The Entire Path of Liberation

Westerners have this notion that spirituality and liberation is something you can invent, that you can make up your own path, that you can go to the book store or to the internet and pick and choose techniques and beliefs that you like and that those will take you to Heaven. This is similar to someone who wants to go to the North Pole, has never been there, and thinks they can just find their way there on a bicycle, with no preparation, no map, no clue. If you want to get to a specific place, you need precise instructions, and you need to be fully prepared.

All religions, all philosophies, all mystical traditions, and all forms of mythology, came from the same root. They came from the experience of a person who saw something real and true and wanted to convey that to help others see the same thing. So, they gave a teaching, an allegory, a myth, to help us comprehend something that we ourselves have not seen.

Religions are like maps. They are maps to a specific experience. But over time, all the maps in the world degenerate because we handle them. We impure, imperfect people, take the maps, do not understand the map, and try to make it more understandable so that when we give it to someone else, they can understand it better, and every time we do that, we change it. And that has been happening for thousands and thousands of years, passing through politics and tyranny and reigns of fear and wars, when people were being executed because of their religious beliefs. So, in the modern era, we have inherited a vast array of very beautiful but very decayed religions.

That is why people are now seeking something that does not rely so much on accepting things on blind faith or just believing in things without critical thinking. People want proof, evidence. We want something tangible. We want to know for sure that this philosophy or spiritual practice we are adopting is real and it works. This is a good attitude to have. We cannot simply accept things at face value, because there are many false paths, deceptive philosophies, and useless techniques. To know the truth, we need to be able to experience the reality of things. That is the ultimate origin of every religion: someone’s experience. So, if a religion is true, then we should be able to replicate the experience of the teacher. But in most religions nowadays you cannot replicate the experience of the original teacher, and if you attempt it, they call you crazy. Nowadays, if you talk about experiencing God, people think you are nuts.

But the truth is, if a prophet, a saint, experienced God, why can we not? We are a human being exactly the same as them. If they achieved that, then we should be capable of it as well, and we are. And that is really what religions should be teaching us.

So, to learn that, we have to move past mere belief, and we have to penetrate into the practical heart of every great religion, and that is why here we study all religions. We look at all of the maps because all of them have elements of truth. They all decayed as well. But if we compare them all, and we see how they line up with each other, we can start to see things that we could not see before.

In our history, we have always been compartmentalized by geography, religion, class, culture, and language, and now we do not have those limitations, and there is a reason. It is not by accident. This world is changing and it is going to change more. The custodians of the full teaching made the choice, the decision, out of compassion for humanity, to show us the full teaching. That started in the mid-twentieth century. That is why things changed so dramatically around the world in relation with religion. From the fifties to the sixties to the seventies, everything changed because of that, and it is continuing to change. What we will study today is an overview of that revelation.

This lecture is called the Entire Path to Liberation. Even if something in this discussion does not sound compatible with what you have been told or what you have read or what you believe, everything that I am going to describe to you can be demonstrated through your own experience. If you learn to meditate and if you learn to utilize the consciousness with its full capabilities, you can verify the truth of these things for yourself. We do not want you to believe. We encourage you to verify these things for yourself. And that is our ultimate purpose as a school, is to teach you to become self-reliant. There is no need to follow anyone, to believe anything, to give anyone any money, or give anyone any allegiance or to wear different clothes or wear a little badge on your shirt. None of that does anything to change our fundamental situation, which is that we suffer, and we need to change that.

Where Are You Conscious?

We need to study ourselves when we study religion and mysticism. The most profound question that we can ask is ‘Where are we conscious?’ If you really want to know your spiritual level, if you really want to know the truth about who you are spiritually, this simple question will answer it for you. What worlds are you conscious within?

All of use presume that we are conscious in the physical world but we are not. And that is the first thing we should learn in any genuine religious tradition. We are asleep. If you want proof of that, observe yourself. Notice how often you contradict yourself, you forget things, you start one thing and then quickly abandon it.

From one moment to the next, we are filled with contradictions, filled with uncertainties. We wander through life, we do not know where we are going. We do not know who we are or where we are. We do not know the purpose of being here. We do not know why we are alive. We have beliefs. We have theories, but we do not know definitively and for certain. We also do not know divinity face to face. We believe, perhaps. We have names for God and stories about God and images about God. But how many among us have spoken to divinity and gotten an answer? Not just a vague thing in your head, but as real as you and I face to face now. That experience is related in every religion in the world, but how many of us have had it? The religions are teaching that you can have that experience, but have you?

What worlds are we truly awakened in? Are we awake in the physical world? Are we fully aware of ourselves in everything that we think, feel and do from moment to moment right now? Are we always fully aware of using our eyes and our ears and our sense of touch, and our thoughts and our emotions and the impulses that drive us to act from the subconscious? Are we aware? Are we perceiving actively everything that enters into our senses at all times?

No, because most of the time we are daydreaming. We are fantasizing. We are at the computer typing something, but our mind is wandering, dreaming about something that happened ten years ago. We are driving our car and our mind is dreaming about something we wish we had but do not. We are watching TV, but we are not really seeing the show. We are thinking, ‘Oh it is going to be so terrible when this and that happens’, or ‘What if this happens or what if that happens?’

We are never really doing what we are doing. We are in a constant state of distraction, meaning we are asleep. We are daydreaming. We are not awake, present, here and now, all the time.

To be spiritually engaged, to be spiritually developing, means becoming more conscious, more aware in the moment. That is the very beginning. And that is why there is this emphasis on mindfulness. To be present. To be here and now. Not just occasionally, but constantly. Someone who has the consciousness developing, that skill, that sense, that expands, so that once someone becomes fully awake physically, they also become awake in their dreams. They do not dream anymore. When the body sleeps, they are awake, out of their body, fully aware of themselves. Not dreaming. Not repeating their mechanical life. Not vainly pursuing desires through their dreams or being pursued by their fears in their dreams. But consciously directing themselves to accomplishing whatever tasks need to be accomplished, fully awakened.

“Whosoever awakens the consciousness can no longer dream here in this physical plane or in the internal worlds. Whosoever awakens the consciousness stops dreaming. Whosoever awakens the consciousness becomes a competent investigator of the superior worlds. Whosoever awakens consciousness is an illuminated one. Whosoever awakens the consciousness can study at the feet of the master. Whosoever awakens the consciousness can talk familiarly with the gods who initiated the dawn of creation. Whosoever awakens the consciousness can remember his innumerable reincarnations. Whosoever awakens the consciousness can consciously attend his own cosmic initiations. Whosoever awakens the consciousness can study in the temples of the great White Lodge.” —Samael Aun Weor

To stop dreaming at night and be awakened while out of the body is to be conscious in the internal worlds in the fourth and fifth dimensions.  But there are more dimensions beyond that. There is the sixth dimension related with the causal world, which is where things begin. You can expand and strengthen the consciousness to such a degree that it is awakened in the sixth dimension. In that world, there is no ego. There is no anger. There is no pride. There is no lust. There is no envy. There is no pain. It is a level of heaven. It is a type of Nirvana. It is a world as real as the physical world but vibrates at a level of nature that ego cannot enter.

And beyond that, is the seventh dimension, represented by the trinity at the top of the Tree of Life, or the zero dimension, if you want. And that is a world of such elevated nature, it is incomprehensible to us. It is a world of root causes, of profound wisdom and incredible subtlety. It is a world of gods, and the type of intelligence of gods, far beyond our type of mind.

Opposing all of that are the fallen worlds. The infernal worlds. The hell realms. They are characterized by all the qualities we know very well, such as pride, lust, anger, envy, fear, despair, depression, addiction. All the forms of suffering.

So, if you were to observe yourself, and make an honest inventory of what is in your mind, what constitutes the root source of your thoughts and feelings and impulses to action? If you are honest with yourself, you will discover that the vast majority of the impulses that emerge in your mind are forms of suffering. We are afflicted with thoughts about wanting things, not wanting things, impulses of desire, lust, envy. We want what others have. We do not want to lose what we have. We are afraid of death. We are afraid of life. We are afraid of others. We are afraid of pain. We are afraid of love. We are afraid of hate. We are afraid of being poor. We are filled with fears and pain, all of which belong to the infernal worlds, yet we are really unaware of it. We live in a kind of dream state, telling ourselves stories about our spiritual life, believing things, but having no proof and no evidence, no facts. We are asleep, dreaming that we are awake.

Here is the bottom line: your body is going to die and your psychological content will determine what happens to you after death. If you are not deeply and fully aware of what is in your mind, you are in trouble. If your mind is filled with pride, lust, envy, anger, resentment, and fear, then your mind is in the infernal worlds. That is why we suffer. Who is working effectively, daily, on changing that, and has proof that their efforts are succeeding? Many dream they are eliminating their defects, but can you demonstrate it in facts? Can you verify it in facts?

If we want to rise to Heaven, all of those defects we have within need to be cleaned, taken out of us, destroyed, eliminated. Those defects cannot leave the infernal worlds, and our consciousness is trapped within them. If we want out of hell, our of suffering, the only way out is to extract the consciousness from those defects. That does not happen because of what we believe. It happens because of cause and effect. We produced actions that led to our suffering. Thus, we need to produce different actions if we want to escape suffering.

That is what all of our religions have tried to teach us. Every religion in the world has tried to point out to us that the beginning place to learn religion is ethics, how to behave properly to stop the causes of suffering, how to adopt behaviors that bring on happiness and how to help other people. That is basic ethics. But those ethics are not just in our physical action. They are in psychological action, what we do with our mind from moment to moment.

The other thing that we do not grasp is that this physical body is not all there is. That is why in The Bible it says, in Corinthians,

"There are epouranios [heavenly bodies], and epigeios [terrestrial bodies]…” —1 Corinthians 15

There are heavenly bodies and terrestrial bodies. This is indicating to us that the physical body is only one component of what is possible for us to have.

“Every Christified one has twelve bodies, twelve vehicles that are connected to the great reality.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message

1. Related to the Ain Soph
2. Relates to the Ain Soph Aur
3. Body of the Truth
4. Perfect Resource Body
5. Body of Manifestation
6. Body of the Innermost
7. Body of the Consciousness
8. Causal Body
9. Mental Body
10. Astral Body
11. Body of Vitality
12. Physical Body

Those twelve are mapped on this image.

The Tree of Life outlines for us not only who we are now, but what we have the potential to become.

The lowest of the ten sephiroth, Malkuth, means ‘The Kingdom’, and symbolizes the physical body, which nature gives us for free.

Within the physical body, we have energy, which corresponds to Yesod, “the foundation” of life.

We also experience emotions, which correspond to Hod.

We experience thought, which corresponds to Netzach.

Deeper than all of those parts of ourselves, we have something greater, something more profound.

Nature, established by divinity, plants the seeds for something more to grow in nature. That seed is our consciousness. That is why, in Buddhism, it is called ‘Tathagatagarbha’. The embryo of suchness. The seed potential to become something more. That ‘Tathagata-’ is a reference to the Sunyata, the absolute, abstract space. When it emerges into being, it is a light that, in the west we call Christ. In the East, they call it Avalokiteshvara. Adi-Buddha, Samanthabadhara.

These are all names for a type of intelligence, a type of brilliance, at the root of all living things, and that is what we meditated on today. If you were to imagine the quality of mind of every enlightened being in the universe as a collective entity, every Buddha, every God, if you imagine all their minds, the light of that mind is Avalokiteshvara. Christ. It is the root source of all living things. The great light at the base of existence. That light is what manifests all creations so this tree also outlines levels in nature from the most subtle to the densest. When that light unfolds and finally emerges in the physical world it plants seeds, and those seeds are our consciousness.

Our consciousness, Tathagatagarbha, is an embryo of That, but it has to be grown, like any seed in nature. It needs the conditions and circumstances within which it can flourish. If we know the science, that seed that is here in our presence right now within us can be grown, and that can be grown far beyond this Tree of Life. And that is why it says here, ‘Every Christified one has twelve bodies.’ If we take that seed that is within us, it can grow new levels of life for us spiritually.

Observe those twelve bodies. How many of these do you have? Well, we have two. We have the bottom ones. We have the physical body and the body of vitality. They are really one since they cannot be completely separated without killing us, but in us they have been disarranged because we are a mess psychologically. In a creature that is not out of balance with nature, meaning not fallen, they are united.

We have our physical body. And more subtle within it is the body of vitality which is our energy, and we call it Chi, Ching, Prana. They are different names for that aspect.

But all of the other bodies, ten more, we have to create. That is why Jesus said,

“Everything that is born of the flesh is flesh, everything that is born of the spirit is spirit.”

Both are forms of birth. Both rely on sexual energy, but utilized in a different way.

All animals use the sexual energy to create physical bodies. Everyone knows how to do that. No one has to be told how to do that. It is obvious. It is instinctive. Nature just does it on its own. But to create a spiritual body, only humanoids like us can do that, but we need to know how. Nature does not do that for us. That has to be through science, which was what religion was supposed to teach us. It is the process of taking that same sexual energy and converting it into a higher octave. So, instead of expelling it from the body, it is conserved in the body and elevated, made spiritual, divine, which is why all religions in the world begin with sexual rule: chastity, Brahmacharya, the retention of the sexual energy. That is why all beginners in all religions throughout the world were told ‘preserve your sexual energy’, because it is sacred. Within it is the key to developing the soul.

Modern people do not know anything about this and do not care. But it is in evidence in scripture in religion and it is perfectly well-documented.

Jesus said very clearly in The Bible,

“With patience you will acquire your souls.”

All of us have been told, and we all believe, that we have soul. When you study Kabbalah, you understand that what we have is an animal soul, which in Hebrew is called Nephesh. It is the raw matter that we have inherited through evolution that has the potential to create soul. It is the raw matter to create soul, but it is not yet a human soul. The human soul has to be made, created.

At our level, we are animals with intellect. We have risen out of the animal kingdom through evolution and we are ruled by instinct. We have reasoning, but we use it to justify our desires, to dominate others, to acquire power, to be cruel, sometimes to be clever, sometimes to invent things, etc..., etc.... But the ultimate purpose of intellect is to organize the psyche and guide it towards a higher level of being. We do not see that on this planet. We are still ruled by instinct, and that needs to change.

All religions throughout history have had their place and have had their role in guiding certain groups of people to understand religion at their level so that they could gradually raise their level of being in accordance with the time and place. But humanity has entered into a critical phase. We are in what is called the Kali Yuga, the dark age. It is time when, in order for there to be a new birth, a new growth, everything that is old must die. That means that there are going to be great changes on this planet and we already see them happening. So many problems on every level. Catastrophic changes occurring planet-wide. This is karmic.

But in the midst of it, as I mentioned, the doors have been opened for us to see the way out. The way to take our own consciousness and rapidly expand it and change so we can stay ahead of the wave that is crashing.

One of the things that is critical to understand about that is that there is a path. There is a way. It is not necessary to be consumed and go with the downward  flow and be recycled by nature like most of the planet is going to be. If you are a very dedicated, serious person and you work very hard on yourself every day, you can stay ahead of that. You can radically transform yourself. You can awaken consciousness not only physically but internally. You can develop your soul. You can develop what is called immortality, the ability to be alive and pass through states of birth and death and maintain cognizance of that and not be lost in the chaos of nature’s recycling.

The Three Mountains: The Path of Liberation

The basic structure to understand that is this: It is called The Three Mountains. This has never been taught publicly before the last fifty years or so.

The elements of it are in every religion and the symbols that represent it are in every religion but they were never explained openly. Thus, be prepared to learn something new.

The Three Mountains symbolize stages of development of the consciousness as it is raising itself out of the lower worlds.

Our consciousness has been projected into nature and we exist now in physical bodies. But the physical body is just a shell. It is just a vessel that holds the consciousness inside of it briefly. We have had many physical bodies. Physical bodies are born, they sustain for a little while, and then they die. The consciousness does not die. It is an energy that changes but it does not die. However, it is not aware of itself. We experience this every day. What happens when you go to sleep at night? You lay down, and you totally lose awareness of yourself. Maybe in the morning when you wake up, you might remember a dream, a little vague thing, maybe nothing at all. But six, eight, ten hours went by and you have no recollection of what happened. That demonstrates your spiritual level.

It is entirely possible for that physical body to be put to rest, to sleep at night, but for the consciousness to go out of that body and be awake, and experience the astral world, the fifth dimension, the world of dreams, with full consciousness, fully aware of what you are doing for that six, eight, ten hours that your physical body is sleeping. Every one of us has that capability. Your animals already do it. Cats, dogs, all the animals that are not corrupted with ego like us are awake in the internal worlds. We are not, because we are so asleep. Our mind is so heavy, so dense with the accumulative problems that we have created over the centuries, psychologically.

“You must know that in the Astral Plane, things appear just as they are here in this physical plane. This is why during sleep, and after death, people see everything there in a form very similar to this physical world. This is why they do not even suspect that they are outside of their Physical Body. Therefore, no dead person ever believes himself to have died because he is fascinated and profoundly asleep. If the dead had made a practice of remembering themselves from moment to moment when they were alive, if they had struggled against the fascination of the things of the world, the outcome would have been the awakening of their Consciousness. They would not dream. They would walk in the Internal Worlds with awakened Consciousness. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can study all the marvels of the Superior Worlds during the hours of sleep. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness lives in the Superior Worlds as a totally awakened citizen of the Cosmos. One then coexists with the great hierophants of the White Lodge. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can no longer dream here in this physical plane or in the Internal Worlds. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness stops dreaming. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness becomes a competent investigator of the Superior Worlds. Whosoever awakens Consciousness is an illuminated one. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can study at the feet of the master.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

The process of walking the three mountains is the process of awakening consciousness by taking the consciousness out of bondage in the ego and karma, completely liberating it from the conditions that trap it in the lower worlds. It means one completely eliminates the entire ego and all karma. This means we must eliminate pride, envy, lust, greed, gluttony, avarice, laziness, fear. Through the process of ascending the three mountains, all those qualities that cause so much pain are completely destroyed, and the result is that the consciousness is free of suffering: has no more anger, no pride, no envy, no doubt or fear, but has all of its own natural characteristics, which include altruism, happiness, intelligence, wisdom, joy, contentment, knowledge, insight, power to act. Those are all natural to the consciousness, but we do not have them, because we are trapped in the consequences of our mistaken actions, which are pride and envy and fear and lust, all those qualities.

In synthesis, the three mountains are about realizing our full potential, not only by freeing the consciousness from where it is trapped, but then growing it into the fullest potential of what it can become. We have examples of that possibility. Anyone here ever heard of Jesus? Buddha? Krishna? Joan of Arc? Moses? These are beautiful examples of what a human being can achieve, of what a human being can become. But that does not happen by accident. It does not happen by God waving a magic wand and making you perfect. It happens because of work, by changing oneself, and that is not easy, but what would be more valuable than that? Truly, is a car better, or couple of dollars in your bank account better than having the ability to be conscious after death? I really do not care what kind of car I have. I would much rather be aware of what happens after I die. I am going to lose the car. It does not matter how much money is in my bank account. I am going to lose it, so why be so concerned about that? But after death, I want to be aware of myself. Moreover, I want to be in control of myself and my future. I do not want to be pushed by karma or by my pride or by my fear or by my lust. I want to be free of those things so that after death I can determine my own trajectory. That is possible, but requires work.

How to Begin the Three Mountains

The three mountains begin by establishing chastity. When you establish chastity as a single person, you are knocking on the door of spirituality. Divinity does not care what you believe. The preservation of the sexual energy is what determines your spiritual life. Someone who is expelling the sexual energy through the orgasm is not developing their spiritual life in an upright manner. All spiritual development depends on the purification and elevation of the sexual energy and that is why every religion in the world starts with chastity: the preservation and elevation of the sexual force.

What the Westerners call the fire of Pentecost is also known as Kundalini or Candali. That is purified sexual energy. It is the presence of divinity in us. It is the creative power of God in us, and that cannot mix with lust. If lust is there, God is not. It is that simple. What is divinity? It is perfection. That cannot mix with ego, with pride, with lust, with envy, with fear, because if it did, it would no longer be perfect or divine. Thus, what is truly divine, perfect, has no lust or pride. If you want to be filled with the presence and power of God, then you have to clean yourself of that which prevents it.

That is why every religion starts with Brahmacharya, chastity, sexual transmutation. As a single, as a monk, as a nun, as a priest, as a priestess, you learn to control the sexual energy first, restrain it, transmute it, and elevate it. So instead of wasting that power through a sensual pleasure, that energy is restrained and provides the foundation for conscious development, for the development of soul.

“Everything that is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the spirit is spirit.”

The sexual energy is the power of the holy spirit. It is the power of Shiva-Shakti, related with Binah on The Tree of Life. In the physical body it most notable in Yesod on The Tree of Life, which means “foundation.” That is the foundation of the temple. If you put The Tree of Life over your body, Yesod corresponds to your sexual energy. That is why that is the foundation of the whole temple, that is built on top of it.

“And, behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God… And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the יסד Yesod [foundation] of the house [of God].” —1 Kings

When you are serious about your spiritual life and you are restraining the sexual energy, renouncing the orgasm, dedicating your sexual life to God, to make it pure, to renounce animal lust, but to appeal to divinity to become pure, free of lust, you are knocking on the door of initiation. So, you start to get tested by your own inner divinity. Those tests are called ‘Nine Initiations of Minor Mysteries’.

Initiations of Minor Mysteries

In their synthesis, these initiations test whether you are really serious or not. Those tests first happen in your dreams. You are tested through a variety of psychological ordeals to see how you respond, to see if you are really serious. Sometimes those ordeals can appear into the physical world, where you face challenging circumstances, criticism, problems, to test your serenity or to test your adaptability. And if you pass those, then you face a test called The Guardian of the Threshold.

The Guardian of the Threshold

In a dream, the divinities that are helping you show you your ego. They put your consciousness face to face with your ego, embodied. Most people run away terrified because nobody wants to see themselves as they really are.

The way we should handle that experience is symbolized in the story of David and Goliath. Goliath represents the ego, how strong it is, and it dresses itself as though it is honorable, but really the ego is a thief and a liar. A brute. That is why, in religion, it is called Satan, the Devil. That is not outside of us. Satan, The Devil, is our own mind, corrupted.

It is good to know that the Hebrew name גלית Goliath means “exile” [from Eden], and comes from the root גלה gala, which means “to go into exile,” but also “to reveal, to uncover,” which is what the ordeal of the Guardian of the Threshold does: by revealing the ego (Goliath), the nature of the consciousness (David) is also revealed.

So, when the consciousness is shown the ego, that is David, who is but a child. How does the child David conquer the terrifying warrior Goliath? Let us see:

“And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named גלית Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him. And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid…

And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid. And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel.

And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, ... who is this uncircumcised [unchaste] Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?...

And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine…. And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.

And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.

Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of Jehovah Tzabaoth, the Elohim of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will יהוה Jehovah deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is an Elohim in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that יהוה saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is יהוה, and he will give you into our hands.

And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.” —1 Samuel 17

Our consciousness, even though it is just a a child, an embryo, and even though it is weak, if we have conviction and faith, we have the capability, the power to overcome our own devil, the ego, Goliath. The power to do that is in the stone. What is the stone?

“And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured שמן [shemen] upon the top of it.” —Genesis 28:18

“And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house…” —Genesis 28:22

The stone is the Mercury of alchemy, the sexual energy. That is why in England they call the testicles “the stones.” That represents the power of the consciousness to conquer the ego.

If we have the courage and faith to overcome these ordeals, then we will be tested further.

The Four Elements

All of the psychological tests of spiritual development, through all the levels, have the qualities of the elements.

• Fire: serenity during persecution, criticism, gossip
• Air: serenity during loss; detachment from material things 
• Water: adaptability to circumstances; compassion and generosity
• Earth: serenity in the inconveniences of life

First, the test happens in your dreams, in the internal worlds. If you are not aware of yourself, you are going to react mechanically and fail the test. When you fail a test, it will occur in the physical world. If we fail, and we repeatedly fail, the tests become harder and harder, and they show up in the physical world, in our physical life.

We are tested with our serenity, adaptability, altruism, and generosity.

In other words, divinity gives us tests so that we can see the egos that cause our suffering. If we are serious about our spiritual development, we will recognize the egos for what they are, and we will conquer them. But when we are not serious, we will justify ourselves, we will run away from the ego. We will say, “I cannot deal with that. It is overwhelming for me. It is too painful. It is their fault. It was other people’s fault. I was traumatized. I was mistreated. Woe is me.” We will not take responsibility. We will blame others and we will justify ourselves.

The serious one, the one who understands the knowledge, will see each test as a beautiful gift, as divinity saying, “See this thing that hurts? See that pain you feel in your heart? That is your pride. That is what is causing you pain. That is what you need to eliminate. Meditate on that and eliminate it.”

What would be more valuable than God telling you directly, ‘Fix this problem,’ so that you can advance? That is what the tests are for, so we can fix our problems and advance. Thus, do not be afraid of the tests. Welcome them! But be prepared.

If we manage to successfully pass these nine minor initiations and the first guardian, then we can hope to enter The Mountain of Initiation.

The Mountain of Initiation

This is the first mountain.

The only way to enter the first mountain is in a marriage, union of man and woman, because it is only in the sexual union that the forces of masculine and feminine are combined and thus we have sufficient power to create life. A man by himself cannot create life, and a woman by herself cannot create life. Physically, they cannot. Spiritually, they also cannot.

This requirement is symbolized by the first miracle of Jesus, which was at a wedding. For the miracles of Christ to begin, we must be in a serious relationship based on love.

To begin the first mountain, there must be a marriage. By marriage we do not mean the social or legal convention, but marriage as defined by nature. And what is that?

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” —Gen 2:24

“And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” — Mat 19:5-6

“And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.” —Mar 10:8

“What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.” —1Co 6:16

The sexual act creates marriage. Thus, once the sexual act is performed, the two are one: that is marriage.

Yet, sexual union by itself is not enough. There must also be love.

It is worthwhile to know that advancement in initiation does not mean that both members of the marriage need to be in chastity. The one who wants initiation, the one who wants to grow spiritually must be in chastity, but they can be in love and be married to someone who is not.

The main thing that defines a spiritual marriage for the person who is trying to advance spiritually, consciously, is, firstly, their own chastity, and secondly, love. If there is no love, it is not going to happen. If there is no chastity, it is not going to happen. The environment of love is what creates an atmosphere within which the consciousness can flourish.

This means that a spiritual marriage cannot be created out of mere convenience or happenstance. So, say for example, you meet someone who also wants spiritual development, and you say, “OK, well we are male and female, let us just get married and do it.” Nothing is going to happen because they do not love each other. They just have spiritual ambition. They will not be able to advance. The advancement occurs when a marriage is a sacrament. If you study the sacraments, the real sacraments, those are stages of initiation in spiritual institutions.

The Sacraments

1. Baptism: chastity; preservation of the sexual energy
2. Penance: comprehension of the causes of suffering (egos, defects, vices)
3. Communion: eucharist, ingesting blessed food and drink
4. Confirmation: evidence the previous sacraments are being performed
5. Marriage: union of man and woman to create the second birth
6. Priesthood: direct power to help others
7. Extreme Unction: heal the sick

Marriage has to be built on the previous sacraments, otherwise it does not do anything. And notice that to become a priest or priestess, one must first be married. Why? Because through sexual union one receives the power of God to create life.

If someone is working with a partner in an environment of love, with the sexual act, man and woman together, they have creative power of God. They can use that power to create a physical child. That is what most people do; they just make children. They do not create anything spiritual. But if they restrain that energy, and instead of using the sexual act to feed lust and to experience brief, temporary sensual pleasure, but they convert that union back to its original power, which is something sacred, something divine, something extraordinarily beautiful, that energy has the power to completely vitalize and elaborate the consciousness in a dramatic way.

If you have ever heard of Tantra or alchemy, that is what those teachings are. They are teachings about using sex as a prayerful act of ritual to develop the consciousness, not for lust, not for pleasure, but as a spiritual devotion, as something sacred.

In a marriage, in that context, harnessing those energies, each time the couple performs the sexual act in that way, they become what is called “Elohim.” And in The Bible, that Hebrew word Elohim means “god and goddess.” It is a plural word that means god-goddess (El and Elah) as one creative power (Elohim). So, a man and a woman who join in the sexual act have the power of divinity in that atmosphere, because they can create a child. That is the most tremendous power we have, physically speaking, the power to create life through sex. But that power is minor compared to the power of restraining that sexual energy and utilizing it to not create physically but to create internally, to create spiritually, and that process begins here in the first mountain.

The Serpents of Fire

When the sexual energy is restrained and transmuted, instead of being wasted and thrown out of the physical body it is preserved and it started to create something within, something spiritual. Those atoms of the man and the woman unite and there is a tremendous spark, and that energy produces a powerful reaction in the nervous system and in the psyche. If the couple is working through those tests, meditating, passing the tests, working on themselves and increasing their ability to overcome the deceptions of the ego, that energy coalesces into something called Kundalini, or the fire of Pentecost. That gathers in the spinal column which, on The Tree of Life is the central column in your body. It begins at the root of the spine, in the cauda equina, related with the chakra muladhara.

That spark creates a light, a fire, in the physical body. That energy wants to rise up the spine, but it has to pass through each vertebra of the spinal column. There are thirty-three, and each one is accompanied by tests. Psychological tests must be passed. Ethical tests must be passed.

Why? Because that energy is the power of God. When it emerges, it gives power. At first, the power is small, but as it grows, the consciousness expands, and becomes capable of seeing, understanding, and doing more. Yet, as you know, with more power comes more consequences. If we misuse power, we create greater consequences.

Thus, to receive power from divinity is not a game. Spiritual power is not something to show off. Receiving power from divinity is a very, very, sacred, powerful thing, and divinity will not give it to someone who is going to misuse it.

Kundalini must be earned. The one who has prudence, intelligence, wisdom, devotion, humility, will earn it, not the one who has ambition, pride, vanity, greed.

"The decisive factor in the progress, development and evolution of the Kundalini is ethics." - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub

“Nobody can actualize the superior aspects of the Kundalini without perfect sanctity. It is then false to say that there are disastrous possibilities in the premature actualization of the Kundalini. This affirmation is false because the premature actualization of Fire cannot occur. The Kundalini can only be actualized based on sanctification. The Kundalini does not rise even one vertebra if the conditions of sanctity required for that vertebra have not been conquered. Each vertebra has its moral conditions of sanctity. It is false and stupid to say that the Kundalini can awaken ambition or pride, or intensify all of the coarse qualities and animal passions of the animal ego. Whosoever uses these fear mongering tactics to keep students from the real path is truly ignorant, because the Kundalini awakened with white Sexual Magic cannot progress even one degree when true sanctity does not exist. The Kundalini is not a blind force. The Kundalini is not a mechanical force. The Kundalini is controlled by the fires of the heart and can only be developed based on Sexual Magic and sanctity.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

That fire rises gradually, vertebra by vertebra up the spinal column, as we pass test after test. When you have raised it to the top of the spine one time, you have achieved the first serpent of fire in the physical body. That is one serpent of Kundalini, which is related to the physical body.

There are seven serpents of fire. They correspond to the seven lower sephiroth on the Tree of Life. They are raised one by one, in order, by passing tests.

Subsequently, octave by octave, that fire can be raised in the vital body (Yesod), and then the astral body (Hod). When that serpent of fire is raised in the astral body, this is where something truly new begins.

We already have a physical and vital body, which I explained to you on that chart of the twelve bodies of the being. We do not yet have a proper astral body; instead, we have an astral specter, a lunar astral form. What vehicle do you use when you are dreaming? When you put your body down to sleep at night and you start dreaming, you are travelling. You are doing things. You are going around and talking and engaging with nature in that level, but you are not using your physical body. You are using what seems to be the astral body, but it is not the real astral body, because it belongs to nature, and it is completely saturated with desires and fears and traumas. It is a lunar astral body. It is the kama rupa: the body of desire.

When you raise the serpent of the astral body, which is the third serpent of fire, you create a new body. This is the birth of something entirely new within us, psychologically and materially. A solar astral body is created through the transmutation of a very elevated form of sexual energy.

Now, if you think about this, your physical body and vital body were created through fornication, through lust, from your parents. It grew up, and was saturated with an environment of egotistical influences for its entire development. But the solar astral body is not born in that environment. It is created in an atmosphere of pure sexual energy and devotion. It is a new type of entity, born in Hod on The Tree of Life, in the fifth dimension.

When you complete that, you have acquired a new type of vehicle psychologically, spiritually, and even materially speaking. That means with that body, you can, at will, when you want, go into the fifth dimension, conscious, awake, totally aware of it, in the same way you use your physical body now, but in the fifth dimension, another world of dreams.

“People are accustomed to think that the astral world is a vague, fluid, vaporous, intangible, immaterial world. Considering they are only theorists, it does not occur to them to verify it. The astral body is material. And it is a dense organism like the physical body. Yet it belongs to another department of the kingdom... One knows that one has an astral body when one can use it. As one knows that one has feet because one can walk with them, or hands because one can use them, likewise, one knows that one has an astral body when one can travel with it.” —Samael Aun Weor

There are many people who claim to be spiritual who say, “I think I have my astral body. Maybe I have my astral body.” You know you have it when you can use it.

“The two wings of the Caduceus of Mercury signify the power to travel in the Astral Body, the power to travel in the Mental Body, the power to travel in the Causal, Conscious and Spiritual vehicles. The Fire gives those who follow the Path of the Razor’s Edge the power to leave the Physical Body at will. Kundalini has the power of awakening the Consciousness of the human being. We remain completely awakened in the Superior Worlds with the Fire. All those who have awakened in the Superior Worlds live absolutely conscious outside of the Physical Body during the hours of sleep. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can never again dream. They become in fact, and rightfully, absolutely conscious citizens of the Superior Worlds. They work with the White Lodge while their Physical Body sleeps.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Once you raise the serpent of fire of the astral body, you move on to the next octave to create a solar mental body, and then the next octave to create a solar causal body. These are three separate vehicles. When you have established that, you have soul: human soul. You are a conscious citizen of the internal worlds. You have the capability to go out of your physical body into the fifth and sixth dimensions any time you want and be active in those internal worlds in the same way you are active here physically, with your physical body. However, you are a beginner, because you still have the ego. Creating the solar bodies does not destroy the ego.  

The solar bodies are symbolized in every religion as the chariot of Ezekiel, the chariot of Krishna, the Merkabah of the Kabbalists. It is the solar boat of the Egyptians, it is the beautiful vestments that are worn by the toreador in bullfighting. That symbolizes the solar bodies. So, in all of these traditions we see these things symbolized but never explained explicitly. The solar bodies are the armor and weapons of the great heroes, like Perseus, Theseus, Heracles, etc. Each hero represents the human soul wearing the solar vestaments, which are necessary in order to go forth to perform heroic acts.

“The intellectual animal still does not have a Soul. Whosoever wishes to incarnate his Soul, whosoever yearns to be a human with Soul, must have the Astral, Mental and Causal Bodies. The human being of this day and age still does not have these Internal Vehicles. The Astral specter, the Mental specter, and the Causal specter are only specters. The majority of occultists believe that these inner specters are the true vehicles; nonetheless, they are very mistaken. We need to be born in the Superior Worlds. This subject matter about being born is a sexual problem. No human being is born of theory. Not even a simple microbe can be born of theories. No one is born through the nostrils nor through the mouth. Every living being is born of sex. “As above, so below.” If the human being is born of sex here in this physical world, it is logical that above, in the Internal Worlds, the process is analogous.” —Samael Aun Weor

The Spiral or the Direct Path

When you are almost done with the fifth initiation of fire (Tiphereth), you face a choice.

Let me reemphasize that someone who has achieved this is awake. They are awake physically, in the third dimension, they are awake in the fourth dimension, they are awake in the fifth dimension, and they have some awakening in the sixth dimension. They are not like us, who are totally asleep. These are people who are conscious of being in other worlds. Not like us.

At the very end of the process of creating the solar causal body, which is the fifth serpent of major mysteries, that soul is on the verge of becoming a real human being. They will, in fact, be a master, a new master, thus they are a beginner in mastery. There are levels and levels of masters.

But at this juncture, the initiate faces a choice: to continue to walk in a gradual manner for its full development, or will it enter the straight path?

The straight path is the path of the Bodhisattva. The path of the Bodhisattva is what Jesus came to demonstrate with his life. A Bodhisattva is someone who is very different from a saint or a Buddha. A saint can be very humble, very holy and teach beautiful things, but they do not have an urgency, and they do not reach greater realizations than the fifth degree of major mysteries. They can be very beautiful and teach beautiful things, but a Bodhisattva is different, because a Bodhisattva is revolutionary.

When someone chooses to enter the bodhisattva path, they work to reach the full development, the full potential of a human being as fast as possible, which means that one has to clean the entire subconsciousness of defects (anger, pride, lust, etc) and pay the entirety of the karma accrued through all of your previous lifetimes, now. That is why the life of Jesus was so intense, and why Joan of Arc’s life was so intense. It is a very powerful, very rapid, very demanding path, that few take.

It is at the end of the fifth serpent of fire that one makes this choice: to continue on the gradual, easy spiral path, or to enter the straight path, the direct path, and become a Bodhisattva.

In the east the energy of the Bodhisattva path is expressed through the symbol of Avalokiteshvara, which here shows his thousand arms that reach out to try to help all beings who are suffering. This is the defining characteristic of a Bodhisattva. They have so much love for humanity that they do not care about their own suffering. They do not care if it is going to be painful to reach that development. They must do it, because so many people, so many beings are suffering and need help. And that is why someone enters the Bodhisattva path: out of love for others.

When that choice is made, Christ (Avalokiteshvara) is born within the initiate in order to save them. That is what is called The Birth of Christ. That is why in the Christian symbolism, Christ is born in a manger, in a barn, surrounded by animals. Our mind is a barn, full of impure, dirty animals, and Christ is born in that atmosphere as a small child come to save that initiate from their ego and their karma. That is what is represented there.

The person who enters the direct path then enters a whole new range of initiations. The one who enters the spiral path does not enter this. Everything else I am going to explain, only applies to those who enter the direct path. Those who enter the spiral path just go gradually as saints, minor Buddhas. And very slowly, they rise and fall according to the currents that are moving them. Only the Bodhisattva then enters into the serpents of light.

The Serpents of Light

In the serpents of fire, in the first part of the first mountain, the serpents of Kundalini were raised in these bodies in order to create the solar bodies and established the soul on the path; now they return to the beginning in order to Christify those bodies, to make them perfect. In each of these processes, there are many tests and ordeals, and much suffering facing the ego, dealing with pride and lust and envy and anger and sacrifice for others.

In the serpents of light, also called the Venustic initiations, we live the symbols that Jesus lived in his life. That great master that we call Jesus came and physically represented what happens internally to every Bodhisattva. Jesus came to show us with his physical life something that happens in all of the universes in all of the corners of existence in the soul in the spirit. He was the one that came to show it physically.

The Serpents of Light / Venustic Initiations

1. Christification of the Physical Body: Birth
2. Christification of the Vital Body: Baptism
3. Christification of the Astral Body: Transfiguration
4. Christification of the Mental Body: Entrance into Jerusalem
5. Christification of the Causal Body: Baptism
6. Christification of the Buddhic Body
7. Christification of the Atmic Body: Crucifixion

His birth, his baptism, his transfiguration, the entrance of Jerusalem, all the way through the crucifixion are symbolic of the processes of Christifying or bringing the presence of Christ (Avalokiteshvara) into each of these aspects of our soul. So, by the time we have reached the seventh serpent of light, the presence of Christ is established in every part of the soul. That means that when that person is walking, talking, speaking, thinking, feeling, that is Christ in them. That is not an average person. Remember that this person is already awake in the internal worlds. They are already awake in the astral, mental and causal worlds. But now, they have the presence of Christ speaking through them, acting through them. Not for them, not for themselves, but for other people, to benefit humanity, to help. This is a great master. This is someone with a tremendous power moving through them, but not a personal power. It is not a power of personality or magnetism. It is a divine power of the presence of Christ (Avalokiteshvara, Apollo). A solar divinity expressing through that entity, that human soul.

If they complete the christification of the lower bodies, then they can enter the second mountain.

The Second Mountain

In the second mountain, there are no more initiations. Instead, this is a long work of profound purification. In this process, the soul begins at the bottom of the Tree of Life, Malkuth, and now has a huge task to perform. This soul, awakened, has to now descend into each realm of their subconsciousness (internal hells). First, they begin with limbo, the first level. This is where we usually are when we dream and when we die. They have to go into that world awakened, and destroy every one of their egos in that realm. They have to find them, comprehend them, and destroy them. That happens through meditation and through harnessing the power of the sexual energy.

“I comprehended that in order to have the right to ascend into the lunar heaven (superior astral), I should first descend into the Selenean infernos (inferior astral) [to eliminate my lunar defects]...” —Samael Aun Weor

When they have completely purged that most superficial level of the subconsciousness, then they have gained the first heaven.  This means that not only are they fully awake in the lower aspect, but in the superior aspect. In that level of their mind, they are completely pure. There is no ego in that realm, in them. That is an incredible kind of purity.

And they have to go world by world, cleaning a hell in themselves to gain a heaven. These “heavens” represent levels of consciousness in us. They are symbolically related to nine planets:

1. Heaven of the Moon, the astral world
2. Heaven of Mercury, the mental world
3. Heaven of Venus, the causal world
4. Heaven of the Sun, the Buddhic or Intuitive World
5. Heaven of Mars, the Atmic World, region of Atma
6. Heaven of Jupiter, or Nirvana
7. Heaven of Saturn, the Paranirvanic World
8. Heaven of Uranus, the Mahaparanirvanic World
9. Heaven of Neptune, the Empyrean World

These works are greatly simplified here, in order to make them understandable to us. Their reality is incredibly difficult for people at our level to understand. Nevertheless, they are represented in the hours of Apollonius, in the labors of Herakles, and the Repentances of Pistis Sophia. If you have studied any religions, you may have heard of those. All of those represent this process of descending into one’s own subconsciousness level by level.

This process is not something vague. It is not something that is guessed at. It is not something that is just imagined. It is done consciously with full awareness, being out of the physical body, working in those realms to completely purify them of karma and ego. To work in the Second Mountain is to be profoundly awakened, and to be acquiring more profound degrees of awakening.

So that process continues down the into the infernos, with each cleansed inferno opening a heaven.

Eventually one reaches the depths, the darkest, the lowest part of our subconsciousness where we have all the most unimaginably horrible qualities, horrible acts that we have performed in the past that we must rectify.

Examination

When the entirety of the mind has been completely cleaned, the initiate has to be tested once more, and that is what is represented in The Book of Job. Remember in the book of Job, in the Bible, Lucifer comes to God and says ‘Look at this man who is perfect in all of your laws and statutes, who loves you fully, but you have given him everything. No wonder he loves you so much. Take it all away from him. Let me test him’. And God tells Lucifer, ‘OK. Test him’.

That represents what happens next in the second mountain. The soul has already totally cleaned itself. It has no ego. It has no pride, no lust, no envy no anger, none of that. It is completely pure, and completely elevated to the fullest potential that it has. It is a stellar and incredible representation of divinity in a human body. But it has to be tested. That person is tested through the eight years of Job. These are literally eight years, physically. The person is tested very intensely in their physical life to make sure there are no traces of any ego in them. None. And it is difficult. Hard tests. If they prove themselves and purify themselves perfectly, then they earn the right to enter the final step: death.

Death

To complete the second mountain, one must die physically. Why? Because everything else is clean, but the physical body is not. The physical body was born of sin, in an environment of sin, saturated with sin. It has to be taken away for that human soul to really become perfect, it needs a perfect physical body too. So that physical body dies. And, it dies because of the last residue of karma that that soul owes, which is related with the original sin, the sin that Adam and Eve committed when they left Eden, which is fornication, the misuse of sexual energy. So, that soul usually will experience a type of suffering, a type of pain, a type of disease related to that, and they will die physically.

Everybody in the world now thinks that once you become really spiritual, you do not have to die, but they do not realize that the founders of every religion in the world also died physically. Jesus died. Every great master showed through their life and their death that it was necessary for us. We also must die. It is natural, it is necessary. It is part of the process of becoming purified.

If you can pass through your death having a one-hundred percent clean consciousness fully developed, you will be resurrected. You will be born anew. And that is what Jesus showed in his life. He died, yes. But he did not die the death of an animal. He died the death of a great master, like Buddha, who also died, but died the death of a great master.

Once that death occurs, then resurrection happens. With resurrection, the initiate now has a perfect physical body. They are now a resurrected master. There are many levels of mastery. Just because someone says so-and-so is a master, that does not mean anything. It is one thing to be a master. It is one thing to be a master and it is another thing to be a perfect master, and a resurrected master is the highest. These are masters like Jesus, like Buddha, like [Papasadmava]. These are extremely pure, beautiful human beings.

“Indeed, there is no resurrection without death, nor a dawn within nature (or within the human being) without darkness, sorrows, and nocturnal agony preceding them, which makes their light more adorable.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Three Mountains

“After the resurrection, the master does not die again. He is eternal. With this immortal body, he can appear and disappear instantaneously. Masters can make themselves visible in the physical world at will.

“Jesus the Christ is a Resurrected Master who for three days had his physical body in the Holy sepulcher. After the resurrection, Jesus appeared before the disciples who were on their way to the village of Emmaus and dined with them. After this, he was before the unbelieving Thomas, who only believed when he put his fingers in the wounds of the holy body of the great master.

“Hermes, Cagliostro, Paracelsus, Nicholas Flamel, Quetzalcoatl, St. Germain, Babaji, etc. preserved their physical body thousands and even millions of years ago without death harming them. They are resurrected masters.” —Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

"All the masters who have resurrected live with their physical bodies for millions of years... Only the initiates who have reached these summits can live and direct the current of life of the centuries. Only here the initiate no longer needs a spouse. The initiate’s physical body remains in Jinn state; this is the gift of Cupid. Nevertheless, the initiate can become visible and tangible in this tridimensional world wherever is necessary, and works in the physical world under the commands of the White Lodge. As a Resurrected Master, the initiate commands the great life; he has power over the fire, air, water, and earth. Yes, all of Nature kneels before him and obeys him. He can live among men, and becomes a human-god.

"Naturally, it is indispensable to undergo the ordeals of the Arcanum Thirteen in order to reach these summits (Second Mountain). The physical body must be embalmed for death. The supper at Bethany corresponds to this event of the Arcanum Thirteen. Thus, after the body has been embalmed for death, it is submitted to a special evolution for the tomb that develops within the numbers thirty and thirty-five, which when added together give the Arcanum Eleven (the tamed lion); yes, we have to tame nature and overcome it.

"Thus, when the body is ready for the sepulcher, the processes of death and resurrection occur. In this case, the Angels of Death do not cut the silver cord; this is how the initiate dies but does not die. The physical brain of the initiate is submitted to a special transformation: it becomes more subtle, delicate, and radiant.

"The supper at Bethany relates with these processes of Jesus Christ.

"Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, There came unto him a woman having an alabaster jar of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always; for in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, wherever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." - Matthew, 26: 6-13 - Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

The Third Mountain

After resurrecting, the resurrected masters enter the third mountain, which is The Mountain of Ascension.

In this process they now must perfect themselves at the top level of The Tree of Life, related to:

• Nirmanakaya
• Sambogakaya
• Dharmakaya
• Body of the Ain Soph Aur
• Body of the Ain Soph

These matters are very abstract, so we will not discuss that today because I know it is difficult to grasp. But just understand, that even after resurrection, there is work to do. That is The Mountain of Ascension, where that human soul, now resurrected, has to reach for higher degrees of development in those levels.

This type of soul has the sufficient power and intelligence to create solar systems, galaxies. Here, we are struggling to do even simple things. These types of masters are very far beyond our comprehension...

1) He has the power to see and hear in all the internal worlds.
2) He has the power to manipulate the mysteries of life and death.
3) He is given power to judge the living dead (the entire humanity).
4) One is born at will and disembodies at will.
5) One has the power to calm tempests or to unleash them, at will.
6) Powers to make the earth tremble, and to sink continents at will.
7) Powers over fire and hurricanes, etc.

They are awakened in all of the worlds. They are awakened in all of the heavens. And their hells, psychologically are empty. And at these levels, they have the power to move galaxies full of beings and influence them effortlessly. That is how much power we have in potentiality in us. The consciousness in us has the ability to become that, but it does not happen overnight and it does not happen by chance. It happens through psychological work. Very intense, very precise work.

You can confirm all of this for yourself. You do not have to believe me. Learn to meditate. Learn to conserve your sexual energy and use it for a higher purpose. Learn to get out of your body consciously. You can do that now, even without a solar astral body. All of us go out of the body every night when we sleep. We are just not aware of it. Learn to do that consciously and take this information and then go investigate it for yourself. Do not believe me. Go ask. If you awaken out of your body, just pray to your Divine Mother, ‘Please show me, is this true? Is that the path? Show me The Three Mountains and show me what I need to do.’ And you will learn, you will see it. I am not making this up. The three mountains are the process of our own Tathagatagarbha, that embryo of a soul that we have within to reach its full potential development by imitating the life of a great master, like the master Jesus, so that we can embody that intelligence of the divine that we call Christ or Avalokiteshvara.

And you see this intelligence in nature is the upper part of The Tree of Life. It is that light that radiates out of the emptiness for the benefit of all beings. It is a type of compassion that is so beyond what we even imagine compassion to be. A being who is at that level, who has that type of development, looks out and sees all the suffering beings at the same time, where they are, how they are suffering, without any effort. They do not have to strain themselves to see that. It is effortless. Moreover, they see how to help them, and moreover, they reach out to help them. And that is why Avalokiteshvara is shown with a thousand arms and all the levels of consciousness of this being.

When someone walks the path of the Bodhisattva, and incarnates Christ, they become part of Christ. They become an extension of Christ. They are no longer an individual. They are part of something greater. They have something far beyond individuality. They have a Christ-centered personality, a type of intelligence and wisdom and insight that is far beyond an individual. They become an active exponent of Christ. And the more pure they are, the higher they reach in their own process of development, the closer they get to the heart of Christ, and the more power they can express through their actions on behalf of others.

This is the key characteristic: a Bodhisattva is an incarnation of Christ who does not do anything for themselves. Their every thought, their every feeling, their every action, is for others, it is to help those that suffer. You see that in the life of Jesus. Throughout the whole story of the life of Jesus, when did he ever say one thing that he wanted? Never. Or the Buddha. Not once. Every word they say is for others. Every action, every glance, every movement is to help others. That is the sign of a Bodhisattva. A very great, purified being.

We need to return to the question we started with: what worlds are we conscious within? What is our own level of development? The answer is sad, but we need to be honest, and from that we can change. If we are not honest with ourselves, we cannot change. If we keep lying to ourselves, we will not change. If you really want change, if you really want to experience this and understand this, you have to start being honest with yourself. Learn to awaken here and now in the physical world. Start there. Save your energy and elevate it for a higher purpose. Let go of selfishness and self-centeredness and expand your view. Study the problem of suffering. So, please, if you have questions, ask.

Questions and Answers

Audience: Do you know what level of consciousness you are in as you proceed through the... [?]

Instructor: Of course. That is the whole point. You cannot clean a level of hell in yourself unless you are conscious of it. So, we here are not even conscious of the physical world. So, if you want to clean your sub-consciousness of all its impurities, you need to become conscious of those worlds and be able to go into those worlds consciously.You learn that by first becoming conscious physically, learning to meditate, and learning to go out of your body. All three of these work together extremely closely. You cannot do them separately. You need to learn to be present, constantly present, and conscious. Learn to meditate, which is where you focus that consciousness, and then learn to get out of the body consciously, which is a further extension of that same consciousness. Then you start awakening in your dreams, and you can start working in that world too, not just in the physical world, but also in dreams.

There is a lot of work to do. It is also extraordinarily rewarding. When you recognize a defect in yourself for what it is, you will realize, ‘Why have I been carrying this stupid thing around with me all this time? It is making me suffer, it is making everyone else suffer. I am so sick of it. Let me kill it now and be done with it forever.’ Kill that anger, that pride, that envy, that lust, and be free of it. And when that thing is killed, when it is destroyed, the consciousness that was trapped in it is liberated and restored to you. That is how you awaken. You are freeing what is trapped in cages of pain in your subconsciousness. So, gradually, little by little, you are restoring what you once lost. And then, once that is fully restored, you can develop it and go up very high on the tree of life.

So, you cannot say, ‘Maybe I am in this level...’ We have heard people say ‘Maybe I am in the fifth initiation...’ If you are saying maybe, you are not. It is that simple. If you are saying maybe, then do not say anything. Close your mouth. Work, change, and have the experiences to know exactly where you are. People who say ‘Maybe I am here, maybe I am there, I think I am here, I think I am there’ are fooling themselves.

We all love to think that we are at very high levels of development, but the facts prove otherwise. If we are asleep physically, if we cannot understand the teachings, if we cannot understand ourselves, we have nothing spiritually. Someone who is working through the initiations has knowledge. Gnosis. They know. There is no question. Certain things, when you experience them, and you know them, you cannot unknow them. They are just facts for you. So, to work through these levels you must know what you are doing.

You cannot create the soul without knowing that you are doing it. You cannot eliminate an ego without knowing that you are doing it. People who guess at their level of spiritual development are like someone saying, ‘I compose symphonies, but I have been deaf since birth.’ How are you going to be a composer of music or a musician if you cannot hear the instrument that you are playing?

It makes sense, right? It is simple. If you are going to work on eliminating an ego, you need to be seeing that ego. You need to be working on that ego, actually seeing and experiencing the thing and seeing it die. If you do not see it in its process of destruction and its eventual elimination, then what are you doing? You do not know what you are doing.

Genuine spirituality is a work of conscious perception and understanding. If you do not have conscious perception of what you are doing, you probably are not doing anything. Nobody likes to hear that, but we need to be very established in the facts because we do not have much time. Time is running out for us as individuals and for this planet. And if we do not get serious about it now and get factual now, we will not have a chance.

"One does not reach these heights through the mechanical evolution of Nature. Evolution is the movement of Universal Life, but this does not take anyone to the angelic state. Nature is not interested in the superhuman. Nature contains all possibilities, but the superhuman is even contrary to her own vested interest. The most terrible forces of Nature oppose the birth of the superhuman. The Angel, the superhuman, is the result of a tremendous revolution of Consciousness. No one is obligated to help the individual in the revolution. This is a very intimate matter for each one of us. The problem is absolutely sexual. The sword must be unsheathed, and we must combat the terrible forces of Nature which oppose the birth of the superhuman." —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

To learn more about the path of liberation, study:

• The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled by Samael Aun Weor
• The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor
• The Revolution of Beelzebub by Samael Aun Weor
• The Three Mountains by Samael Aun Weor