming up during that time and work more specifically on an ego during that time.

Question: When practicing, I do not orgasm but at times I feel that energy building up and I stop immediately, but I feel it rise when this happens. I however feel I cannot continue practicing.

Answer: Then you stop the practice. Simple as that.

As we said before: the primary thing that we are responsible for is to bring the right amount of heat, not too little and not too much. When we feel that spasm coming up, it means we must stop. This is the beguiling serpent that comes sometimes particularly at the beginning. Yes you have to stop immediately to refrain from the spasm.

The best piece of advice (after stopping) is to keep working on your ego, on your lust and try not to get to that point of it building up too much. In that moment, that energy is enjoyable of course, but our ego wants more, more and more. Even if it wants to stop before orgasm the ego is still consuming sensations, there is still negativity there.

We are working with the devil, and we are the devil, so we must take all those experiences that are happening in the bedroom so to speak, reflect on them in daily meditation, working with them seeing how these themes are reoccurring, so that we should reduce the heat to not try not to get that aroused in the future. It is easier said than done but it is what we must do. You have to eliminate those egos that are bringing too much heat.

As you become more adept you learn how to focus more inwardly on the Inner Being, on the inner Divine Mother, leaning how to direct that energy to a place of compassion, to a place of love, and that is a very powerful way of transmuting that energy.

It is never really a problem to stop too early, it is always a problem to stop too late.

Question: How often can we practice sexual alchemy?

Answer: You should only practice sexual alchemy once per day.

We must obey the creative magnetic pause that nature demands. Our energy is cycling every 24 hours, approximately, related to the movement of solar energy upon the Earth. We charge our body with the practice of sexual magic, we must now let the body revolve and digest that energy, so we cannot enter sex again another hour later. You must wait for the sun to cycle (24 hours). That is what the creative magnetic pause is.

Now the question is what if it is very, very short connection because the man or woman needs to stop right away. That is something you need to understand in yourself. If you need to disconnect to readjust your posture or the position or something like that then that is no problem.

Question: Can the mantra Kandil Bandil Rrrrrr be used during the sexual act, and during pranayama

Answer:  This is a mantra I did not talk about during this lecture but you can find that online. Yes you can use it both ways.

Question: What about alternate nostril breathing?

There are different types of pranayama. In the Rites of Rejuvenation a type of simple alternate nostril breathing is done. That is a good practice.

Question: Is it normal to feel tired after sexual alchemy?

Answer: Yes, that can very well be the case because if you are using your attention a lot. You are using your consciousness to stay present, sometimes that feels like an exertion, and typically too you are moving a lot of energy, then your body is doing a lot of work. So, you can feel very relaxed or sleepy after. That is normal.

Question: Are women expected to perform sexual transmutation as well?

Answer: Yes, absolutely.

There are some absurd notions where people try to say that men and women are so different and only men can transmute. Or that men and women transmute if fundamentally different ways. The only real difference is in the case of menstruation. Other than that the requirements the necessities are the same for both a man and a woman.

Question: What if a man gives up having sex all together because he is afraid of spilling semen?

Answer: A man that gives up sex, if he does not transmute in any other way, meaning he does not do breathing exercises and he does not have any sex, then he is rejecting his sexual impulse. He is turning his back on the Holy Spirit. A lot of traditions that do not know how to transmute, they tell their adherents to not engage in matrimony, and they do not teach them to transmute, and the result is not good.

You have to transmute; this is like a volatile energy that needs to be worked with one way or another. Giving up sex all together, that is the symbol of the Buddha denying his wealth and living as an ascetic person in the woods. You have to work with the sexual energy to some degree, otherwise if you do not work with the sexual energy in a conscious manner, the sexual energy will work within you in an unconscious manner and will grow your ego.

Question: Is doing Ham-Sah to transmute lust negative?

Answer: Our lust is our sexual fire that is caught up in our ego so we have to transform our lust. Ham-Sah does not transmute lust through. Ham-Sah transmutes sexual energy. Lust and sexual energy are not the same. Lust uses sexual energy to satisfy desires.

When we work with Ham-Sah you have to be very careful that you are not reengaging in lust. You have to call upon the higher aspects of your Being. So sometimes if you have a strong lustful ego that you need to work on you can do Ham-Sah pranayama to move that energy in a positive way and then pray to your Divine Mother, your Inner Being to help you see this lust from a distance, because lust can grab you and bring you down. As soon as you start imaging things lustful, that imagination pulls your prana down, it tries to push it out, so you have to be careful.

Question: Even if the pranayama is performed daily can you unintentionally feed the ego or does it all go towards strengthening the consciousness?

Answer: If you are truly transmuting your energy then you have done it with your consciousness. You have to have that awareness, that presence, that attentiveness; you cannot be lazy.

If you are conserving your energy but not performing pranayama then you are like a battery that is fully charged, and it can explode from just a thought, from a single image of the mind. The mind just takes that energy and pushes that out of the body. That is the primary way that wet dreams, nocturnal emissions, and lustful dreams occur. We have to conserve the energy and transmute it and that is the right thing.

By the way you can practice pranayama as much as you wish there is no limit on that.

Question: How long must someone who has just lost their wife or husband either from death or divorce abstain from sexual contact with another partner?

Answer:  A consensus is to wait three years. Samael Aun Weor mentions this length of time in one of his letures (Baptism and the Philosophical Stone). This is because you want to make sure that the intermingling of forces is avoided. Every sexual contact that we have with someone is intermingling. The nervous system must settle down until the force of the other person is not actively present. Every sexual contact is an intermingling of nervous systems. These vibrations (of the other person) last for a least a year, and for strong connections, at least three years. Also that time is just what we need to refocus ourselves.  Obviously one relationship ending and another one beginning this is a very serious thing, it happens, but it is something that we need to take very seriously. We should not end a relationship and then the next day start another one.

Ultimately you should meditate a lot on it.

Question: What about single women practicing that do not have their cycles anymore?

Answer: There is no problem there. Just continue practicing. In terms of sexual contact, the frequency may change. That is fine. There are different “pluses” and “minuses” within life, we must obey the natural rhythms of life.

Question: How can we transmute with the Hermetic seal as a single person with pranayama?

Answer: Well the Hermetic seal just means that you are not having the orgasm or ejaculation. That is it. That you are not emitting the energy that is really what we need to understand about the hermetic seal.

Question: Is the Heretic seal a renouncement of lust and the orgasm?

Answer: Yes! That is it.

Question: What is the meaning of keeping the Arcanum hidden in case of it being misused, can you expound on that please?

Answer: Regarding this topic I would invite you to read The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. It has always been a secret teaching until only recently for various reasons. The overall reason has to do with the proper development of humanity. There is a great cycle of creation that goes back many cosmic days. There are periods where humanity must search for the light and be kept in the darkness. This builds rationality, the intellect. Now that the intellect has been developed, we have reached the Age of Information. Now we must traverse the ascending arch, to return to the bosom of Pleroma with the perfect Solar Abraxas.

Question: If you have an orgasm without ejaculation as a male?

Answer: This is something that a lot of people read from different doctrines. These are black doctrines that talk about orgasm without ejaculation.

The traditions that talk about this go back to very ancient times, but they are black, they are wrong. They are trying to steal from God. As we said before, the sexual energy is not just physical, but also energetic. The orgasm is the throwing out of all the energetic aspects of our sexual energy, so it is wrong, you must conserve both. That energy that is coming out through orgasm is still a spiritual energy and it is even more powerful than the physical energy to transmute.

When you orgasm but without ejaculation, the body retains energy, but the soul awakens negatively. It is Black Magic. You will find this type of doctrine in parts all over the world. They may say they are “Buddhist,” “Hindu,” “Christian,” “Gnostic.” You have to investigate the teachings, do not rely upon appearances.

Question: Could you please speak about how the fear of the spasm can affect the act?

Answer: Love must be greater than fear. Yet, there needs to be a respect of what can happen. The word fear needs to be understood in a couple of ways. If you are driving your car without your seat belt at one hundred miles per hour and you have no concern about that, you are foolish. You can call that fear, sure. You should realize that if one little thing goes wrong you can die. If you buckled your seat belt out of fear of losing your life well, you did a very smart thing.

In the same way losing your sexual energy in that sense. Fear in terms of instinctual cowardice, that is a little different, that is a fear based in ignorance.

So, when everyone uses different words for those two different things that is confusion. If you are at the edge of a cliff and you look down and you say, “if I take one wrong step I will die.” Well then you are respecting that reality, and you could say you fear that, so you take a step back. If you just fear something out of the unknown, out of ignorance well that is something else. That is what have to say about fear.

Question: Is there a specific prayer or mantra to strengthen chastity?

Answer: There are many, again I would read the books, particularly The Perfect Matrimony, and the Mystery of the Golden Flower.

Question: What is appropriate during the sexual act? What is forbidden?

Answer: Obviously, we keep the Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Fornicate. Keep your chastity. Do not orgasm or ejaculate.

The proper use of the sexual organs is for the penis to penetrate the vagina. That is their purpose. They are not to be used in any other way. Oral sex polarizes the nervous system negatively. It does not transmute energy. Transmutation requires polarities. Homosexual contact cannot transmute the energy. It polarizes the nervous system extremely negatively, awakening the consciousness negatively within the ego.

The only thing that is supposed to unite is female and male sexual organs, you do not put them in any other place. Those organs are made for each other and if you put them in another place, you will injure them you will ruin yourself, you are going to ruin your psychology, because there is an energetic exchange going on here.

The same way that if you buy an electronics device that needs batteries, if you put the battery in the wrong way, it does not work, and it may injure the electronics. It will cause the energy to go in the wrong way. It is not a matter of belief, no. The batteries are polarised positive and negative. The electronics that it is going in to is also built around that polarisation to move the energy in certain way.

You need the plus and the minus. We need to understand ourselves like that, so we have to use those organs appropriately. The symbol of two triangles intersecting is a fundamentally tantric symbol. One name for this symbol is the Seal of Solomon, another is the mandala of Vajrayogini. It is also depicted in the figure of Shiva dancing (Nataraja).

It is obvious that, in the masculine gentials are placed such that the testicles are below the penis. The female gentials are ogranized such that the overies are above the vagina. The male sexual organ along with the testicles form a triangle pointing upwards. The female sexual organ forms a downwards facing triangle along with the two overies. The combination of these two triangles is the sacred dance of Shiva, the movement of the Third Logos, the Holy Spirit.

During the act of Sexual Magic, couples charge themselves with magnetism; they mutually magnetize each other. In the woman the pelvis emanates feminine currents, while her breasts give off masculine ones.  In the man the feminine current emanates from the mouth, and the masculine one from his virile member.  All of these organs must be well excited through Sexual Magic in order to give off and receive, transmit and retrieve vital magnetic forces that increase extraordinarily in quantity and quality. - Samael Aun Weor

Beyond all these facts, we may still wonder what is appropriate. It may be quite different for everyone. This is something very intimate. If you read the books of Samael Aun Weor, in terms of sexual alchemy, he never gives a detailed list of what is allowed and what is not allowed: can I do this, can I not do that. Beyond the basis of chastity, he does not give a rule book.

In terms of what is appropriate and what not is appropriate to ignite the fire: well, everyone is on a different level of being so you need to work with that, you need to contemplate what really is necessary, and what really is your lust.

Two people who are working well together they do not really need to do much because they have their sexual fires under control of their willpower. They can easily get to that place where they connect. However, what is necessary is between you, your partner, and God. This is a true application of the Middle Way. Do not become fanatic on either side, sexual enjoyment is a legitimate right of humans, but keep your chastity.

“…sexual enjoyment is a legitimate right of humans, and comes as we have already said from the relationship of divinity with itself. In other words, we emphasize transcendental reality by saying that sexual enjoyment is terribly divine.” – Samael Aun Weor, Myster of the Golden Flower

Question: Does it help our meditations if we perform pranayama’s before first?

Answer: Excellent question, yes! Particularly if you are a bachelor if you are a single person performing pranayama is excellent. You really need to be performing pranayama every day, as much as you can, because you want that energy to cycle every day. So, even if you are doing just ten or fifteen minutes, just start with something small, and then right from that pranayama go into meditation. In that case you have charged, and you have cleaned those channels. You are putting yourself in a good place to begin with meditation.

Question: how is it possible to have a child without ejaculation?

Answer: That is spoken about in the book called The Yellow Book. This is a lot of discipline necessary to do that and in yoga it is called Kriya-Shakti, combining creativity with willpower. That type of conception is cleaner compared to a conception associated with ejaculation. The type of sperm that can escape without ejaculation is a very mature sperm. In those times it is the will of God to make that happen, so it is possible.

It is not common, but it is possible.

This doctrine of transmutation, for some people practicing this doctrine, they did not know about it until after they had a family, there is no problem with that at all. Having a family is a wonderful environment.

For people who do not have children, then doing this practice, this lifestyle is another type of sacrifice of not having a family. You are taking all your creative energy and you are giving it in the hands of your Innermost, into the hands of your Inner Being and devoting all that energy for your spiritual awakening.

These are different types of sacrifices. Obviously if you have children, you are sacrificing your life for your child. This is a beautiful thing. You gain much wisdom.

Both ways are fine, but to really progress you need to choose to enter this path related to transmutation and you make that your lifestyle for the rest of your life. This is not something to play around with.

We are going to end there and if you have more questions then go on to the forum and ask the questions there and you will get even more answers.