Arcanum number four is called The Emperor. The king, the Emperor, is related with the fourth Sephirah of the Tree of Life, which is called Chesed. When you study the Tree of Life and the relation of the Tree of Life with the planets of our solar system, then we find that Chesed is governed by Jupiter, and also by Mars. Many kabbalists state that Chesed, the Innermost, our own particular Spirit, is ruled only by Jupiter. But when we discover that our own particular Spirit has to fight for his own Self-realization and has to do the work, the internal work in the human being; then we discover that he is also a warrior, a fighter. So that's why we state in Gnosticism that Chesed is ruled by Mars. This is the particular individual Spirit of each one of us. Chesed, which is related with the Emperor, the king. That's why, astrologically speaking, we said that the kings are ruled by Jupiter.
And now we are going to go very deep, following the sequence of lectures, in order to explain the biblical Adam related with this lecture. Remember that in the Book of Genesis it is written that Adam is the king of nature, an emperor. And it is very interesting to see that when we read the Bible, we read the word Adam which many translators translate as "man", but for a better explanation it is better if we translate it as "human being."
In Hebrew, you say איש "Ish," for man, and אשה "Isha" is woman. In Greek, you say "Anthropos" for human being and "Andros" for man, so we have to make the difference, what is an "Andros" and what is an "Anthropos," or what is a "man" and what is "Adam," or Ish and Adam.
In the previous lecture when we were talking about the letter Beth, we were explaining that after the division of sexes the man Ish and his woman Isha were the two parts of the same being, which was Adam. And behold that the word אדם Adam is written with three Hebrew letters: א Aleph, ד Daleth, מ Mem.
אAleph we already know that it is related with the air, with the Ruach, with the wind, with the Spirit, with God, the Holy Three-Unity.
ד Daleth, which is precisely the lecture of today, is related with the terrestrial man. And when we talk about the terrestrial man we have to explain the word "terrestrial" or earthly, which is related with Malkuth, the tenth Sephirah, at the very bottom of the Tree of Life. This "Malkuth" means "the kingdom." Now we have to state very specifically that a kingdom cannot exist without a king and without a queen. So the king is the Emperor of the Tarot, because the man, or we will say Adam, is called to be king of nature, has to control nature.
When I said "nature" I'm referring to the whole planet; the planet earth is called Malkuth, the kingdom, because it is formed by four kingdoms; the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. But those kingdoms are controlled by the four elements of nature, and here is where we have to emphasize in the number four because Daleth, the Emperor, is related with the Holy Tetragrammaton, the holy name of God, יהוה Iod Hei Vav Hei, which we translate as Iod-Havah, which is י Iod (Adam) and הוה Havah (Eve). These four letters are related with the four elements of nature; fire, water, air and earth. The four elements are related with the four ways in which the initiate has to learn how to control the elements of nature, because if we are slaves of the elements of nature, then we are not kings of nature, but slaves of nature.
The Adam of Genesis controls the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the earth and the creatures that creep. Those are an allusion of the four elements of nature that Adam has to control, has to command. It is not as many people misunderstand; they think that to be king of the earth or nature is to exploit all the earth and take advantage of the planet, as in this day and age people are doing and causing of course problems for the planet. A real king is a wise man.
It's coming into my mind the three wise men of the gospels that, as it is written, were visiting the birth of the God-child in Bethlehem, and this is something that we have to comprehend. Three, because these three wise men are related with the three levels in which Chokmah, the Christ, develops the power of the king within the terrestrial man.
So in the Bible the word אדם Adam for man or for that human being that is a king of nature is directly related with the other word אדםה Adamah which means "ground." It is written there that the creature, human being, that was made into the image of God, Adam, was taken from the ground, Adamah. It is good to emphasize here that this word Adamah, which ends with the Hebrew letter "He," is a feminine word. We will not commit any mistake if we said that this Adamah is the feminine aspect of the earth, because the earth itself is, kabbalistically speaking, feminine. That's why in many religions, when they refer to the earth, they say "Mother Earth." Obviously, Mother Earth has all the elements necessary in order to create the terrestrial man, which is the poor man in Kabbalah, because the rich man is symbolized by Chesed, which is the Spirit, the Monad which is within each one of us. Chesed is of course that Spirit that is made into the image of God and that never sins, is always pure, is always holy.
When I said this, it comes into my memory a certain conversation that I had with the Master Samael Aun Weor. When you enter into these Gnostic studies you always wonder about the name, the holy name of your God, since you understand and comprehend that the name of God is individual in each one of us. That means that our own particular Chesed, which is El, God, has his own name, and that name means something for you. So to discover the name of God is to discover your own entity, your own king, you own Emperor.
Master Samael, being a resurrected master, obviously very awakened, knew very well the Inner Being of everybody. But he was very cautious to unveil the sacred name of the people, because it is sacred. "Holy be his unutterable name."
So, I asked him, "Master, you know the name of my Being; can you tell me who my Being is?"
And he said, "He is holy, you are not."
And he kept silent. Then, since that time, I meditated on that. I understood that God within, Chesed, is holy. That's why his sacred appellation or name in the world of Atziluth is El in Chesed, El, God. Obviously, El is holy within each of us, but we are not, and this is something that we have to understand. But we have to be perfect as he is perfect, and that is the process of initiation, to acquire perfection, to be in the image of God. And that is precisely the great transformation that we have to acquire.
In the Book of Genesis it explains very clearly, that in the beginning when Adam is created, he falls, he sins, and this is because the nature of the terrestrial man is sinful. To transform that sinful nature into a holy one is a great work that only God can perform, and that's why the Emperor needs the assistance of Wisdom. Wisdom is Chokmah, the second Sephirah, and that Wisdom is what we call in Christianity the Son of God, Christ. We know that Christ unfolds in many fires, many lights, but the most beautiful atoms of Christ shine in Chokmah, and that's why Chokmah receives the name of Iod Hei Vav Hei; it is the first Sephirah in which we find the holy name of God, kabbalistically speaking. So when we read Iod-Havah by itself in the Bible it is referring to the Sephirah Chokmah. If we read Iod-Havah Elohim, then we are reading about something related with Binah.
So, when you read the Bible, if Iod-Havah is by itself, it is related to Christ, the Son, Chokmah, which is the one that transforms and enters into the human being in order to transform him into a child of God. And that is a process that has to come, but first we have to create Adam; Adam has to be created. It is a mistake, a big mistake to think that Adam already exists. Symbolically speaking or alchemically, kabbalistically, we say Adam referring to the male aspect, but this Adam is difficult to find, because it has to be created.
Genesis is a book of actuality, it is not a book that merely tells us the story of this world. We will say that if we read it in that way, we also find the explanation of the creation of this planet. But alchemically speaking, gnostically speaking, the Book of Genesis is telling us the way in which the man, Adam, has to be created within ourselves. Adam has to exist in each one of us.
Adam is the true Human Being, the true Man. With that we are indicating that we are not Human Beings, we are not Men; we are intellectual animals. And behold here the word "animal" comes from the Latin "anima" which means "soul," intellectual souls. But we are not in the image of Chesed, let alone in the image of that above Chesed, which is the three Supernals, because that is a process. First we have to create the Man, and then the Super Man. The Super in the Man is the three Supernals; Kether, Chokmah, Binah, that's the "super." Super Man can be created only in the Man, but the Man has to be created first.
Nietzsche in his book "Thus Spake Zarathustra" speaks a lot of the Super Man, but he taught about the Super Man to intellectual animals; they don't understand about the Super Man. That's why many things that we explain here related with the Super Man are difficult to understand, because the Man doesn't exist in us yet. The Man understands about the Super Man, but for us it is difficult. That's why people in the book "Thus Spake Zarathustra,"Nietzsche says that the people said: "Stop Zarathustra, talking about the Super Man, and talk to us about the Man."
This is what we have to do, we have to create the Emperor, the king, the wise king, and for that we have to create the internal bodies, and those internal bodies are coming from the dust of the ground, from Adamah, which is the ground. It doesn't mean that we have to go to a place where there is clay, or where there is dirt. Remember that the physical body is Malkuth, and when we discover, atomically, the forces that are in our bodies, we are talking about the "dust." Because that is what is dust; atoms, forces, attributes, which are in Malkuth, in the kingdom. There is where we find all those elements that we need in order to create the Man.
How do we create the Man? We have to elevate the forces of the ground, the forces of the earth, in order to create the elements, the three garments for the soul: the astral body, the mental body and the causal body. The body of willpower, the body of the mind and the body of emotions. Those are called "electronic bodies" that we have to create with the sublimation of the sexual force.
All of those elements, alchemically speaking, are placed in the seed. This is alchemically the twelve salts of the zodiac which are represented with the twelve tribes of Israel. It's coming into my mind when the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve children of Jacob went into Egypt. And that's a mystery of the descent of the forces of the zodiac (and by the way, the Zodiac is ruled by Chokmah. Kabbalistically speaking, astrologically speaking, you find the twelve zodiacal forces here in Chokmah).
Behold here again, pointing to the descent of that force, the twelve salts of alchemy, into the world of Egypt; this means the descent of the forces through Io-Cephas or Joseph, which is the stone of Yesod. In the Bible, when you read the word Egypt in Hebrew, it says Matzarim מצרים, which means "distress." There is a word in English which is Mesopotamia; do you know what is Mesopotamia? "Mesos" and "potamos" means "earth between two rivers." So the word Matzarim is Egypt in the Bible, but when we study the letters in the Hebrew alphabet we know that מ M, Mem, means water. So this Tzari is between the two waters. And what is צרי Tzari? It's a balm, or a way in which you perfume. It is made, it is written, by eleven elements in order to please God. Incense. Those eleven elements are related with the eleven Sephiroth. You say, "Why eleven?" Because there are ten, plus Daath. Those eleven are within Joseph, Tzari, this is called in the Zohar, or in Kabbalah; Tzari is made of eleven elements which you have to sublimate in order to have a smoked offering, perfumed, to your Inner Being. But that comes from Matzarim, the word Egypt. That's why that Tzari is between two Mems. The two Mems or the two waters, which are of course the sexual waters of Yesod of man and woman. But Egypt is precisely that element or that place which is Malkuth, the Kingdom. Behold here, we have two, we will say that the Bible talks about two children, the children of the devil and the children of God. Egypt, of course, is a place, Malkuth, the Kingdom, where everybody is a slave of the sexual waters. So when you enter into this knowledge and you start following the doctrine of Gnosticism, you discover that you are in Egypt, symbolically speaking. You have to go out of Egypt, but in order to go out of Egypt you have to build the pyramids first. That is a symbol. It is coming into my mind also Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas. Quetzalcoatl, the incarnation of Chokmah among the Mexicans, was teaching them how to build pyramids as well, and the Toltecs, are called "the builders." And that is the same symbol, in which first you have to build the pyramids of Thoth, your internal bodies. The astral body, the mental body, the causal body, are made from the earth.
You say, "Yeah, the pyramids are made from the earth, from the clay (Adamah) of the earth," but that is a symbol, the same symbol in which you have to build your internal bodies with Adamah, from Adamah, which is the ground, which is your own body. But for that you have to know the mysteries in which you have to take from Egypt the elements to build.
When you keep reading the books of the Bible, you find for instance the Book of Exodus. And it is written there that the Israelites were 430 years in Egypt before they left. In Gnosticism we explain very well that Israel is related with Isis; Ra, with the solar force; and El, is God. So Israel are all those particles, forces, that are in Egypt, particles of God that need to leave the world of Malkuth, but for that they have to reach the age of 430 years.
In alchemy, in initiation, we know that numbers are related with Kabbalah. 400 years is related with the mental body.
When you enter, and you sublimate the forces of the zodiac in Egypt, and you create within, elevate the fire in the spinal column, the fire of Kundalini, then you acquire in the physical world, in the physical body, a hundred years. When you raise the energy of the vital body, the Kundalini of the vital body, then you acquire 200 years. When you come and create the astral body, by raising the energy in the astral body, in the astral plane, you acquire 300 years. And when after that you raise the energy of the mental body and create the mental solar body, then you reach 400 years. But then you continue by creating the body of willpower, Thelema. And then you know that you have to raise that energy 33 vertebrae. When you reach the 33rd vertebrae, then you reach the esoteric age of a hundred years (for the first initiation) or 200 years for the second one, and so on. You don't need to reach the number 99. 33 is enough because it's related with the 33 degrees that you need to acquire in your spinal column in order to acquire the hundred years. For each initiation, one hundred years.
But behold, before reaching the symbolic age of 500, when that energy rises in your Body of Willpower to the thirtieth vertebra, then two ways open before you, or we will say better, two ways open before Chesed, because he is the one that is creating through Adamah, the Man, the terrestrial man, the poor man that needs the assistance of the rich man, who is Chesed. He is rich because he has wealth in heaven, the inheritance of his own God within. Chesed is the outcome of Binah, the Holy Spirit.
So then, when the human soul reaches that level, two ways open: The way of the Spiral and the Direct Path. The way of the Spiral is the way in which the initiate works towards his own perfection through many lives, through many reincarnations. He's already a Human Being, he has the right to be called Adam; an Adam which is in process. He is not an Adam in the image of God yet, but he can be if his Chesed takes the Direct Path.
On the direct path, he has to pass through the three levels of the letter Daleth, in which that terrestrial man, which is that Adam that was built in Mitsrayim, in Egypt, has to leave Egypt. To leave Egypt he has to go through great ordeals. Behold here, that's why this fourth Arcanum is related with the four elements as we said; it's related with the cross as well. We have to pass four ordeals in the physical world in order to go into the Exodus, and after going into the Exodus, which is the Direct Path, you have to pass also four ordeals, the four ordeals always. And that's precisely the word that's called here, Mitsrayim. You have to come out of "distress," of ordeals, of tests, in order to conquer higher levels of your Being. Many things have been spoken about the different tests and ordeals that the initiate has to pass through, and that's symbolically spoken, or written, in the Bible about the different distresses, the different ordeals, that the Israelites were passing in Egypt. And you find that in many books, how before going into the higher levels, the individual is tested.
It's coming into my mind the master Jesus, when he is born he goes to Egypt, and after conquering all of his initiations and developing the inner terrestrial man in himself, he comes from Egypt into the promised land, and as a Resurrected Master. Not physically speaking, but resurrected in fire and resurrected in the light, he appears in the holy land, doing miracles. But he comes from Egypt. So that's the symbol of Moses taking the people out of Egypt, because Moses is the Thelema, willpower, that we have to build inside, and to take Israel, which are the different parts of the consciousness bottled up within different idols, which are these idols of the mind, egos that everybody worships.
This is something very important to emphasize here, because many people think that when the Bible talks about not worshipping idols, people always put their mind in the statues made in different religions. And the real meaning of that is related with our own particular psychological aggregates that we worship.
In this three-dimensional world, people worship idols. The idols of vanity, the idols of pride, even in religion there are idols, even if they don't have statues in their temples. When you feel proud of being religious, or related with any type of religion, you are being as the Bible says "a rich man," proud of being what you think you are, of whatever religion.
So to be identified with the different psychological aspects of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, laziness, gluttony, etc, etc. is to worship idols, because we have to worship our God which is within, Chesed. But people ignore that. Chesed, the Innermost, is pushed aside, and people only care about the idols, the psychological defects and vices that you find in the psyche of every person.
To destroy those idols is to make a new creature, to emerge Adam within, to make really a Human Being, and to reach the initiatic age of 430 in order to go into the Exodus. Then, just by being a Human Being, you can go in the Exodus, or you can go on the Straight Path.
This is something very important to understand here, because people think that the Exodus is something physical. It's physical, but it's also psychological and spiritual. It has to be balanced, one thing has to be related with the other, and for that we have to know that this path is a very difficult path. It's a spiritual path, it is not as easy as many people think. People have the idea that to be born again is a matter of believing in Jesus of Nazareth who came 2000 years ago, so if you accept that Jesus was the son of God, then you are born by dint of magic, just like that. Of course, that's ludicrous, because nobody is born on this planet Earth just by believing; birth is physical.
We need the sexual act in order to be here in this earth. Internally also, we need the sexual act. In other words, we need the same energy, which is coming from the Earth, and which synthesizes as the entity of semen, the Ens Seminis, obtains or attains all of the energy of the universe and the Earth. We have to know how to sublimate that energy in order to create internally. But obviously, there is always an opposition in us, and those are the forces of nature.
When you study the book of Exodus, you see that Moses goes in front of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh means "great priest" or "great one." Etymologically, they say that Pharaoh means "great house," but we explained already that in order to be the head of a big house, a big religion, you have to be resurrected. And always, the great Avatars, the great messengers from God appear in at the head of religions. Moses appears in front of Egypt when the religion of Egypt was already degenerated, because obviously Egypt had its great Golden Age in which great initiates, great kings, great emperors were blessing people.
At that time of Joseph, when Joseph went into Egypt, or his brothers sold Joseph to the Egyptians, at that time the Pharaoh was a great initiate, a great priest, but in the time of Moses the religion of Egypt was already in decay. They were no longer the Egyptians but the "egypsies." They were transformed into gypsies. Many people say that the gypsies are the lost tribe of Israel. "Gypsy" comes from "egypsy," it said in Latin or in Italian egypsy, gypsy, is from Egypt. So a gypsy is somebody that came from Egypt, but is no longer in an initiate, is a gypsy, somebody that lost all the attributes of being an initiate.
The twelve tribes at that time of Moses were the initiates that were really following the new religions, the new form in which the White Lodge was giving the knowledge to a new people, and obviously, the Pharaoh, the great priest there, was already degenerated, as in the time of Jesus when he is before Caiaphas, the chief priest of the Jews, the Sanhedrin. They were already degenerated.
The great splendors of Jerusalem were already in the past, the times when David was alive, when Solomon was alive and other kings of Jerusalem; that was the Golden Age of Jerusalem. But everything in nature goes up and down, up and down. And Egypt went up and fell, also Jerusalem went up and fell as well, and that's why Jesus appears in front of Caiaphas, and there is a trouble there, just as Moses had a trouble in front of the great priest, the Pharaoh.
The Pharaoh was attached to his own religion, his own beliefs, and he didn't believe that Moses was the new Avatar coming to guide the initiates of that time out of Egypt, but it doesn't mean that he was taking literally out of the land of Egypt, it means out of the decay of Egypt in order to create a new form, and that's why Moses makes great miracles, great wonders in front of the Pharaoh. Those wonders and miracles are made within, in which he commands the forces of nature. So Moses demonstrates there that he is really an Emperor, he is really a king, because in order to be a king, in order to be an Emperor, we need to have God within, God has to command.
The Emperor is an Emperor because he is anointed by God. That's why in India you find the great Kumaras or kings of the past, and you read in many religions about the great Solar kings, the Kumaras, the Emperors, the Pharaohs. You find in the Bible for instance King David (Hebrew: דוד), which by the way, you find here Daleth in the beginning and Daleth in the end; two Daleths and Vav in the middle. David, a good expression through which Chokmah, Iod-Havah expresses himself. In the course we quote the psalm 119, a psalm from David who was an incarnation of Christ.
When we say that David was an incarnation of Christ, we understand that Christ is Chokmah, the Son, which is Iod-Havah. And that is why he worshipped Iod-Havah in all of the psalms, and explained the way in which we have to develop that Iod-Havah within.
Obviously the son of David, Solomon, was another incarnation of Chokmah or Iod-Havah. And likewise many other prophets, but behold here, that in order to be a king you have to pass the four ordeals, and I repeat: not one time, but many times. The ordeal of fire, the ordeal of air, earth and water are faced continually, and that's why the Master Samael Aun Weor emphasizes in the chapter related to the Emperor, the Arcanum four, that we have to learn how to control the elements as Moses was controlling them, as Jesus was controlling them. Was not perhaps Jesus walking on the waters? When I say this it is coming into my mind somebody that told me, "Do you know why Jesus was walking on the waters?"
I said, "Yes, I know."
"But let me tell you in synthesis; he was walking on the waters because he was putting his feet on a stone, and nobody saw the stone in the water."
I said, "You are telling me the truth; that is right." People never saw the stone on which Jesus put his foot in order to walk on the Sea of Galilee. That stone is Yesod, the cubic stone on which the Emperor is seated. That stone is sex, it's squared, has four sides, because it's perfect.
When you become perfectly chaste, then that stone gives you that power to control the waters. If you cannot control your own waters of sexuality, how do you expect to control the waters of nature? This is why in this day and age you see how the fornicators die in a tsunami.
If this planet Earth were inhabited by true Human Beings, nobody would die in a tsunami. But they are slaves of their own sexual waters. All over the earth people are abusing sex, so we see tsunamis come and washed them away.
The gnomes of the earth control the earth. But if an earthquake happens right now, and everything is trembling, we cannot even control the trembling of our knees, for the fear of being swallowed by the earth. But a true Human Being is an Emperor of nature, and controls that element, because he controls his own earth, his own circumstances of life.
A real initiate has to control the circumstances of life. The worst circumstances of life are the best opportunities in order to know yourself, in order to defeat yourself, to deny yourself. And of course, you have to adapt yourself to the different circumstances; adaptation is related to water.
When you are before the insulter, or when you are before somebody with a lot of wealth, and you feel hurt because you don't have that wealth, then you are a victim of fire, which is envy, which is anger, which is resentment. Fire is hatred. If you want revenge, that is fire. So you have to defeat that, you have to pass the ordeal of fire, you have to be humble. That's why it's written that the terrestrial man, which symbolizes Daleth, is a humble man. How are you going to acquire humility? How do you acquire humility if you are full of pride, of arrogance, of anger?
God only enters into the Emperor which controls the elements. So when Moses was on the mount of Sinai, he was already humble, he was a shepherd. What is a shepherd? Somebody that deals with sheep, right? Wasn't David a shepherd as well? But he became a king. You have seen Jesus depicted as the shepherd. Obviously, I am a shepherd, because I am teaching sheep, souls. There are different levels of shepherds. In Spanish the word for shepherd is "pastor," and in Christianity you call the pastor here, the pastor there, why? Because he is a shepherd, he is a pastor, he is dealing with souls. So in order to be a king, first you have to be a shepherd, and that is why the angel appears to the shepherds when the king is being born, the God king in the city of Bethlehem. People think, "Oh yeah, there were shepherds that were in the fields dealing with sheep, physically speaking"; no. This is referring psychologically, kabbalistically, alchemically to those that are dealing with souls.
But one has to be a true shepherd. It has to be somebody that is seated firmly. Yesod is the foundation, is sex; the Emperor is seated there because he is controlling the physical body, the vital body, the mental body and the astral body. These are the four bodies of sin. He is perfectly seated there.
In the stone you see a cat; why a cat? Because the foundation of those bodies is in Nephesh, which is Animal Soul, and the cat is a creature of the moon. That's why you see that the cats, as soon as the dark is beginning, they go out, they enjoy being in the dark, because they are creatures of the moon, they are ruled by the moon, and they multiply in the darkness. You need to know how to practice sexual magic in the darkness as the cats do. And that's the mystery of the stone there, sexual mystery, always sexual, but has to be with symbols, and you have to know that.
This is how the Emperor can hold the wand of power; that wand of power is the same staff that Moses had in his hand, which is the serpent. And here, behold, people think that the serpent is the symbol of evil, but not. If it is a symbol of evil, why does Jahovah, Chokmah, Christ, say to Moses, "Throw that staff that you have in your hand on the ground," and when that staff was on the ground it became a serpent. He says, "Take the serpent by the tail," and he took the serpent by the tail, and the serpent became a staff again in his hand. And he said, "Do this miracle, this wonder in front of the Pharaoh so he will know with whom he is talking." Obviously, when Moses was in front of the Pharaoh, he was talking about sexual magic, transmutation of the sexual energy, to be born again, the controlling of the serpent, Kundalini or the serpent of brass. Obviously, all the miracles that Moses did were with the staff. Read Exodus very clearly; everything that he is doing is with the staff; he strikes a rock and the water comes out; he puts the staff towards heaven and great miracles happen. But it is not Moses that is doing it, it is the staff that is doing it. But it is not the staff that is doing it, but the energy of the staff, which is Shaddai El Chai, the power of El Shaddai which is controlled by Jah-Hova, Chokmahl it is God that is doing it. Because all the power of the Emperor, the power of the king, is in his God.
That's why when the Emperor forgets that God is the one that gives the power, he is kicked out. Nebuchadnezzar, was a king, an emperor of Babylon, anointed by God. One day he was outside of his palace, and he says, "Am I not Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon? Is it not me, the one that controls all of this? I am the one that does this and that." And then it says written there in the book of Daniel, God appears and says, "Oh yeah? So you are the one that is doing all of this? Now you will learn who is the one that does it. You didn't do anything." The king was arrogant, you see? He was not Daleth, the poor, the humble. And then he was kicked out of the kingdom and was living like the beasts of the earth until he learned that God gives and takes, and this is precisely the great teaching of the letter Daleth, that we have to develop humility, we have to be humble in order to acquire wisdom. In order to acquire wisdom means: in order to acquire Chokmah (Hebrew for "wisdom").
Unfortunately, when we enter into these studies we enter with that little extended part of Daleth, back, in the head, which is the subconsciousness, unconsciousness or infraconsciousness, the ego. Daleth is made with one horizontal line and one vertical, but the horizontal line, which symbolizes that will of God, it is protruded behind the letter a little bit. That is evil will. The will of God is the long part, but where the vertical line begins, the will of God ends, and the other part, the little protrusion, is the evil will that we have, because we have desire. And that's precisely Israel in Egypt that has to pass four ordeals, has to pass four great trials in order to make the perfect square, which will be precisely the perfect Man that will come from Egypt and who has to pass through the Red Sea.
Ancient Gnostics said: "We have to leave Egypt and pass the Red Sea in order to become Gods," or we will say, in order to become like Gods. Obviously that is a process, and that is why we will say, to synthesize, that the three wise men of the gospels of Jesus symbolize these three steps. A wise man which is a king; a king in Kabbalah is placed here in Tiphereth. In the world of Yetzirah, Tiphereth receives the name of Malachim. In other words, in order for us to reach the level of Melech, king, an Emperor, a Pharaoh, we have to go (from the bottom) one, two, three, four, five initiations. We have to reach the level of Tiphereth, and then we are a Melech from the Malachim, and that is why the angels are called Malachim.
The Malachim are the ones that fall. That which falls, falls from Tiphereth. Those Malachim who fall, who fail, are the angels which are called fallen angels. Solomon, the great king of Israel, was a Malachim, a great Melech, but he fell, it is written. Now he's trying to rise again, because any fallen Malachim, any fallen angel, can rise again if he follows the path and if God gives the gift of forgiveness. Remember King David, he was also a sinner, it is written there, but God forgives him.
Any initiate that reaches the Second Birth, the level of Malachim, is an Emperor because inside is a king which is God; but the initiate is still with the ego alive, so he has to fight for his Self-realization, his self-purification. And that is written also in that great story or legend of the Round Table.
You see how everything is hidden in different stories, different mythologies. Somebody appears for instance and says: "I am a reincarnation of King Arthur," without knowing that King Arthur is a symbol. There also appears a woman that says, "I am a reincarnation of Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur," without knowing that Guinevere is a symbol. King Arthur is Chesed, Guinevere is Geburah, and Lancelot is Tiphereth; behold here the trio within which is hidden the mystery of the Self-realization.
It is written that King Arthur took the sword out of the stone; that stone is Yesod, because that stone symbolizes the fire, the willpower that we have to acquire, because a king without a sword is not a king. But he took that out of the stone, and this is how the initiate, the angels, the great kings, have their sword, and that sword is the one that they use in order to kill the unfaithful ones, the unbelievers. But the unbelievers are not physical; they are inside of the initiates, because the unbelievers, the unfaithful ones are inside the mind, never outside. The initiate doesn't care about the outside people, but the inside ones, because we have a great city inside in which we find thieves, liars, fornicators, adulterers. The wars are inside, and we have to clean ourselves, we have to go into the Red Sea, the Sea of Passion, and we have to drown them, but that is the sexual act in which all the Egyptians, all those elements that are following us, because we are following our own God, have to be killed. They are drowned in the waters of Yesod, in the waters of passion.
This is why Lancelot is a servant of the Lady of the Lake; the lake is always the symbol of Yesod, of water. That lady is Shekinah, the great fire that we have to awaken in order to reach God again, that fire that is in exile in each one of us, the mother Kundalini, Aima, the Mother within each one of us.
And of course, we need the assistance of a great Guru. Who is that Guru? Nobody likes him, because he represents Lucifer, and of course he is the great magician, Merlin. Merlin the one that gives the power to the kings, that controls nature, that controls the dragon.
Who is that dragon? The dragon is the fire in nature, the fire within the water, the fire within the air, the fire within the sulfur of the earth. It is everywhere, that is the dragon, and he is inside our sex; that is the dragon.
So by our own particular Inner Being, by controlling the elements, we acquire power. There is a great drama that you read in the Arthurian legend, in the David legend, in Solomon legend, in the Moses legend, in the Jesus legend, in the Quetzalcoatl legend. All of those great kings, great Emperors, were like that because they were assisted by their own stone and sat upon it. So that is why we said, "We need to come out of Egypt." All of us in this physical world are in Egypt, in distress, but we have to go back into Eden.
According to the great scriptures, Eden is between two waters. That is precisely the other Malkuth, which is the superior Malkuth, the superior earth. But we have to leave Egypt, meaning that we have to conquer the elements, the four elements, and we conquer the elements with the cross, with the transmutation of the forces, in order to become kings and queens. We are called to be kings or queens of nature, according to the order of Melchizedeck. Melchizedeck is the king of the earth, the Emperor of the earth. The genie of this planet, the one that is the life of this planet Earth, is called Melchizedeck, and that is why anyone that becomes a king, a Malachim, controlling the forces of nature, becomes like that according to the order of Melchizedeck.
Questions and Answers
Question: Earlier you said the four letters of יהוה the Tetragrammaton correspond to the four elements. What is the meaning of two of them being symbolized by ה "Hei"?
Answer: Because the name of God has many appellations, many significations. For instance, the letter ה "Hei" is always feminine, it's always related to the feminine aspect of divinity. In this case, when you say ה "Hei," it means the earth, and when you say ה "Hei", it means the water. Both elements are below, which is feminine. The elements above are masculine, which is י "Iod" and ו "Vav," fire and air.
When you study alchemy or Kabbalah, you understand that man is above and woman is below. That is why it is written that these creatures that exist on the earth are the outcome of the woman. Of course, the man gives the seed, but the woman creates humanity. And this woman, of course, is related with Malkuth. She makes us out of the mixture of earth and water, which is clay, but with the assistance of the fire and the air from above. These are the four elements. Masculine above and feminine below. All of those have to be inside of us in order for us to become kings and queens, because a real Human Being has יהוה Iod Hei Vav Hei within, in activity. That is the real Emperor.
Question: What is the symbol of the water?
Answer: The symbol of the water is the staff. The staff. You see in the card of the Tarot the emperor seated on the stone; below that is the waters and the waters are the staff, the staff of the patriarch. You see here, for instance, the very foot of the staff has like two legs, two small feet we will say, that is the symbol of course, of the two forces, Ida and Pingala within which the staff is developed. And above you find obviously the brain and the heart united by the fire. Below the staff you find a level with thorns which is a symbol of willpower, which means that in order to acquire this staff, which is the staff of the king, you have to do it through willpower, Thelema. Without Thelema it is impossible. That's why we say in Gnosticism, "Our motto is Thelema." With Thelema, we transform the mud of the earth, the dust of the earth, and we create the internal bodies, because Adam has to be created, Adam has to appear in the psyche of every single intellectual animal. When Adam appears within the intellectual animal, he is no longer an intellectual animal but a Human Being that has to develop the power of nature.
Question: You're talking about Chesed having martial influence, does Mars also influence Tiphereth as well? Because I always thought of that being the knight, that travels, that goes on journeys and fights as well.
Answer: The whole work that we have to do is with Mars, with Thelema, but specifically we will have to state that Mars, which is Thelema, willpower, works through Chesed and through Geburah; through them and into Tiphereth in order for Tiphereth to do their will.
Tiphereth can change the course of destiny, you know, if he doesn't follow the will of God. Tiphereth itself, which is the human soul, Beauty, is in reality the king, because the Emperor, the king, appears in the Earth and is a human soul. But behind that human soul is God. God created that king, that Malachim, or that queen, through Thelema, through Samael, in other words.
And this is something very important here, because there are many confusions among the Kabbalists. The Zohar explains that Samael was there when Eve was tempted, and it is because Samael is the fifth helper, the force of Geburah, Mars, that is directly related with the sexual energy. That is why Samael, Mars, controls the sign of Scorpio, which is directly related with the sexual organs. The strength of Samael is the one that gives the erection to the man. So obviously, Samael is the one that appears and gives the doctrine, and then you have to decide to go up or to go down. To go up, you use the force of Samael, the sexual strength, in the positive way, as we explain in Gnosis. To go down is by fornicating.
That is why it is written that when Jacob was lying down and putting his head on the rock of Yesod, that stone, he saw how the angels of God were going up and coming down, because that stone is the symbol of Yesod, the sexual force of Samael. When he awoke, he was fighting. He was fighting with an angel. The Zohar says that angel was Samael. That fight was not in one night or in one morning. That fight endures for many years, because this is precisely the struggle that every initiate has: to struggle with Samael, which is the strength. Samael is the archangel of strength, but the sexual strength; that is why the name of the master is Samael AUN WEOR. Aun is the Hebrew word for "strength" - not the strength of muscles, but the sexual strength.
And it is coming now into my mind in order to explain better; שמשון Shemshon. You see the word Shemshon here? Many times we explained in other lectures that Moshe (Hebrew משה, Moses) is the one that is born from מ "Mem" (water), ש "Shin" fire, and ה "Hei" (the womb). Moshe comes from the womb of the mother, from fire and water, Moshe.
שמשון Shemshon has the same: "Shin", "Mem", "Nun." Shemshon is the strength of the sperm, because "Nun" symbolizes the sperm, the fish, the power of the sex. And "Mem" is the water and "Shin" is the solar power. Shemshon. But "Aun" is the power.
Question: You're saying Samson?
Answer: Yes, but in Hebrew it is Shemshon. Samson. The strength of Samson is in the sex. That is why in the past the Nazarenes grew their hair long, as a symbol of the sexual strength. The more sexual strength you have, the more the hair grows. Long hair is a symbol of chastity. So the power of Samson was the power of sex, and that is why he has long hair. When Delilah (Hebrew for "the night") came and cut his hair, then he lost everything, meaning he fornicated. He lost his seed, his sexual force. In other words, he was fighting with סםאל Samael, but he was defeated. Samael is the sexual force. But Jacob fought with Samael and he won. And of course after that he is no longer called Jacob, he is Israel, because Jacob was the Bodhisattva of the archangel Israel.
Now you have to understand this; we are naming now an angel. Israel, which is an angel, exists. But one thing is that particular angel, and another thing is the symbol of Israel. That angel, when you invoke him in the internal worlds, appears before you; he was Jacob at that time. And in his aura you can see all the beautiful versicles, the scriptures of the Bible. It is there. It has of course a meaning.
So obviously, Samael is the one that takes you from Yesod to Kether, or to Tiphereth and even beyond, because without the sexual strength nobody can go anywhere. And that is precisely the point here; that is why Samael is mentioned in the Zohar, many times, because he is the sexual strength. And this symbol appears always in different ways.
סםאל Samael was the one that gave the apple to Eve, meaning that the sexual force was the one that Eve ate and couldn't control. But Samael now in his way is giving us the way in order to take advantage of the sexual force.
He is always there. Samael is there, that is why nobody can hide from Samael. Samael is the sexual strength, Aun. That is why his name is Samael Aun ואור WEOR. The Strength and Light, not "and darkness". Do you have any other questions?
Question: You talk about sexual strength, is there a way of strengthening oneself besides conserving your seed?
Answer: Is there a way to strengthen oneself... Without the transmutation you mean?
Question: Well, besides you know, not spilling your seed...
Answer: In addition to it?
Question: Yeah, I mean like, the master spoke about any like...
Answer: Any other way to receive the strength of God?
Question: Well, at least without the sexual...
Answer: There is no other way. Because the strength of God is in the sex, that is why it is called Aun. You see that precisely the story of the legend of Samson; Samson had all the strength, the power. Samson was carrying the doors of the gate of the city on his shoulder. That is the meaning of something there that you have to understand; it is Daleth carrying with his shoulders, with the strength, the karma that we have and that we have to defeat. We need the strength of Samson, and that strength is in the sex, because it's Sams-ON, it is און Aun, the force of the sex that we need in order to carry that, that is the strength that we need.
That is why Eliphas Levi said, "Woe to the Samson of Kabbalah that allows himself to be tempted by the sinful Delilah." דלילה Delilah, לילה in Hebrew means the night, or the night, Lailah, which means Lilith, the demon of lust, and it is very difficult to find in this day and age any Samsons. You find them, but with a short hair. Right? And of course, that is the beginning. That is the beginning. The beginning, the foundation. That is why Yesod is the foundation, this is how we start in order to become Adam, a king of nature, an Emperor, a ד Daleth. Just, I am telling you, I am talking here just about the terrestrial man, a poor man, a humble man, that has to be created. Just for that you need the sexual strength. Obviously, in order to go beyond that, a super man, is something different. Because one thing is the man in the sixth day of Genesis, and another thing is a man of the seventh day. Do you have any other questions?
Question: You spoke about Yesod and something, the mystery of sex in the darkness.
Answer: In the dark? Yeah.
Question: Do you mean that literally or...
Answer: The dark means that in order for us to create the internal bodies we have to perform the sexual act in the night. That is the mystery of Shabbath, because Shabbath or Saturday is related with Saturn. Saturn is related with Binah. The color of Saturn is black, that is why when you are worshipping Saturn, Binah, Shabbath; you are black. Meaning, you are working with the forces of darkness, because in the beginning God, the Ruach Elohim was floating on the face of the waters. There was darkness and void on the earth, and within the darkness is where God said: "Let there be light." And from the darkness came light. So in other words, if you want to create light, you want to be illuminated, you want to receive wisdom, you have to transmute your sexual force in the night, in the darkness, never in the day. There is no creation during the day; that's why the fetus, the creature, develops in the womb of the mother for nine months in the darkness. If the womb was open and the rays of the Sun entered into the womb of the woman, the child would die. Because somehow the rays of the sun during the day oppose the creation, so that is why we have to do the work of sexual magic in the night, and that is a symbol of Shabbath. That is why it said that in Saturday you have to perform the sexual act; it doesn't mean that only in Saturday, it means that in the darkness, in the mysteries of the night, and that is the symbol of the cat in the stone of Yesod.
Question: Does that mean also that the lights should be out?
Answer: No, when I said light I meant the light of the Sun, but you can have your electric light there, or whatever, it depends on your mood. But if you light a candle it is better, because if you light a candle and if it is the Menorah, the nine which is related with the nine, Yesod, and then you find the miracle that that fire in your sex will endure, the nine Sephiroth above will light like white light here, light here, light here, and that oil will come out, nine Sephiroth above. That is the Menorah, that is the meaning of that. That your own oil, your own sexual force will illuminate like that. But that of course is not a matter of one day; it is a process of Self-realization. You see, in all traditions, in all the mysteries of the Bible, you find the teachings that you have to follow. The problem is that people celebrate things without knowing the meaning of it.
