Illusions, Visible and Invisible Sides of Ourselves, Misjudging Others

Well, brothers and sisters, let us begin our lecture tonight. I ask everyone to pay due attention...

Impermanence and Illusory Appearances

In any case, the meaning of tonight's lecture is that we should not let ourselves be carried away by appearances, we should not let ourselves be fascinated by the different scenes of life.

Life is like a movie; it is a film composed, naturally, by many settings and scenes. It is not convenient, in any way, to identify ourselves with any scene, with any setting, with any appearance, because everything passes: people pass, things pass, ideas pass; everything in the world is illusory. Any scene of life, however strong it may be, passes and remains back in time.

What should interest us is what is called the Being, the consciousness. Behold what is fundamental, because the Being does not pass away; "the Being is the Being and the reason for the Being to be, is to be the Being itself..."

When we identify ourselves with the different comedies, dramas and tragedies of life, it is obvious that we fall into fascination and the unconsciousness of psychological sleep. Behold the reason why we should not identify ourselves with any comedy, drama or tragedy of life, because no matter how serious it is, it passes. There is a common saying that goes like this: "There is no evil that endures a hundred years nor a body that can resist it..."  Since, everything is illusory, meaning, temporary...

Sometimes in life, one comes across difficult problems. It happens that sometimes in life one does not find, let us say, the way out, the solution to that problem, and it becomes enormous, monstrous, gigantic before our mind. Then, giving in to worries, one says: “how will I do it, what will I do?” One finds no way out of it, and the problem, as it is analyzed, becomes more and more monstrous, enormous and gigantic. But the day comes when, if we face the problem as it is, that is, if we "grab the bull by the horns," as they say, we see that the problem is nothing (it destroys itself), it is illusory in nature.

Any problem that tends to take such proportions appears so real, so solid to our mind, that we really see no way out, anywhere; one feels that one gives up, that in no way is it soluble. But if one confronts the problem, one will see that it is illusory and that it passes away, as everything has to pass, and in the end it comes to nothing.

How to Eliminate Defects

If one proceeds in this way, never identifying oneself with any situation, with any event, one will be able to be always alert and vigilant, like a sentinel in times of war, and it is in this state of alertness that one discovers one’s psychological defects. A defect discovered must be comprehended and then eliminated.

The mind, by itself, cannot alter any psychological defect; the mind can only label it, move it, pass it from one level to another, but never radically alter it. That takes a power that is superior to the mind, and that power exists in us. I want to emphatically refer to the Divine Mother Kundalini.

If one has comprehended that one has this or that defect, if one has understood it completely, in any of all the levels of the mind, then one can concentrate on Devi Kundalini Shakti, and through her we can eliminate any defect of a psychological nature.

Kundalini is the divine cosmic mother. In all religions, she has been represented as Mary or as Tonantzin, Marah, Rhea, Cybele, Adonia, Insoberta, etc., the cosmic mother, the divine mother; she herself is a sunderable part of our own Being within us, a variation of our own Being. I mean by this that the cosmic mother is within us, here and now; and if we implore that power, if we ask the divine mother to eliminate any psychological defect from our psyche, she will do so. It is obvious that for this reason, she will disintegrate the defect in question.

By means of the divine cosmic mother, we can eliminate all of our psychological defects.

Since the consciousness is bottled up within our defects, once these are eliminated, the consciousness will radically awaken, and then we will be able to see, hear, touch and feel the great realities of the superior worlds.

Identification

But it is indispensable not to identify ourselves with any circumstance of life. When we do not identify ourselves with this or that problem, when we remain alert, we discover within the problem our own psychological defects.

Normally it has been seen that problems are due to fear, the ego of fear keeps the problems alive. They fear life, they fear death, they fear "what people will say," "of what is being said", misery, hunger, nudity, jail (everything is fear), and because of this, the problems become more and more insoluble, stronger.

In an economic problem, what do we fear? Ruin, or that we have to pay a certain debt, because if we don't pay, they put us in jail, etc.

In a family problem, what are we afraid of? What is being said, the viperine tongue, the scandal, the vested interests, etc., etc., etc.; but if the ego of fear is eliminated, what is the problem? Everything vanishes, becomes nothing!...

We have to pay the rent of a house and we fear that they will throw us out on the street; We even spend sleepless nights, thinking that the landlord has to arrive and take us out on the street, but finally the day comes and it turns out that the problem has been solved, perhaps where we least expected it, so, in what was such problem founded?

And if the issue was not resolved, if they threw us out on the street with all the furniture, etc., what happened? furniture will not stay on the street, someone will have to pick it up! Anyway, there won't be a lack (going around), a place to get into...

What if the furniture is lost? They got lost, so what? More was lost in the universal flood! Why should we be attached to some furniture? Later, the problem passed, we ended up living there, somewhere, and the problem was left behind in time. What happened to the problem?

Do not forget that everything passes away: ideas pass, people pass, things pass; everything in this world is fleeting and illusory. We cannot and should not identify ourselves with appearances, because appearances are deceiving (that is obvious). Let's think about the states of the consciousness, and that is superlative...

Misjudgement and Projection

There is a general tendency, of everyone, to misjudge everyone, and that is unfortunate. But why does everyone judge everyone, and wrongly? What is the reason? It is a simply one, and very easy to comprehend: it so happens that each one of us projects their own psychological defects on others, each one of us sees in his neighbor our own defects.

The defects that we foist on others, we have them in swarms; we judge others as we are.

Have you ever heard of mechanical antipathy? Suddenly someone dislikes someone, for no reason, and then we say: "that person annoys me," a very typical phrase that we use.

But why, if we have never seen her, if until now we have just been introduced to her? What happened? Why did that person "annoy us” if we don't even know her? Because we saw her appearance: is she tall or is she short, is she fat or is she thin, does she have an aquiline nose or does she have a flattened one, and that is already a reason, as to say that "we felt annoyed by her?" What happened? It is simple, we have projected our own very psychological defects onto our victim. Possibly we have seen, in that person, the most serious defect that we have and nobody likes to see themselves like that, let us say, so mocked.

The harsh reality of the facts is that such a person has become the mirror where we see ourselves, just as we are.

If we are alert, if we do not identify ourselves with the event, with the person that "we dislike so much;" if instead of criticizing her we criticize ourselves, we observe ourselves to see what is happening, we will discover that it is our defect (born yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or from who knows how long ago, or perhaps from other existences) , has been reflected in that person and that is why "we dislike her so much." That is what mechanical antipathy is: one hundred percent absurd.

We need to learn to live politically. The human being, above all, is a political entity, a “political animal,” and the human himself is a “political human.”

One creates problems in life when one doesn't know how to live politically. One has to learn how to live politically therefore instead of feeling mechanical antipathies, it is worthwhile to investigate ourselves.

Yes, indeed we project our own psychological flaws onto others. Why do we misjudge others? Why do we all have a tendency to see all kinds of defects in others?

Simply, because we project our own defects onto others; we judge them wrongly: we suppose that so-and-so is "like this" or "like that," and it turns out that he or she is neither "like this" nor is "as that:" it is completely different, and our judgment turns out to be wrong, false.

We see the facts of others and have the strong tendency to misinterpret them; we are never able to see the events of others with equanimity, with serenity; we always misqualify them. Remember that "there is much virtue in the wicked and that there is much evil in the virtuous..."

The defects that we carry within us make us unfair to the neighbor. 

We make life bitter (for ourselves) with our own defects, and the most serious thing, we make life bitter for others.

The defect of jealousy, for example, how much damage has it done! There is political jealousy, there is religious jealousy, professional jealousy, passionate or vulgar jealousy (of the man for the woman, or the woman for the man), etc., etc., etc. That is an ego, the ego of jealousy; and that ego is blind, that ego does not know logic, that ego does not know reasoning, that ego does not understand any science or listen to reason...

How many cases of death are seen due to jealousy? Professional jealousy, how much damage do they do? Some magnificent healers, who knew how to cure our neighbors of our illnesses (magnificent botanists), many times ended up in jail. Who put them in prison, if they were not doing harm to anyone, if they only healed their neighbor? Professional jealousy! Whose? Their fellow graduates.

In the professional field, jealousy seems to frighteningly multiply, in circles and circles: artistic circle, political circle, religious circle, but in each circle there is terrible jealousy, frightening...

The jealous suffer and make their peers suffer also. Jealousy has caused a lot of damage, very serious. And if we say that about jealousy, what shall we say about all the other defects that we have?

Appearances are deceiving. Many times we judge someone else's act in the wrong way, according to our egos, and the result is precisely that: slander. And everyone slanders everyone (this is already proven!).

There is always a tendency to get carried away by appearances. A certain act can be judged in one way, and the reality (corresponding to it) is another. Any fact could be judged in a certain way and in a certain manner, and the judgment does not coincide with the fact, because it turns out that the fact has another meaning different from the judgment, then the judgment is wrong.

When we have a wrong judgment, we offend the neighbor, and whosoever makes a wrong judgment also offends himself, causes pain to himself.

Knowing how to live is very difficult, because we live in a world of appearances, illusory, and we always have the tendency to identify ourselves with appearances, forgetting the essential, which is the Being; behold this is a serious thing!

Cognizance of Oneself

In us, within us, there are frightening psychological factors that we ignore and that we would never admit to having. First of all, we must remember that the ego is not something, let's say, perennial; that the ego is an addition and also a subtraction, a multiplication and a division of inhuman elements (each one of these “elements” is an ego).

Therefore, we don't have just one ego, we have many egos. Our ego is pluralized, not singularized, and that is something that you must comprehend, because there is the “I” fear, the “I” love, the “I” hate, the “I” envy, the “I” am jealous, the “I” am angry, etc., etc. , etc.

Each one of those egos has three brains: the intellectual brain, located in the head; the emotional brain, in the heart, and the motor-instinctual-sexual brain in the spine (each one of those selves is a different person).

Thus, we have many people living inside of us. The most serious thing is that the consciousness (the most worthy, the most decent thing in us) is bottled up within all those internal people that we carry.  

Thus, our consciousness is processed that way, in a subconsciously manner, by virtue of its own conditioning; that is to say, our consciousness is asleep, behold the grievous aspect of this matter. If our consciousness is asleep, how could we truly have cognizance of ourselves?

Now, do you think that someone who does not have cognizance of himself can know others? If we do not have cognizance of ourselves, how could we say that we know others, that we know our friends, that we know people? If we want to know others, we must start by having cognizance of ourselves.

But we are fools, not having cognizance of ourselves, we believe that we know others (how foolish we are!, how absurd!) If we did have cognizance of ourselves, everything would be different. Unfortunately, we do not have cognizance of ourselves.

If a person does not have cognizance of oneself, if one does not have cognizance of one's internal worlds, how could one know the internal worlds of the planet earth, or how could one know the internal worlds of the solar system, or of the galaxy in which we live?

If someone wants to know the internal worlds of the earth, or of the solar system or of the galaxy, or of the galaxies, that one must start by knowing one's own internal worlds, start by not having cognizance of oneself.

Moreover, how could we become cognizant of ourselves, if we never direct our consciousness, our intelligence towards our essence, inwardly; if we never remember our Self, because we are identified precisely with the appearances of life? How could we acquire cognizance of ourselves, if we never direct our intelligence inwardly, because we are fascinated by the different events, happenings or occurrences that come to us?

How could we have cognizance of ourselves, if we never direct our consciousness inwardly because the multiple problems of existence have us trapped, we see them as insoluble, we believe that they are eternal, we do not realize that they have a beginning and that they also have an end? We are trapped by what is unstable, by what has no true reality; we are stuck inside a machine that turns incessantly.

We judge others according to how we are (behold the root of so many mistakes!), and our judgments do not coincide with the events that we misinterpret, being these our own or of others.

Obviously, we are inside a machine that incessantly turns, but we are somnambulating, unconscious, asleep; we know nothing about ourselves, because we never remember our Self, our own Being; our minds are too busy with illusory things, with what is temporary...

We must seek the intimate self-realization of the Being, no longer live as automatons, no!, we must live in a state of alert perception, alert novelty...

First, reflect on this: we do not know ourselves, we are in a horrible “coma state!”

Second, we project our psychological flaws onto others, and we see our own flaws in others.

Third, we misjudge the actions of others.

Fourth, such actions do not coincide with the judgment that we make.

Fifth, the judgment that we emit is, indeed, the very psychological defect that we have projected onto our neighbor.

Conclusion: the neighbor is serving us as a mirror, but we do not realize, in our unconsciousness, that the neighbor is only reflecting our own defects, our own psychological ego.

Our neighbor is a mirror where we reflect ourselves, but we do not understand that the reflection (that is in the mirror) is our own reflection; we are not even aware that we are reflecting ourselves in our neighbor.

Rather, we are so identified with the event, with the occurrence, with the circumstance, or circumstances, that it does not even remotely occur to us to reflect upon all of these subject matters, and we live in a state of fascination, of unconsciousness, and psychological sleep.

If in these matters of practical life (we would say, earthly), we walk so unconscious, what can we say about heavenly matters? Indeed, we could misinterpret all the postulates of hermetic science; we could misinterpret, due to our erroneous judgments, the attitudes of the other initiates, the life of the adepts, etc. We could misinterpret, due to our state of unconsciousness, even the cosmic drama itself; and obviously the cosmic drama, as stipulated in the four gospels, has been misinterpreted. 

Why could we misinterpret the life of the adepts of the white brotherhood, or why could we misinterpret the cosmic drama, or why could we misinterpret the postulates of hermetic wisdom, etc.?

For one reason only: that our judgment is not free, it is a judgment conditioned by our own defects. Our judgment is the outcome of the psychological bottleneck in which we find ourselves; our judgment is, we could say, the projection of our own defects.

We project our defects on the four gospels, we project on the postulates of hermetic science, as we project on the acts of the initiates, on the life of the adepts, etc. So, that is why we are not prepared for heavenly things .

We project, and a mind that projects its own errors is not a free mind, it is not a mind that can apprehend, capture the reality of things, the reality of the phenomena, of the facts, of the circumstances that we see everywhere and that surround us.

Such a mind, if it does not serve to comprehend earthly things, how would it serve to understand the life of the great initiates, heavenly things? Unquestionably it would fail, because if the earthly cannot be understood, much less the heavenly.

So, I believe that the vital thing in life is not to let ourselves be carried away by appearances, not to let ourselves be captured by events, by circumstances. Rather, be alert to discover, in such events, our own psychological defects.

The Visible and Invisible Sides of Ourselves

Every circumstance of life (be it at home, on the street, wherever it might be), offers us wonderful opportunities, and if we are alert and vigilant, like the sentinel in times of war, we manage to apprehend our own defects, which are projected upon the neighbor.

The neighbor is the mirror where we can see our own defects: if we go down the street and see an inebriated one, a drunkard, what will we do? Don't make fun of the drunk. Rather, say: “There I go! see, that drunk is me; see how I do pantomimes, how funny I am! That's me, here I go!...”

We must learn to see ourselves in others: if we discover there an individual who thunders and flashes, who rips his clothes like Caiaphas, we must say: “Behold, there I am! Yes, how wrathful I am, how I tear my garments and how I blaspheme, that is me..."

Indeed, we are reflecting on others, we are reflecting on the neighbor...

Of course, you could tell me, emphatically, or perhaps to object me: “no, I'm not a thief, I'm not a house robber; I would never go up to the roof to get into someone else's house, to steal money or jewelry”... That's what you would say, right? We would judge the thief saying: “He is a thief, and let him go to jail!...” But it happens that, within us, there is also an ego of thievery. We don't know about it, we haven't discovered it, nonetheless it exists within us. By parodying Galileo we might say: “Eppur si muove, si muove” (“but it moves, it moves”).

When Galileo was asked: “Do you swear that the earth is not round and does not move?”.

So he said: “I swear, “Eppur si muove, si muove!”. (ie: “I swear, but it moves, it moves”). Thus said Galileo, And he was prevented from being burned alive at the stake of the Inquisition.

Thus, how can we say that we do not have the ego of thievery? There will be, among you, people so honest that they are incapable of taking "a dime" from anyone, and yet they have the ego of thievery. Incredible but true; one day they will find out... 

Who could think that, for example, a virtuous lady, magnificent wife, has, for example, an ego of prostitution? Impossible. Or we don't go that far: let's think of a little girl, which is even more scandalous... that a twelve-year-old girl (innocent, well-raised religiously), have the brothel ego? It's something that causes disgust!, right? You will say: “impossible, absurd!” nonetheless, yes it can be...

Remember also, that just as there is a moon up there shining in the firmament, which has two faces (one, to illuminate the night, yet, there is another one, concealed, hidden, that is never seen), so there is also a psychological moon ( inside each one of us) with two faces: the one that is seen and the other that is not seen, the manifest and the hidden.

On the manifest face of that psychological moon, we have the defects that at first glance stand out: anger, greed, lust, envy, pride, laziness, gluttony, etc., etc., etc., and many other weeds. But behind that psychological moon, behind that face that is always seen, that can be seen with the naked eye, in our psychological moon there is the hidden part, the one that cannot be seen.

There we have defects that we ignore, there we all turn out to be black magicians, there we all turn out to be sorcerers, wizards, there we turn out to be thieves, there the (more aristocratic) ladies turn out to be prostitutes, etc., etc., etc.

On that hidden face of the moon (which cannot be seen), of the psychological moon, there are egos of prostitution, there are egos of adultery, there are egos of assassination, there are egos of thievery, etc., etc. Egos that we normally ignore, because if someone told us that we have this or that ego of those, we would be offended, we would not accept it in any way, nonetheless, we do have them.

If a saint of nirvana were told that he still has egos of murder, prostitution or robbery, he would be terribly offended. The saint would bless us saying: “God forgive you, my son; you are forgiven, I bear no grudge against you, but I know, my son, that I have none of that!” That is what a saint of nirvana would say. why? Because he is nothing but a saint. In this way, that saint of nirvana stops his progress towards the common eternal cosmic father. And many are the saints of nirvana who are thus arrested in their advance; indeed, even if they are from nirvana, on the hidden face of their moon (which is not seen), on that hidden face of their psychological moon, they carry all those egos, and this is what many do not understand. This is indeed serious. We all have the tendency to justify ourselves, to get carried away by appearances.

As far as I am concerned, I am neither a saint nor do I care to be a saint. Why am I not interested in being a saint? Because it would stop me, in my esoteric progress. I know very well that in the hidden part of my psychological moon, there must be (and undoubtedly there are) egos from ancient times, hidden in the darkness.

I know that; and I also know that only by penetrating heroically (with sword in hand) into that zone of our psychological moon, we will be able, indeed, to eliminate such defects, but this is very advanced.

Normally, people can eliminate the defects of that part of the psychological moon, those defects that stand out, that can be seen with the naked eye.

Already, when it comes to penetrating into the hidden part of the psychological moon, in the hidden part, well, a greater effort is required. That already belongs to the initiation of Judas, corresponds to the passion for the Lord. No one could penetrate these areas if they did not grasp the spear in the forge of the Cyclopes, that is, in the ninth sphere. Mysteries? Yes, and very big!

The saint does not go that far: he is content to eliminate the ego-defects that he possesses on the visible side of his psychological moon. Then he is beatified and from there he does not pass, and then he becomes stagnated.

Behold the reason why I am not a saint, nor do I want to be a saint. I only love comprehension, and that is the fundamental: the comprehension of ourselves.

Actually, indeed, the adept is beyond the saints. When someone said: "the holy masters..." that someone was wrong, because the masters are beyond the saints.

First there is the profane, then the saint, and then the master. The master is beyond the sphere of the saints; within the master is sapience.

Moreover, it is possible to wrongly judge the masters, the adepts. We always have the tendency to project, even onto the adepts, our own defects of a psychological nature.

If we wrongly judge the adepts, we cast our wrong judgments upon them as well, because if it is not possible to correctly judge the acts of ordinary neighbors, much less is it possible to judge the acts of the adepts correctly.

Normally, we have a tendency to throw mud at adepts. Just as we throw mud at our neighbor, we also throw mud at the followers of the white brotherhood. For this reason, they have been crucified, poisoned, put in prisons, stabbed, persecuted...

It is very difficult to judge an adept. If it is almost impossible to judge others, much less could we judge an adept.

So, I invite you to reflect tonight, to never let yourself be carried away by appearances, because appearances are deceiving; not to blame our defects on anyone.

Here my words end. Inverential peace!