The Fundamentals of Gnostic Psychology, Self-Study and Self-Development

If we want to transform, if we want to change ourselves, then we need to know what we truly are so that we can begin our own personal “reformation”. The chief method of Self-Study is Self-Observation. This is a concept that must be fully understood if we are to progress in our self-knowledge. In order to understand Self-Observation, we must first understand the different states of consciousness.

The Four States of Consciousness

There are Four States of Consciousness which are described as follows:

1. Sleep or Dreaming
2. Physically Awake/Vigil or Day-dreaming
3. Self-Consciousness/Self-Awareness or Self-Remembering
4. Objective Consciousness

These four can be summarized into two:

1. Subjective Consciousness (1st & 2nd States)
2. and Objective Consciousness (3rd & 4th States)

Normally we spend 97% of our time in the first two states of consciousness. During the 2nd state of Consciousness, we mistakenly believe that we are aware of ourselves and what is going on. But, in reality, we are NOT IN THE PRESENT MOMENT, we are either dreaming about the past or about the future.

In order to be aware of the present moment, we have to first take that as our goal or objective. Many books have been written about “the Power of Now”, etc., and this is something which is fundamental to our transformation. We need to be here, now. Then we will start to take back the present and therefore the Future and our Destiny. The way we do this is through a technique that is called “Self-Observation”.

Self-Observation

As we have mentioned, the chief method of self-study is self-observation. To observe ourselves implies that there is a “self” to observe and that we investigate what this “self” is. In order to move from the first 2 states of consciousness into the third state of consciousness, we must start to observe what is going on right now.

Normally when we observe something, we do so externally. For the observation of ourselves, we will do so internally. External observation is done with one or more of the 5 senses: taste, touch, smell, sight or sound. Internal observation is done through directing or attention internally, to our internal states. We must become aware of our internal states, because they are the source of our thinking and feeling.

Lets make a distinction between two things:

1. internal states, and 2. external events

States and Events

In life people often consider that their life is made up of a series of external events. But if we consider our life, our memories, the choices we made, etc., then we will see that it is impossible to separate our internal psychological state from our experience of the external physical event.

When we are irritable, then that changes how we think and feel, and we are not nice to be around:

• we become demanding • we lack compassion • we do thinks out of spite • we make decisions that may affect others without considering them at all, etc.

All these things lead to a change in the external world. If we do not recognize that our life is truly made up of a series of internal states which have influenced or caused the external events to manifest, then we will never be able to work upon ourselves.

The Work upon Oneself

As we have said, the purpose of Gnosis and Gnostic Psychology is to transform ourselves. To do this, we must first recognize what we are, then we can begin to change.

If I want to work on a car, but I do not look at it or understand what I am working with, then the changes I want to make • could either be impossible (because the structure I want to change does not exist in the way I expect it to) • or I will make changes that will have undesirable effects (because the change affects the vehicle in a different way then what I wished for)

Therefore we cannot assume anything about ourselves. Instead, we must begin by observing ourselves (as we have already said) without any kind of prejudices – simply observing and gathering information. In this way we can discover what we truly are and how we really work.

Observing Ourselves

Self-observation requires that we look inside to see what we are thinking, feeling, or sensing, etc., in a given moment. Due to our current mentality, this can be difficult at first for 2 reasons:

1. because we are taught that we ARE our thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. 2. and because we believe those thought, feelings and sensations occur only because of outside stimuli.

We have a huge problem with our present culture, we think that someone else make us “feel” in some way and (on top of that):

• if it is a negative feeling we try to avoid it • and if it is a positive feeling we don’t want it to go away

So we spend our lives chasing “positive feelings” or avoiding “negative feelings” which we think come from the outside. One of the foundational principles of Gnostic Psychology is that our thoughts feelings and actions come from ourselves. Outside stimuli only activate or shed light upon thoughts, feelings and sensations we already have.

When someone else supposedly “makes me feel bad” what has actually happened is that they have brought attention to something that I am uncomfortable with. As an example, if someone says I am stupid and that makes me feel bad, then something in me:

1. considers that I could be in fact “stupid” 2. and considers my “stupidity” in the particular area referenced to be a bad thing

If I am stupid, then why does it offend me? If its true, then its true. Maybe I can figure out what I am doing that is stupid and stop it… If its not true, then why does it offend me? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves in order to discover how we really work.

We have many mistaken concepts about the world around us and about ourselves. We need to question everything, including what we are saying here, so that we can discover the truth. We are not saying to Accept or Reject anything, instead what we want is to Comprehend. Comprehension or True Understanding is a result of knowing something with our whole Being, not just with our Intellect, or our Emotions, or our Muscle Memory, etc.

Gnosticism sees the human being as not just a physical body, but a rather as an organism that interacts with different types of energies. There are certain concepts about this organism that help us to comprehend who I am and what I am.

Fundamental Concepts about the Human Machine

Gnostic Psychology has a number of interesting concepts about the human being:

1. The human being has 3 “brains” which are the synthesis of 7 “centers”

• 1st Brain: Action or Motor-Instinctive-Sexual (3 centers) • 2nd Brain: Emotional, the Superior and Inferior Emotions (2 centers) • 3rd Brain: Intellectual, the Superior and Inferior Emotions (2 centers)

2. The human being is typically born with an affinity for one of these centers (we are all born either a Motor, Emotional or Intellectual type of person).

3. The Superior Emotional and Superior Intellectual centers are not fully developed in the human being (they must be developed if we wish to really change ourselves)

4. The human being’s physical organism is an energetic machine which is able to transform energies from one type into another (examples: digestion, breathing, etc).

There are many other concepts which build upon these, but for now lets start with these.

The Human Machine and Self-Observation

Beginning with the concept that the human being processes things through the Three Brains, we can start to understand how we can observe ourselves. Self-Observation requires that we separate ourselves from what we think, feel, sense, etc. It requires that we question the reason and origin of these things so that we can arrive at their source. This is very similar to the Buddhism concept of Mindfulness: being aware of our psychological state.

As we begin to observe ourselves, we will start to see that we have:

• a thought in the Intellectual Center, • or a feeling in the Emotional Center, • or a movement or sensation in the Motor-Instinctive-Sexual Center, etc.

At the beginning, the purpose of Self-Observation is to develop the faculty of being able to separate: external events from internal states within ourselves. In this way, we will be able to slowly start to see things as they are, instead of how we perceive them to be. It is the beginning of the separation into what is called “the Observer and the Observed”.

After we become accustomed to Observing Ourselves, we will be able to start to know ourselves, but this requires patience. At first we simply see that we have an opinion, a belief, a feeling, sensation, etc. Later we can see how that opinion, belief, feeling, or sensation leads us into certain activities and behaviors.

When we understand this connection, then it becomes much easier to control ourselves. When we do not observe ourselves, when we forget about ourselves, we easily become fascinated

• by the world around us (external events) • and by our psychological states (internal states)

And as along as we do this, then we are doomed to be someone who moves through life like driftwood on the ocean.

The Work upon oneself begins with Observing Ourselves (Self-Observation). But what are we observing? We are observing our Internal State and seeing how it is separate from the External Event. Then we will see how we can modify our Internal State in order to take the best approach to the circumstances of life.

Our Character is our Magnet

“The physical body is one of the marvelous instruments which the human being possesses in order to express himself. Many times we meet people who radiate an attitude of bliss, happiness, health, optimism, sympathy, love, etc. These people win the friendship of everyone: they possess a force of attraction, a “magnet”; they are irresistible.

Others are weak and lack that “magnet” which is so marvelous: they fail when they try to receive the help of other people, and when they are owners of a business their clients gradually leave them. Gnostic Psychology teaches us that a person’s character depends on their internal state. A person’s character does not develop in the physical body, but it expresses itself through it…  -paraphrase from the Appendix to Introduction to Gnosis

So in order to modify our “magnet”, we must begin with our character and since our character depends on our internal psychological state, this is why we must Observe our Internal State.

Understanding Internal States and External Events

As we know, each event is complemented with this or that internal psychological state.

“Let’s understand that internal states are: good or bad disposition, preoccupation, depression, superstition, fear, suspicion, mercy, self-commiseration, over-estimation of oneself (or others), under-estimation of oneself (or others), states of happiness, states of pleasure, etc.

Unquestionably, internal states can:

• correspond exactly to external events• they can be originated by external events• or, they can have no relationship with them at all

To correctly combine internal states with external events is to know how to live life intelligently.

It is unfortunate that people do not know how to live consciously; they cry when they should laugh and laugh when they should cry… To be in control of oneself is different: one can be happy, but never filled with an insane frenzy; sad, but never desperate and discouraged; calm, in the middle of violence; abstemious amidst drunkenness; chaste when facing lust; etc.” -paraphrase from Ch.6 of Revolutionary Psychology

The Misunderstanding of States and Events

Often, when people review their lives, they think it is only made-up of external events…

“They think that if this or that event had or hadn’t happened to them, then their lives would have been better… “If I had won the lottery…”, “If I had just said something to him/her…”, etc. They think that fortune came to meet them; yet, they lost the opportunity to be happy… They regret what they lost, they cry about what they hate; they moan when remembering their old errors and calamities…

The capacity to consciously exist depends exclusively on the quality of the interior states of the Soul… Certainly, it does not matter how beautiful the external events of life might be: if we are not in the appropriate internal state in those moments, then the best moments can seem boring to us… It is unfortunately rare to find someone who knows how to consciously combine internal states and external events.

Every day we see people that are not only unhappy, but what is even worse is that they make other people’s lives miserable… Such people will not change, even if they were to get everything they think they want, because they carry the psychological disease within them… What they carry within them are damaging internal states… Nevertheless, they often classify themselves as correct, holy, virtuous, noble, accommodating, etc. They are individuals who are always looking for loopholes to evade their own responsibilities…

Persons like this are accustomed to inferior emotions and as a result: it is obvious that they create unhelpful psychological elements on a daily basis. Disgraceful events like the setbacks of fortune, misery, debts, problems, etc., are the exclusive property of those persons who do not know how to live consciously and intelligently…

Those who learn how to consciously combine external events with internal states march on the path of success.“ -paraphrase from Ch.7 of Revolutionary Psychology

Self-Observation and Internal States

“So if we want to observe ourselves, then we must differentiate between the exterior events of practical lifeand the interior states of the consciousness. The work upon oneself refers to the diverse psychological states of the consciousness.

No one can deny that we carry many errors and incorrect internal states within ourselves. And if we really want to change then we need to radically modify those erroneous states of our consciousness. The modification of these interior states will cause a transformation of our character and as a result, we will attract new circumstances to our lives. If, however, we do not work on ourselves, then we will always be a victim of circumstances a victim of our reaction to the external events…” -paraphrase from Ch.8 of Revolutionary Psychology

The key to changing our lives is to change ourselves. We can try to change our circumstances as much as we want, but if we do not change ourselves, then we will continue attracting the same external events to our lives.

“Events change, they combine together and come one after another like waves. There are, obviously, good and bad events; some events are better than others.

To modify some events is possible, but there are others which are beyond our control and must be consciously accepted, even when they become dangerous and painful… But the pain disappears when we do not identify ourselves with the problem that has arisen…

We must consider life as a series of successive interior states… When reviewing the totality of our existence, we can verify for ourselves that many unpleasant situations were possible thanks to wrong interior states…” -paraphrase from Ch.8 of Revolutionary Psychology

The Development of the Consciousness

The possibility that we have for personal change is directly related to the development of the consciousness.

“Normally people are NOT conscious of themselves, they forget about themselves and are dreaming.

The change in the human being begins with the change in our understanding of the meaning of consciousness and after that by gradually acquiring command over it.

So what is consciousness? In reality, consciousness is an “awareness” in the human being, a very particular kind of apprehension of interior knowledge which is totally independent of any mental activity.

The faculty of the consciousness permits us to have knowledge of ourselves.

Consciousness gives us integral knowledge:

• of where we ARE, • of what we are, • of what in reality we know, • and of what we certainly ignore

Gnostic Psychology recognizes that the consciousness has degrees which are visible and observable within oneself.

These degrees of consciousness are:

1. Time or Duration: How long have we stayed conscious?2. Frequency: how many times have we been conscious?3. Depth: What were we conscious of?

Even if we take only the first two, we can understand the idea of the potential development of the human being’s Consciousness. Gnostic Psychology affirms that one can awaken consciousness and make it continuous and controllable through a special kind of effort. Through a great effort we may become conscious of ourselves for a few minutes.” -paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 2 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution and Ch.37 of Fundamental Education

Gnostic Psychology affirms that one can awaken consciousness and make it continuous and controllable, through a special kind of effort.

“Through a great effort we may become conscious of ourselves even for just a few minutes. Normally people are not conscious of themselves. The illusion of being conscious (in a continuous form) comes from:

• memory • and from all the processes of thought

To remember unconscious actions is not the same as being Conscious. A person who practices a retrospective exercise to remember their whole life, may recall how many times they got married, how many children they engendered, who their parents were, who their teachers were, etc. But this does not mean they have awakened their Consciousness, this is simply remembering unconscious acts, and that’s all.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 3 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolutionand Chapter 37 of Fundamental Education

The Technique to Awaken the Consciousness

The technique to awaken the Consciousness is based on the remembrance of oneself.

“Every human being is fascinated by different things. When a specific representation (or impression) fascinates us, we forget about ourselves and then we dream. The power of fascination is this: one forgets about oneself and then one dreams and, dreaming, one does absurd things. Then, afterwards, problems arise.

It is necessary for the Gnostic student not to let themselves become fascinated by anything. In the presence of any kind of interesting representation one must remember oneself and ask oneself the following questions:

• Where am I? • What am I doing here? • Could I be out of my physical body?

Thus one will awaken in the internal worlds…” -Paraphrase from Ch. 16 of Esoteric Course of Kabalah

Self-Study and the Human Machine

In order to understand how to remember ourselves and awaken our consciousness, we must understand how it is that we forget about ourselves and this is done by discovering how we become identified and fascinated.

“With right methods and right efforts the human being can acquire control of consciousness, and can become conscious of himself, with all that it implies. Only after this point has been understood does serious study of psychology become possible. This study must begin with the investigation of obstacles to awakening consciousness in ourselves, because consciousness can only begin to grow when at least some of these obstacles are removed.

The greatest of these obstacles is our ignorance of ourselves, and our wrong conviction that we know ourselves at least to a certain extent and can be sure of ourselves, when in reality we do not know ourselves at all and cannot be sure of ourselves even in the smallest things.

We must understand now that psychology really means self-study. One cannot study psychology as one can study astronomy; that is, it cannot be studied apart from oneself. And at the same time one must study oneself as one studies any new and complicated machine. One must know:

• the parts of this machine, • its chief functions, • the conditions of right work, • the causes of wrong work,

and many other things which are difficult to describe without using a special language, which is also necessary to know in order to be able to study the human machine.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 4 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolutionand Chapter 21 of Fundamental Education

Self-Study and the Three Brains

By studying ourselves and how we process information in our three Brains, we can understand that we become identified and fascinated through a particular pattern within ourselves.

“The human machine has three Brains:

1. Intellectual 2. Emotional 3. Motor (or Action)

The First Brain is enclosed in the cranium and is the thinking center.

The Second Brain is constituted by the sympathetic nervous plexus and, in general, by all specific nervous centers of the human organism. It is the Emotional Center.

The Third Brain corresponds to the spine with its spinal cord and all its nervous branches. It is the center of movement, commonly called the motor center.

In all the ancient Mystery Schools the pupils received direct integral information for their three brains through an intelligent combination of precepts, dances, music, etc. The theaters of ancient times used to be part of the Mystery Schools. Dramas, comedies and tragedies, combined with special movements, music, oral teaching, etc., served to inform each individual’s three brains. Therefore, students did not abuse the thinking brain and knew how to use all three brains in an intelligent and balanced way.

It is an problematic to inform only one brain. The first brain is not the only cognitive one. The three brains have three totally different sorts of independent associations. These three sorts of associations evoke different types of impulses from the being. In fact, this generates three different personalities that have nothing in common with each other neither in their nature or in their manifestations.

Gnostic Psychology teaches that there are three distinct psychological aspects in each person. With one part of the psychic essence we wish for one thing, with another part we desire something quite different, and thanks to the third part we do a completely opposite thing. In a moment of supreme sorrow, perhaps due to the loss of a beloved being or any other intimate catastrophe:

1. the emotional personality is in desperation 2. while the intellectual personality wants to know the reason why such a tragedy is taking place, 3. and the movement personality just wants to escape the scene.

These three different and often contradictory personalities must be intelligently cultivated and instructed by means of special methods and systems.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 4 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolutionand Chapter 21 of Fundamental Education

The Three Brains and the Five Centers

The process of becoming identified can be understood through the observation of our five Centers and our particular habits or patterns with those Centers. This is why we must define each Center, so that we can understand its functioning and how this relates to our patterns.

“The three-brained human being is a precious “Machine” with five marvelous Psycho-physiological Centers. The order of these centers is as follows:

1. Intellectual (or thinking) 2. Emotional (or feeling) 3. Motor (or movement) 4. Instinctual 5. Sexual

Each of these centers performs a specific function which must first be understood in all their potential manifestations, and later they must be observed in oneself. Besides these five there are two more functions which appear only in higher states of consciousness:

1. one, superior emotional function, 2. and the other, superior intellectual function.

As we are not in these states of consciousness we cannot study these functions or experiment with them, and until then, we can only learn about them indirectly from those who have attained or experienced them. Self-study must begin with the study of the five functions in order to understand them. Such self-observation, that is, observation on the right basis, with a preliminary understanding of the states of consciousness and of different functions, constitutes the basis of self-study; and this is the beginning of psychology.” -Paraphrase from and Lecture 1, Section 4 & 5 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolutionand Chapter 10 of The Solar Bodies

The Intellectual and Emotional Centers

“Lets look at the first center, the intellectual or thinking function. All mental processes are included here: realization of an impression, formation of representations and of concepts, reasoning, comparison, affirmation, negation, formation of words, faculty of speech, imagination, and so on.

The second function is feeling or emotions: joy, sorrow, fear, astonishment, and so on.

Even if you are sure that it is clear to you how, and in what, emotions differ from thoughts, we should advise you to verify all your views in regard to this. We mix thought and feelings in our ordinary thinking and speaking; but for the beginning of self-study it is necessary to know clearly which is which.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 5 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

The Motor Center

“The moving function includes in itself all external movements, such as walking, writing, speaking, eating, and memories of them. To the moving function also belongs those movements which in ordinary language are called “instinctive,” such as catching a falling object without thinking.

The difference between the instinctive and the moving function is very clear and can be easily understood if one simply remembers that all instinctive functions without exception are inherent and that there is no necessity to learn them in order to use them; whereas on the other hand, none of the moving functions are inherent and one has to learn them as a child learns to walk, or as one learns to write or to draw.

Besides these normal moving functions, there are also some strange moving functions which represent useless work of the human machine not intended by nature, but which occupy a very large place in the human being’s life and use a great quantity of his energy.

These are the formation of dreams, mechanical imagination or fantasy, daydreaming, talking with oneself, all talking for talking’s sake, and generally, all uncontrolled and uncontrollable manifestations.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 5 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

The Instinctive Center

“The words “instinct”, “instinctive”, are generally used incorrectly. In particular, to instinct are generally ascribed external functions which are in reality moving functions, and sometimes emotional. The instinctive function in man includes in itself four different classes of functions:

FIRST: All the inner work of the Organism, all physiology, so to speak; digestion and assimilation of food, breathing, circulation of the blood, all the work of inner Organs, the building of new cells, the elimination of worked-out materials, the work of glands of inner secretion, and so on.

SECOND: The so-called five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; and all other senses such as the sense of weight, of temperature, of dryness or of moisture, and so on; that is, all indifferent sensations which by themselves are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

THIRD: All physical sensations which are either pleasant or unpleasant. All kinds of pain or unpleasant feeling such as unpleasant taste or unpleasant smell, and all kinds of physical pleasure, such as pleasant taste, pleasant smell, and so on.

FOURTH: All reflexes, even the most complicated, such as laughter and yawning; all kinds of physical memory such as memory of taste, memory of smell, memory of pain, which are in reality inner reflexes.”

-Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 5 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

The Sexual Center

“The sex center is stronger and quicker than all other centers and can be regarded as an independent center. Sex plays a tremendous role in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected with ‘sex’: politics, religion, art, the theater, music, is all ‘sex’.

Do you think people go to the theater or to church to pray or to see some new play? That is only for the sake of appearances. The principal thing, in the theater as well as in church, is that there will be a lot of women or a lot of men. This is the center of gravity of all gatherings. What do you think brings people to cafés, to restaurants, to various festivals? One thing only: Sex.

Sex is the principal motive force of all mechanicalness. All dreaming, all day-dreaming, depends upon it. Mechanicalness is especially dangerous when people try to explain it by something else and not by what it really is. When sex is clearly conscious of itself and does not cover itself up by anything else it is not mechanical. On the contrary sex which exists by itself and is not dependent on anything else it is already a great achievement. But the evil lies in the constant self-deception!

What is this self-deception? It is when we do not realize how much of a slave we are of our sexual center and we justify this slavery to ourselves. But one can change one’s own position in relation to it and one can escape from this power of sex over people. Within the sexual center are included many different possibilities. It includes the chief form of slavery and it is also the chief possibility of liberation.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 9 of In Search of the Miraculous

Self-Study and the Functioning of the Centers

“It is very important to remember that in observing different functions of the centers it is useful to observe at the same time their relation to different states of consciousness. Let us take the first three states of consciousness:

1. sleep, 2. waking (or vigil) state, 3. and possible glimpses of self-consciousness and the functions of the five centers: 1. thinking, 2. feeling, 3. movement, 4. instinctive, 5. and sexual.

All five functions can manifest themselves in sleep, but their manifestations are unreliable; they cannot be used in any way, they just go by themselves. In the vigil or wrongly called “waking state of consciousness” or relative consciousness, they can be used to a certain extent for our orientation. Their results can be compared, verified, straightened out; and although they may create many illusions, still in our ordinary state we have nothing else and must make use of them the best we can.

If we knew the quantity of wrong observations, wrong theories, wrong deductions and conclusions made in this state (in the 2nd state of consciousness), we would cease to believe ourselves altogether. But human beings do not realize how deceptive their observations and their theories can be, and they continue to believe in them. It is this that keeps human beings from observing the rare moments when their functions manifest themselves in connection with glimpses of the third state of consciousness; that is, the state of self-consciousness.

All this means that each of the five functions can manifest themselves in each of the three states of consciousness. But the results are quite different. When we learn to observe these results and their difference, we will understand the right relation between functions and states of consciousness. But before even considering the difference in function in relation to states of consciousness, it is necessary to understand that functions can exist without consciousness, and consciousness can exist without functions.” -Paraphrase from Lecture 1, Section 6 of The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

When we observe ourselves and the activity of our 5 Centers, we will begin to gather the data necessary for proper analysis of ourselves. First we need to get that data and this requires that we observe. When we observe, we separate ourselves into Observer and Observed. We observe the Thought in the Intellectual Center, or the Feeling in the Emotional Center, or the Sensation or Movement in the Motor-Instinctive-Sexual Centers. In this way we will start to differentiate ourselves from the Machine.

We are an Essence, a Spark of Divinity, that has a “Human Machine” at its disposal, but right now: the Machine controls us, it tells us what to do and we obey. We are slaves of our Thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, etc. Therefore, in order to become Masters of ourselves, we must start controlling the Machine: distinguishing its functions and separating ourselves from it so that we can begin to become its Owner and Master.

The purpose of us studying the Centers of the Human Machine is so that we can understand how our machine typically works. This is done through observing oneself and determining which center or centers are in use during a given moment of life and how this related to our psychological patterns or habits.

The Division of Functions

“Now that we understand the difference between the intellectual, the emotional, and the moving functions, as we observes ourselves we must immediately refer our impressions to this or that category. And at first we must take mental note of only those observations of which we are certain (that is: those that we have doubt about whatsoever, those where we see at once to what category they belong).

We must reject all vague or doubtful cases and remember only those which are unquestionable. If the work is carried on properly, the number of unquestionable observations will rapidly increase. And that which seemed doubtful before will be clearly seen to belong to the first, the second, the third center.

Each center has its own memory, its own associations, its own processing. Self-observation will very quickly show us that our mental life is much richer than we think, or in any case that it contains more possibilities than we think.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The reason we do this is to gather reliable ‘data’ about ourselves and to work on simply observing ourselves.

Proper Self-Observation

“Without properly applied self-observation a person will never understand the connection between the various functions of their machine, and they will never understand how and why on each separate occasion everything in them ‘happens’.

To learn the methods of self-observation and of right self-study requires a certain understanding of the functions and the characteristics of the human machine.

Thus in observing the functions of the human machine it is necessary to understand the correct divisions of the functions observed and to be able to define them exactly and at once; and the definition must not be a verbal but an inner definition: by taste or flavor, by sensation, in the same way as we define all inner experiences.

There are two important methods of self-study which should be distinguished:

1. registering or recording – simply ‘recording’ in one’s mind what is observed at the moment
2. and analysis, or attempts at analysis – attempts to find the answers to the questions: upon what does a certain thing depend, and why does it happen.

Self-observation, especially in the beginning, must not become analysis or attempts at analysis. Analysis will only become possible much later when a person knows all the functions of their machine and all the laws which govern it. In trying to analyze some phenomenon that we come across within ourselves, we generally ask: ‘What is this? Why does it happen in this way and not in some other way?’.

As we begin to seek an answer to these questions, we forget all about observations and we completely lose the thread of self-observation (we forget about it entirely). And observation stops. It is clear from this that only one thing can go on; either observation or attempts at analysis.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

In Gnostic Psychology, we often use Meditation to analyze what we have recorded so that we can Comprehend and Eliminate it. These subjects are discussed later on in this course.

Recording according to the Division of Functions

“Before it is possible to analyze even the most elementary phenomena, a person must accumulate a sufficient quantity of material by means of ‘recording’. Recording is the result of a direct observation of what is taking place at a given moment, and is the most important material in the work of self-study.

When a certain number of ‘records’ have been accumulated and when, at the same time, laws to a certain extent have been studied and understood, then analysis becomes possible. From the very beginning, observation, or ‘recording’, must be based upon the understanding of the fundamental principles of the activity of the human machine.

Self-observation cannot be properly applied without knowing these principles, without constantly bearing them in mind. Observation must begin with the division of functions. All the activity of the human machine is divided into five sharply defined groups, each of which is controlled by its own special ‘brain’ or ‘center’.

In observing themselves a person must differentiate between the five basic functions of their machine: the thinking, the emotional, the moving, the instinctive and the sexual. Every phenomenon that a person observes in themselves is related to one or the other of these functions. Therefore, before beginning to observe, a person must understand

• how the functions differ; • what intellectual activity means, • what emotional activity means, • what moving activity means, • what instinctive activity means, • and what sexual activity means.

Observation must begin from the zero. All previous experience, the results of all previous self-observation, must be laid aside. They may contain much valuable material, but all this material is based upon wrong divisions of the functions observed. It cannot therefore be utilized, at least not at the beginning of the work of self-study. A human being must begin observing themselves as though they did not know themselves at all, as though they have never observed themselves.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

Self-Observation and the Functioning of the Centers

“When the human being begins to observe himself, he must try to determine at once to what group (to which center or centers) belong the phenomena which is being observing at the moment. Some people find it difficult to understand the difference between thought and feeling, others have difficulty in understanding the difference between feeling and sensation, between a thought and a moving impulse.

Speaking on very broad lines, one may say that the thinking function always works by means of comparison. Intellectual conclusions are always the result of the comparison of two or more impressions. Sensation and emotion do not reason, they do not compare, they simply define a given impression by its aspect, by its being pleasant or unpleasant in one sense or another, by its color, taste, or smell, etc.

Moreover, sensations can be indifferent: neither warm nor cold, neither pleasant nor unpleasant: ‘white paper’, ‘red pencil’. In the sensation of white or red there is nothing either pleasant or unpleasant. At least there does not need to be anything pleasant or unpleasant connected with this or that color. These sensations, the so-called ‘five senses’, and others, like the feeling of warmth, cold, and so on, are instinctive.

Feeling functions or emotions are always pleasant or unpleasant, but indifferent emotions do not exist.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Inner Perception of the Functions

“The difficulty of distinguishing between the functions is increased by the fact that people differ very much in the way they feel or sense their functions. This is what we do not generally understand. We assume people to be much more alike than they really are. In reality, however, there exist between them great differences in the forms and methods of their perception. Some perceive chiefly through their mind, others through their feeling, and others through sensation.

It is very difficult, almost impossible, for people of different categories and of different modes of perception to understand one another, because they call one and the same thing by different names, and they call different things by the same name. Besides this, various other combinations are possible. One human being perceives by thoughts and sensations, another by thoughts and feelings, and so on. One or another mode of perception is immediately connected with one or another kind of reaction to external events.

The result of this difference in perception and reaction to external events is expressed in the first place by the fact that:

1. people do not understand one another
2. and in the second by the fact that they do not understand themselves.

Very often a person calls their thoughts or their reasoning their feelings, they call their feelings their thoughts, and their sensations their feelings (which is the most common). If two people perceive the same thing differently, let us say that one perceives it through feeling and another through sensation they may argue all their lives and never understand in what consists the difference of their attitude to a given object. Actually, one sees one aspect of it, and the other a different aspect of it.

In order to find a way of discriminating we must understand that every normal psychic function is a means or an instrument of knowledge. With the help of the mind we see one aspect of things and events, with the help of emotions another aspect, with the help of sensations a third aspect. The most complete knowledge of a given subject possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations. Every person who is striving after right knowledge must aim at the possibility of attaining such perception.

In ordinary conditions a person sees the world through a crooked, uneven window. And even if they realize this, they have a very difficult time changing it. This or that mode of perception depends upon the work of their organism as a whole. All functions are interconnected and counterbalance one another, all functions strive to keep one another in the state in which they are. Therefore when a person begins to study themselves they must understand that if they discovers in themselves something that they dislike they may not be able to change it right away. To study is one thing, and to change is another. But study is the first step towards the possibility of change in the future.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Right and Wrong Working of the Centers

“As we watch the work of the centers we will observe, side by side with their right working, their wrong working, that is, the working of one center for another: 

• the attempts of the thinking center to feel or to pretend that it feels, • the attempts of the emotional center to think, • the attempts of the moving center to think and feel, etc.

The wrong working of a center often occurs when it does not use its own energy. Each center has its own particular type of energy that it normally works with, but when it runs out of energy, the machine must either switch to another center or steal energy from another center. For us to switch to another center (a center which is not exhausted) would be ideal, but sometimes we cannot and other times we don’t want to, either way, energy is stolen from another center to continue the work in the present center.

Typically, when the Machine steals energy, it does so from the sexual center. As a result, all the centers rob the sexual center of its energy and produce quite wrong work full of useless excitement with this energy and, in return, give the sexual center useless energy with which it is unable to work.

One center working for another is useful in certain cases, since it preserves the continuity of mental activity. But if this becomes habitual then it also becomes harmful, since it begins to interfere with right working by enabling each center to avoid its own direct duties and to do whatever it likes best at the moment instead of what it ought to be doing. In a normal healthy person each center does its own work, that is, the work for which it was specially destined and which it can best perform.

There are situations in life which the thinking center alone can deal with and can find a way out of. If at this moment the emotional center begins to work instead, it will make a mess of everything and the result of its interference will be very unbalanced. In an unbalanced kind of person the substitution of one center for another goes on almost continually and this is precisely what ‘being unbalanced’ or ‘neurotic’ means.

In an unbalanced person, each center strives to pass its work on to another, and, at the same time, it strives to do the work of another center for which it is not suited. The emotional center working for the thinking center brings unnecessary nervousness, feverishness, and hurry into situations where, on the contrary, calm judgment and deliberation are essential. The thinking center working for the emotional center brings deliberation into situations which require quick decisions and makes a person incapable of distinguishing the peculiarities and the fine points of the position. Thought is too slow. It works out a certain plan of action and continues to follow it even though the circumstances have changed and quite a different course of action is necessary.

Besides, in some cases the interference of the thinking center gives rise to entirely wrong reactions, because the thinking center is simply incapable of understanding the shades and distinctions of many events. Events that are quite different for the moving center and for the emotional center appear to be alike to the thinking center. Its decisions are much too general and do not correspond to the decisions which the emotional center would have made.

This becomes perfectly clear if we imagine the interference of thought, that is, of the theoretical mind, in the domain of feeling, or of movement, or of sensation; in all three cases the interference of the mind leads to wholly undesirable results. The mind cannot understand shades of feeling. We shall see this clearly if we imagine one person reasoning about the emotions of another. He is not feeling anything himself so the feelings of another do not exist for him. But for the other person, those emotions have a very definite existence. A full man does not understand a hungry one. And the decisions of the mind can never satisfy a person who is using their emotional or instinctual center.

In exactly the same way the mind cannot appreciate sensations. For the intellect, sensations are dead. Nor is the mind capable of controlling movement. Instances of this kind are the easiest to find. Whatever work a person may be doing, it is enough for them to try to do each action deliberately, with their mind, following every movement, and they will see that the quality of their work will change immediately.

If they are typing, their fingers, controlled by their moving center, find the necessary letters themselves, but if they try to ask themselves before every letter: ‘Where is “k”?’ ‘Where is the comma?’ ‘How is this word spelled?’, they suddenly begin to make mistakes or write very slowly.

If one drives a car with the help of one’s mind, one can go only in the lowest gear. The mind cannot keep pace with all the movements necessary for developing a greater speed. To drive at full speed, especially in the streets of a large town, while steering with the help of one’s mind is very difficult for an ordinary person.

The motor center working for thinking center produces, mechanical reading or mechanical listening, like when a person reads or listens to nothing but the words, but is utterly unconscious of what they are reading or hearing. This generally happens when attention of the thinking center is occupied with something else and when the moving center is trying to replace the absent attention of the thinking center; but this very easily becomes a habit, because the thinking center is generally distracted not by useful work (by thought or by contemplation), but simply by daydreaming or by fantasy (imagination used by the “I”).” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 and 3 of In Search of the Miraculous

Fantasy or Daydreaming and the Wrong Working of the Centers

“Fantasy or Daydreaming which is one of the principal sources of the wrong work of centers. Each center has its own form of fantasy and daydreaming, but as a rule both the motor-instinctive-sexual and the emotional Brains make use of the thinking Brain which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to the thinking center’s own inclinations.

Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of ‘useful’ mental activity. ‘Useful’ in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any beneficial aim or result, it is a waste of energy.

The motive for daydreaming almost always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. But the actual process is carried out by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is:

1. partly due to the laziness of the thinking Brain, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and going in a definite direction,
2. and partly due to the tendency of the emotional and the motor-instinctive-sexual Brains to repeat to themselves (to keep alive or to recreate), both pleasant and unpleasant experiences, that have been previously lived through or ‘imagined’.

Daydreaming of disagreeable things is very characteristic of the unbalanced state of the human machine. After all, one can understand daydreaming of a pleasant kind and even find a justification for it. But daydreaming of an unpleasant character is certainly useless. And yet many people spend nine tenths of their lives in just such painful daydreams about misfortunes which may overtake them or their family, about illnesses they may contract or sufferings they will have to endure, etc.

Fantasy and daydreaming are definite examples of the wrong work of the thinking center.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The observation of our tendency towards fantasy and daydreaming forms a very important part of self-study, but the next object of self-observation must be our habits in general.

Self-Observation and Habits

“Every grown-up person consists wholly of habits, although they are often unaware of it and may even deny having any habits at all. But, this can never be the case. All three Brains are filled with habits and a person can never know themselves until they have studied all their habits.

The observation and the study of habits is particularly difficult because, in order to see and ‘record’ them, one must escape from them, free oneself from them, even if it is just for a moment. So long as a person is governed by a particular habit, they are not observing it, but at the very first attempt to struggle against it, they feel it and notice it. Therefore in order to observe and study habits one must try to struggle against them.

This opens up a practical method of self-observation. The purpose of the struggle against habits is to show or expose what is in the particular center. It is very difficult for a person to observe and ‘record’ anything if they do not try to struggle with themselves, that is, with their habits.”

– Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Struggle and the Work on the Moving Center

“Without a struggle a person cannot see what they consist of. The struggle with small habits is very difficult and boring, but without it self-observation is impossible. Even at the first attempt to study the elementary activity of the moving center a person comes up against habits.

For instance, a person may want to study their movements, or to observe how they walk. But they will never succeed in doing so for more than a moment if they continue to walk in the usual way. But if they understand that their usual way of walking consists of a number of habits, for instance:

• of taking steps of a certain length, • walking at a certain speed, and so on, and they try to alter them, that is, • to walk faster or slower, • to take bigger or smaller steps, then they will be able to observe themselves and to study their movements as they walk. If a person wants to observe themselves when they are writing, then they must take note of how they hold their pen and try to hold it in a different way from usual; observation will then become possible.

In order to observe themselves a person must try to not walk in their habitual way, they must sit in unaccustomed position, they must stand when they are accustomed to sitting, they must sit when they are accustomed to standing, and they must make with their left hand the movements they are accustomed to make with their right hand and vice versa.

All this will enable them to observe themselves and study the habits and associations of the moving center.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Struggle and the Work on the Emotional Center

“In the sphere of the emotions it is very useful to try to struggle with the habit of giving immediate expression to all one’s unpleasant emotions. Many people find it very difficult to refrain from expressing their feelings about bad weather. It is still more difficult for people not to express unpleasant emotions when they feel that something or someone is violating what they may conceive to be order or justice.

Besides being a very good method for self-observation, the struggle against expressing unpleasant emotions has another important significance. It is one of the few directions in which a person can change themselves or their habits without creating other undesirable habits. Therefore self-observation and self-study must, from the beginning, be accompanied by the struggle against the expression of unpleasant emotions." – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Results of Recording the Struggle

“If a person carries out all these rules while they observe themselves, they will record a whole series of very important aspects of their way of being. To begin with they will record with unmistakable clearness the fact that their actions, thoughts, feelings, and words are the result of external influences and that nothing comes from themselves.

They will understand and see that they are in fact an automaton acting under the influences of external stimuli. They will feel their complete mechanicalness. That everything ‘happens’ to them, and they cannot ‘do’ anything on their own. They are a machine controlled by accidental shocks from outside. Each shock calls to the surface one of their “I’s”. A new shock and that “I” disappears and a different one takes its place. Another small change in the environment and again there is a new “I”.

A person will begin to understand that they have no control of themselves whatsoever, that they do not know what they may say or do in the next moment, and they will begin to understand that they cannot answer for themselves even for the shortest length of time." – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

When a person has realized this through observation and practical experience, then they will have the necessary internal shock to begin to dedicate themselves to this work.

Clarifications of some Points and Terms

There are several points in Gnostic Psychology that are of particular interest to clarify:

“1. The first point is the possibility of self-change, that is, the fact that in beginning to observe himself in the right way a human being immediately begins to change himself, and that he can never find himself to be right.

2. The second point is the demand “not to express unpleasant emotions”. The future will show that the study of emotions and the work on emotions is the basis of the subsequent development of the whole system.

3. The third point is the idea of the moving center. Notice the difference between the moving functions and the instinctive functions. How are they different?

4. The fourth point is that the common division of the human being’s actions into:

• “conscious” actions, • “automatic” actions (which must at first be conscious), • “instinctive” actions (expedient, but without consciousness of purpose), • and “reflexes,” simple and complex, which are never conscious

is considered incomplete and inaccurate. In addition, there are actions performed under the influence of hidden emotional dispositions or inner unknown impulses.

As we have studied, Gnostic Psychology completely rejects the idea of “conscious” actions because there is nothing that is conscious in the mechanical human being. The term “subconscious” which plays such a big part in the theories of some authors is often quite useless and even misleading, because phenomena of quite different categories are classified under the category of “subconscious”. The division of actions according to the centers controlling them does away with all uncertainty and all possible doubts as to the correctness of these divisions.

What is particularly important in the system of Gnostic Psychology is the indication that the same actions could originate in different centers. An example is the recruit and the old soldier at rifle drill. One has to perform the drill with their thinking center, the other does it with the moving center, which does it much better. Actions governed by the moving center are not called “automatic”. The name “automatic” is only used for the actions which a person performs imperceptibly for himself. If the same actions are observed by a person, they cannot be called “automatic”.

Automatic actions can be found in all centers; there are, for instance, “automatic thoughts” and “automatic feelings”.

Reflexes are called “instinctive actions”. Recognize the constant misuse of the words “instinct” and “instinctive”. These words can be applied only to the inner functions of the organism: the beating of the heart, breathing, the circulation of blood, digestion these are instinctive functions. The only external functions that belong to this category are reflexes (which, again, are “instinctive actions”).

The difference between instinctive and moving functions is as follows: the moving functions of a human being, as well as of animals, of a bird, of a dog, must be learned; but instinctive functions are inborn. A human being has very few inborn external movements; an animal has more, though they vary, some have more, others have less; but that which is usually explained as “instinct” is very often a series of complex moving functions which young animals learn from older ones.

One of the chief properties of the moving center is its ability to imitate. The moving center imitates what it sees without reasoning. This is the origin of the legends that exist about the wonderful “intelligence” of animals or the “instinct” that takes the place of intelligence and makes them perform a whole series of very complex actions. Consider the idea of an independent moving center, which, on the one hand:

• does not depend upon the mind, • does not require the mind, • and which is a mind in itself,

but which, on the other hand:

• does not depend upon instinct • and has first of all to learn.”

Habits and the Influence of External Stimuli

“The existence of a moving center working by means of imitation explains the preservation of the “existing order” in beehives, termites, and ant-hills. Directed by imitation, one generation has had to shape itself absolutely upon the model of another. There could be no changes, no departure whatsoever from the model.

Each center is not only a motive force but also a “receiving apparatus working as receiver for different and sometimes very distant influences. Consider what has been said about wars, revolutions, migrations of peoples, and so on; picture how masses of humanity could move under the control of planetary influences, and you will begin to understand our fundamental mistake in determining the actions of an individual.

We regard the actions of an individual as originating in himself. We do not imagine that the “masses” may consist of automatons obeying external stimuli and may move:

• not under the influence of the will, • nor of the consciousness, • nor of the inclination of individuals,

but under the influence of external stimuli coming possibly from very far away.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 6 of In Search of the Miraculous

Planetary Influences

There are a variety of external influences which come to us from many different sources. External influences can come from:

• other people’s words or actions, • from communication media of various sorts (books, magazines, newspapers, pictures, images, music, sounds, etc.), • from modern technology (television, radio, cell phones, computers, etc.) • from minerals, plants or animals (which can include the place we live or work, the food we eat, etc.), • and from the cosmos (planets, stars, etc).

Some of these influences can be stronger than others, but all of them can have an effect on our Internal State. When we are not observing ourselves: our Egos or “I’s” translate them, but when we are observing ourselves: we have the opportunity to transform them. Since the majority of humanity is in either the first or second states of consciousness, then we can see that we have a serious problem…

Upon humanity as a whole, the most influential of these external stimuli are those of the cosmos. There are very subtle influences that come from planets and stars which affect us in ways most people are completely unaware of.

“There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coincide with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character. And are the result of planetary influences.

Somewhere up there two or three planets have approached too near to each other; and tension results. Have you noticed how, if someone passes quite close to you on a narrow sidewalk or street, you become all tense? The same tension takes place between planets. For them it lasts, perhaps, a second or two. But here, on the earth, because of the human being’s inability to manage this energy, the tension results in a war.

People begin to slaughter one another, and they go on slaughtering maybe for several years. It seems to them at the time:

• that they hate one another; • or perhaps that they have to slaughter each other for some exalted purpose; • or that they must defend somebody or something and that it is a very noble thing to do; • or something else of the same kind.

They fail to realize to what an extent they are mere pawns in the game. They think they signify something; they think they can move about as they like; they think they can decide to do this or that. But in reality all their movements, all their actions, are the result of planetary influences. And they themselves signify literally nothing.

Then the Moon plays a big part in this. The influence of the Moon upon everything living manifests itself in all that happens on the earth. The Moon is the chief, or rather, the nearest, the immediate, motive force of all that takes place in organic life on the earth. All movements, actions, and manifestations of people, animals, and plants depend upon the Moon and are controlled by the Moon. The sensitive film of organic life which covers the earthly globe is entirely dependent upon the influence of the Moon.

Man, like every other living being, cannot, in the ordinary conditions of life, tear himself free from the Moon. All his movements and consequently all his actions are controlled by the Moon. Everything that happens on a big scale is governed from the outside, and governed either by accidental combinations of influences or by general cosmic laws.” -Paraphrase from Chapter 1, 2 and 5 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Moon, Mechanicity and Materialism

“The Moon tends towards materialism and this is a serious problem for us, all terrestrial mechanicity is controlled by the Moon. All life on Earth, the whole terrestrial mechanism is controlled by the Moon, all the mechanicalness of life is of a Lunar type. The Moon, like the pendular weight of a huge clock, makes the terrestrial mechanism move:

• the growth of plants, and animals, • ovulation in women, • the ebb and flow of the seas, the high and low tides etc., depend upon the Moon.

The influence of the Moon is one of the reasons life is so mechanical for us. So if we really want to be successful then there are 2 things we can do to counteract the mechanicity of the Moon:

1. take advantage of the Waxing and Full Moon in planning activities.
2. and use the perfumes of the Rose and Violet plants in order to control Lunar materialism.

These perfumes must be used in order to control materialism because the Moon exercises a materialistic influence upon the human Mind. It is to our misfortune that the Subjective Elements which we have within are controlled by the Moon…” -Paraphrase from Chapter 31 of Tarot & Kabalah

However, if we eliminate our Subjective Elements, our Egos, then we eliminate the cause of our problem.

The Center which is most susceptible to control by the Ego is our Emotional Center. Observe yourself during the different phases of the Moon. In our next class we are going to talk about the work with the Emotional Center.

We need to learn what to do when we have an ego that takes over our Emotional Center. We need to have a contingency plan, so that we can do something to take back control of ourselves. Negative emotions in particular are dangerous not only to ourselves and our physical health, but also have a detrimental effect on others and therefore the world around us. So we must learn how to fight against them and how to combat the Egos which originate them.

Methods to Counteract Negative Emotions

“Among the Centers that we have in our organism, there is not doubt that THE MOST DIFFICULT TO CONTROL IS THE EMOTIONAL CENTER. Although it may take some work, we can more or less control the Intellectual Center through certain disciplines. The Motor Center is also controllable. One can control the movements of one’s body, you can walk if you want to walk, raise an arm if you want to raise it, or not lift it if you do not want to lift it; wrinkle the brow or not wrinkle it. Thus, all the activities of the Motor Center are under the control of the willpower, but the Emotional Center is terrible: The issue of the NEGATIVE EMOTIONS, feelings and sentiments, etc., turn out to be difficult to control.

In Hinduism, the Emotional Center is compared with an elephant, a crazy elephant: so what do Hindustani people do in order to control it? They place two healthy, sane elephants on both sides of the crazy one (securing them so they will not leave) and then those two (sane elephants) end up teaching the crazy elephant to be sane, and finally the crazy elephant becomes sane.

The Emotional Center is an “elephant”, the Intellect is another “elephant” and the Motor is another “elephant” (the Motor-Instinctive-Sexual Center). These two elephants (the Intellectual and the Motor), have to control the “crazy elephant” of the emotions.

If in one moment we want to explode with emotions of desperation or anguish, that is to say, if we are identify with some Negative Emotion and feel bad, what should we do? We lay on the bed, we relax and we empty the Mind. In relaxing ourselves, we are acting over the Motor Center, because when we relax, we relax the whole body, we loosen all the muscles, all the tension in the organism; we empty the Mind [literally: put the “Mind in blank”], that is to say, we lead the Mind into stillness and silence, and in doing so what happens?

Then the Emotional Center does not have any other option but to calm down a little, to make itself serene and in the end the Intellectual Center and Motor Center dominate the Emotional Center (they are the two “sane elephants” that tame the “crazy elephant”).

It is also possible TO CONTROL THE INFERIOR EMOTIONS THROUGH THE SUPERIOR EMOTIONS. There are many types of Inferior Emotions, (we all know this very well). If a relative dies: We scream, we cry, we are in desperation. Why? Because we do not want to cooperate with the inevitable, and that is the worst of the worst (in the life, we have to LEARN TO COOPERATE WITH THE INEVITABLE).

We do not want to agree with the fact that our loved one is dead, and we scream with anguish and we do not accept it, and even when we are seeing the body in the coffin, we do not want them to appear dead to us, and we do not want to believe it, it is not possible for us that they are dead; and we are the victims of anguish and desperation. All of this is terrible!

How can we dominate this internal state? In two ways:

1. first, we could use that “pair of elephants” (the Motor Center and the Intellectual Center),to relax the body and to reach the stillness and silence of the Mind.
2. second: We could switch to a different emotion, a Superior Emotion.

We could do ourselves a favor, in those moments, by listening to the Symphonies of Beethoven, or “The Magic Flute” of Mozart, or submerging ourselves into profound meditation full of superior emotion, reflecting upon the Mysteries of Life and Death.

Then, through a Superior Emotion, we can control the Inferior Emotions and annihilate the pain that the death of a loved one brings.” – Paraphrase from “The Fire and the Emotional Center” called “Prodigios y Misterios del Fuego” [Prodigies and Mysteries of the Fire] in Spanish, which is lecture #106 in El Quinto Evangelio (p.928-941)

An Exercise to Control Anger

“Do you feel irritated or full of anger? Are you nervous? Reflect a little: remember that anger can provoke gastric ulcers. Control anger through breathing: inhale the vital air very slowly (through your nose, keeping your mouth properly closed), mentally counting 1-2-3-4-5-6. Hold the breath mentally counting 1-2-3-4-5-6. Now exhale the breath very slowly through your mouth, mentally counting 1-2-3-4-5-6. Repeat the exercise until your anger subsides.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1 of Introduction to Gnosis

Working Against Negative or Inferior Emotions

“The Emotional Center is very interesting, but we have to take hold of the Inferior Emotions, in order to control them, subjugate them, and this is possible by applying the principles of Gnostic Psychology…

The Inferior Emotions are those which are found

• related to bullfighting; • in most modern movies, plays, and television shows; • those found at so called great “parties”; • those of people who win the lottery; • those from reading articles in the newspaper, or magazines; • those promoted in the military or pro-war groups, • Inferior Emotions like those that come [from drinking] tequila, • Inferior Emotions like those which only serve to strengthen the inhuman psychic aggregates that we carry inside and help to create new ones…

It is necessary to eliminate the Inferior Emotions, and this is possible through Superior Emotions; to learn to live an edifying and essentially dignifying life is fundamental! on the contrary without doing so, no progress of any kind would be possible.” – Paraphrase from “The Fire and the Emotional Center” called “Prodigios y Misterios del Fuego” [Prodigies and Mysteries of the Fire] in Spanish, which is lecture #106 in El Quinto Evangelio (p.928-941)

“When you are assaulted by some negative emotion(s), express yourself in the best possible way in regards to it. If a negative emotion has arrived, if an emotion of envy is consuming us, let us express ourselves concerning it in a harmonious way, not in favor of the envy, but for the well being of others.

If an emotion of anger is shaking us in a given instant, let us speak with extraordinary sweetness and, instead of feeling bad because of what has hurt us, let us speak well of the one that has offended us. In this way we will not be internally injured.

It is not an easy task to express oneself well when one has a negative emotion, but we must strive to do so. If we have an emotion of anger, because someone has upset us, let us speak with love and in favor of the person who has upset us. At the very least we must do this while we eliminate the “aggregates” which have produced the negative emotions, so we will not be hurt.

It is clear that we must not be superficial: we need to eliminate those undesirable psychological elements that have provoked the negative emotions of anger, envy, hatred, lust, pride, etc., in us. Unquestionably, the whole world is being shaken by negative emotions and they are more contagious than bacteria and viruses.” – Paraphrase from “Alcyone and Negative Emotions” called “La Agonía de la Tierra en la Era Acuario” [The Agony of the Earth in the Aquarian Era]which is Lecture #165 in El Quinto Evangelio (p.1432-1441)

The Contagiousness of Negative Emotions

“We know that bacteria and viruses can cause many illnesses… Negative emotions are more easily contracted than viruses and bacteria:

• those grumbling people, full of envy, that are bothered at all times; • those people full of morbid thinking at every moment, • those who have a ‘persecution complex’, that feel bewitched, who believe that everybody hates them, are negative and infect individuals and groups.

In our work we isolate those people, and if they do not understand it, if they feel annoyed because of it and believe that we do not love them, they are mistaken. Yes, they are loved, and we only suggest that they try to become positive, sympathetic and magnetic; they receive an opportunity in our studies, but they are isolated in a certain way, because they are dangerous for others. A negative person can negatively infect other people, and if this person gives a lecture, they can infects lots and lots of people (they are more dangerous than the viruses and bacteria).

It is necessary to specify what negative emotions are. If a person is screaming all day long, grumbling and yelling, would they be positive or negative? If a person is into esotericism and feels “bewitched” all the time and their life unfolds in that field, would they be positive or negative? If a person is tremendously lustful and their life processes itself in and around lust; if they see a sexual opportunity in each person of the opposite sex, what could we say about this person? If the glance from another person disturbs them and is enough to make them be lustful every time, what could we think about them?

Obviously, we are dealing with a negative person and that person can infect other people. If a person is always carrying negative emotions from instant to instant, they infect everybody them come in contact with. The angry person that is always “going off” infects others with their anger. A person that always feels persecuted is negative. People like that have to be separated from the groups; people like that do not understand that they are negative, they believe that others do not love them, that they are being persecuted, etc.

Simply put, they are contagious people that impede the profound internal development of their Being (which is serious). We should never get carried away by the negative emotions. When a negative emotion shakes us, it is worthwhile for us to recognize what kind of psychological aggregate has produced it and then, after we have observed the aggregate in action, submit it to the technique of meditate in order to disintegrate it.” – Paraphrase from “Alcyone and Negative Emotions” called “La Agonía de la Tierra en la Era Acuario” [The Agony of the Earth in the Aquarian Era]which is Lecture #165 in El Quinto Evangelio (p.1432-1441)

Negative Emotions make us Liars

“What is most serious about all of this is that the negative emotions turn us into liars. The lie produces a mistaken connection with our own Divinity, because the energy of the Ancient of Days (the Being of the Being), that flows harmoniously through the 10 Sephiroth of the Hebrew Kabbalah, to finally reach the kingdom of Malkuth (the psycho-physical person), this energy becomes misconnected and produces an intentional dislocation or disconnection of the mind, and as a consequence of it, the lie appears.

Negative emotions make us into slanderers and liars, both consciously and unconsciously. In either case, it is a negative connection of the mind with the Superior Centers of the Being, which produces a dislocation between the mind and the Superior Centers of the Being.

One must tell the truth, at any cost; to say the truth and only the truth. This is the crude reality of facts!

Negative emotions turn people into liars, and the Karma of the liar is the monstrosity. The children that are born with two heads or deformed, have incorrectly connected themselves with the Superior Centers of the Being. As a consequence of it, they come into existence with a deformed body (and this is a result of the lie).”

Remember that the Ego itself is a lie!

“So, we must pay much attention to this aspect as a manifestation of the negative emotions.” – Paraphrase from “Alcyone and Negative Emotions” called “La Agonía de la Tierra en la Era Acuario” [The Agony of the Earth in the Aquarian Era]which is Lecture #165 in El Quinto Evangelio (p.1432-1441)

What are Negative Emotions?

“So what are “Negative Emotions”? Gnostic Psychology uses the term “negative emotions” for all the expressions of the “I’s” located in the inferior emotional center and controlling it, such as fear, jealousy, self-pity, self-consideration, anger, boredom, untrustworthiness in oneself and in others, etc.

We usually accept negative emotions as something completely “natural” and “necessary” and people also frequently call it “sincerity”. Of course, these emotions are unnecessary and unnatural, and have nothing to do with sincerity; they are simply a sign of weakness, a sign of the egoic condition and the inability to learn how to receive the unpleasant manifestations of our fellow man with pleasure.”

To be sincere with ourselves would be to recognize that we have “I’s” controlling the emotional center, and not allow those “I’s” to express themselves through us.

“In Gnostic Psychology, there is a saying in regards the struggle against the negative emotions: “If we want to transform ourselves radically, we need to sacrifice our own suffering”.”

Right now we are suffering, but we do not realize it because we a so accustomed to it and consider it normal and natural.

“The so called “modern art”: theater, drama, soap-operas, magazines, etc., are based on these negative emotions that cause so much harm to humanity. With the negative emotions the “I”, the ego, the myself, fortifies itself obstructing all the possibilities of inner development. It is clear that we have to review our behavior everyday, we must become more reflexive, more careful with our critical judgments, but especially: we must be more attentive to our negative emotions.

In the field of psychology, we find a lot of disorders among people; everybody is dragged by their negative emotions, and this is really serious. There is nothing more harmful for profound internal development than negative emotions." – Paraphrase from the Prologue to“The Negative Emotions” which is an article from American Gnostic Association

The Need to Sacrifice

“Sacrifice is necessary because without sacrifice nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, that they must sacrifice ‘faith’, ‘tranquillity,’ ‘health’. They understand this literally. But in reality we do not have either faith, or tranquillity, or health. All these words must be taken in quotation marks.

In actual fact we have to sacrifice only what we imagine we have and which in reality we do not have. We must sacrifice our fantasies. But this is difficult for us, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things.

Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is also very difficult to sacrifice one’s suffering. A person will renounce any pleasures you like but they will not give up their suffering. We are made in such a way that we are never so much attached to anything as much as we are to our own suffering. And it is necessary for us to be free from suffering. If we are not free from suffering, if we have not sacrificed our suffering, we cannot make progress in this work.” – Paraphrase from Chapter 13 of In Search of the Miraculous

What is Sacrificing Suffering?

“In order to understand what Sacrificing Suffering is, we must distinguish between Conscious Suffering vs. Mechanical Suffering.

Everyone suffers mechanically. What is mechanical suffering? It is something so intricate, so apparently contradictory, so subtle, and so historically long-standing that it is basically a psychological habit of ours which we do not observe. We do not see its continual, inner, private, petrifying action, like that steady drip of calcium-charged water that builds up those strange pillars between floor and roof in deep caves.

Gnostic Psychology teaches that we all have mechanical suffering and that this is the only thing we have to offer as sacrifice. In order to change, one must sacrifice something. Understand clearly and ask yourself this question: “Can I possibly change if I do not give up something?” This simply means that you cannot change if you wish to continue as the same person.

To change is to become different. If we want to go to Portland, we must give up being in Denver. Now notice carefully what we have to give up. The sacrifice Gnostic Psychology seeks is that of our habitual, mechanical suffering. Of course, people will at this point justify themselves and say they have no such suffering, or that what suffering they have is logical and reasonable.

But notice especially where this teaching begins in regard to what you have to give up. According to Gnostic Psychology one of the greatest obstacles to our internal development is being identified with “Mechanical Suffering”. We must sacrifice our suffering because mechanical suffering leads nowhere. We cannot awaken if we retain this dreadful weight of our mechanical suffering, and continue to nourish it, by a continual process of justifying it.

How can there be justice in a world of sleeping people, of people who are not yet conscious, of people who are governed by their negative emotions and hate? [remember that hate is the opposite of Love]

Now how, when you begin to see your own mechanicalness in your behavior, can you blame others who were equally mechanical? Did you not think that your suffering was caused by those same people who you now see as mechanical? Remember that in such a case you can only forgive, which in the Gospels is called “canceling” the debt. This is possible according to our level of being.

A low level of being forgives no one. It only sees its own merit. And this is certainly a key of how to reach a higher level of being. When, through self-observation and work on yourself, you see more and more clearly that you are as bad as anyone else, then you work to ascend the Ladder of Being which bring us to our Divine Being who forgives all, a thing we cannot even remotely understand while we have all our negative emotions.

Why? Because we all have a low Level of Being, which means we include very little of what we really are in our consciousness, instead we projecting on to others all that we cannot accept as being in ourselves, so we are very quick to insult, judge and condemn.

But as our Consciousness increases we include more and more of who we really are, with an increasing lack of conceit or self-love, until finally we cannot be insulted at all. Nor, then, do we judge. How can we judge others if we realize we are worse than others? At present, of course, we pretend we do not judge and our False Personality imitates every virtue, so that we “look good”. This is a matter we all have to reflect upon.

Gnostic Psychology teaches that mechanical suffering is useless because it leads to nothing, but that conscious suffering leads to inner development. In one of the Ancient Gnostic Books called the Acts of John (which are not included in the ordinary New Testament), there is a passage which says:

If thou hadst known how to suffer, thou wouldest have been able not to suffer. Learn thou to suffer, and thou shalt be able not to suffer.” – Paraphrase of Section called ‘Amwell, 6.11.48’ (p.1239-1242) from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky – Vol. 4

Conscious or Voluntary Suffering

The Key to understanding what Conscious or Voluntary Suffering is, is to comprehend our present condition and the way to get out of it. Right now we are a Human Organism which has its centers controlled by “I’s” or egos. They make us think, feel and act in almost any way they choose. But we consider ourselves to be those “I’s” and this is the ultimate problem.

In order for us to fight against them, to take back control of our Human Organism, we have to stop doing what the egos or “I’s” push us to do. And this is where the Struggle, the Battle, begins.

When we start to confront ourselves and our habits, we discover that we are comfortable with this or that “I”, it makes sense to us. Making efforts to go against an “I” is a bit painful. Why? Because it is hard to be honest with ourselves as we presently are…

Gurdjieff said: • “Sincerity is the key to self-knowledge and to be sincere with oneself brings great suffering.” • and “Sleep is very comfortable, but waking is very bitter.”

Because the truth is that the false personality:

• likes being proud • likes being greedy • likes being lustful • likes being lazy, etc.

Its easier, it is supported by nearly everyone around us (in addition to the mass media), and it also gives an immediate sort of ‘satisfaction’ (although the egos are never really satisfied). So to go against all of this seems absurd, but it is the only way…

To Consciously Suffer is to intentionally do something that goes against what our ego wants simply for the purpose of confronting the “I’s” and not being mechanical. In those moments when we are facing

• our old enemy, • a deep fear • an activity we despise, etc.,

we feel the ego fighting in us, thrashing about, trying to control us and make us think, feel or act in its way. This is the suffering: when we ‘taste’ the bitterness of the ego while we work to remain conscious of ourselves and our goal or ultimate purpose.

It is a Conscious Suffering when we intentionally CHOOSE to do this in order to discover ‘who we really are’. To confront ourselves, to recognize that an empty life of being dragged from one extreme to the next is fruitless, to realize that we have spend 15, 20 or 30 years feeding an ego

• that serves no authentic purpose, • that only makes us a vehicle of pain, • that does not create anything permanent or real,

is hard to do unless we have an inner ‘longing for change’ (a permanent center of gravity).

Remember that Negative Emotions are often the result of us ‘not wanting to cooperate with the inevitable’ and that ‘in the life, we have to LEARN TO COOPERATE WITH THE INEVITABLE’. And our mind does the same thing in order to justify its negative thinking, it tries to justify thinking a certain way even if it is completely against what is inevitably going to happen or what already is…

Our Consciousness

“When we come into this world we all have 3% of consciousness and 97% which can be distributed among subconsciousness, infraconsciousness and unconsciousness. The 3% of awake consciousness can be increased as we work upon ourselves. It is not possible to increase consciousness by exclusively physical or mechanical procedures. Undoubtedly, the consciousness can only awaken through conscious works and voluntary suffering.

Various types of energy exist within us, we must understand:

1) mechanical energy. 2) vital energy. 3) psychic energy. 4) mental energy. 5) energy of the will. 6) energy of the consciousness. 7) energy of pure spirit.

No matter how much

• the mechanical energy, • the vital forces within our own organism, • the psychic energy, • and the mental energy

is increased, these energies do not awaken the diverse functions of the consciousness.

The strength of will, even if multiplied infinitely, can never achieve the awakening of consciousness by itself. All these types of energy are graded into different levels and dimensions which have nothing to do with consciousness. The consciousness can only be awaken by conscious work and upright efforts. The small percentage of consciousness which humanity possesses, instead of being increased is usually foolishly wasted in life.

It is obvious that by identifying ourselves with all the events of our existence, we uselessly waste the energy of the consciousness. We should see life as a film, without ever identifying with any comedy, drama or tragedy, and in doing so we will save conscious energy.

Consciousness in itself is a type of energy with a very high vibratory affinity. We should not confuse consciousness with memory, since they are as different from each other as the light of the car’s head lights are with the road upon which we drive. Many acts take place within ourselves with no participation whatsoever of that which is called consciousness. Many adjustments and readjustments take place within our organism, without the consciousness taking part in them. The motor center of our body can drive a car or direct the fingers which play the piano keys, without even the most insignificant participation of the consciousness.

Consciousness is the light which the unconscious does not perceive. A blind person cannot perceive physical solar light either, however, it does exist in itself. We need to open ourselves up to the light of the consciousness to penetrate the terrible darkness of the myself, of the oneself. Now we will understand better the meaning of John’s words, when he said in the Gospel:

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not understand”.

It would be impossible, however, for the light of the consciousness to penetrate within the darkness of the self, if we do not use the marvelous sense of psychological self-observation. We need to make way for light to illuminate the tenebrous depths of the “I” of Psychology.

We would never self-observe ourselves if we did not have an interest in changing, and such interest is possible only when we truly love the esoteric teachings. Awakened consciousness allows us to experience reality directly. Unfortunately, the intellectual animal mistakenly called man or human being, fascinated by the path of subjective logic, has forgotten about the path of consciousness.

The Consciousness allows us to experience the reality of any phenomenon in itself and by itself.”

Reality as opposed to the Mental conception of the thing.

“Natural phenomena in no way coincide exactly with the concepts formulated by the mind. Life develops from instant to instant and when we capture it to analyise it, we cause its death.

When, observing this or that natural phenomenon, we try to infer concepts, in doing so, we stop perceiving the reality of the phenomenon and we only see in it the reflection of theories and stale concepts which have nothing at all to do with the observed fact. If intellectual hallucination fascinates us then we want all natural phenomena to coincide with our subjective concepts and understanding, with our subjective logic. The path of consciousness is based on lived experiences and not on mere subjective rationalism.

All of nature’s laws exist within ourselves and if we do not discover them in our interior, we will never discover them outside of ourselves. Man is contained in the Universe and the Universe is contained in man. What we experience within ourselves is real, because only the consciousness can experience reality.

The language of the consciousness is symbolic, intimate, profoundly significant and only those who are awake can understand it. Whoever wants to awaken the consciousness, must eliminate all the undesirable elements which constitute the Ego, the “I”, the Myself, from within; because the Essence is bottled therein." – Paraphrase from Ch.7 of The Great Rebellion

So now, lets take a look at the Mind and the problems it causes us.

Negative Thoughts

“To think deep and with full attention is unusual in our times. Different thoughts surge from the intellectual center, not from a permanent “I”, but from the different “I’s” in each of us. When a person is thinking, they firmly believe that they are the one who is thinking. But through self-observation, we can realize that the multiple thoughts that cross our mind have their origin in the different “I’s” which we carry within.

This signifies that we are not true thinking individuals. Indeed, we do not yet have an individual mind. What actually happens is that each one of the different “I’s” that we carry within utilizes our intellectual center. At any time, and as often as possible, each of them utilizes the intellectual center in order to think. Therefore, to identify ourselves with this or that negative and harmful thought, believing it to be our particular property, is absurd.

Obviously, this or that negative thought comes from any “I” that, in a given moment, has abusively used our Intellectual Center. Different types of negative thoughts exist, namely: suspicion, distrust, ill-will towards another person, passionate jealousy, religious jealousy, political jealousy, family or friendship jealousy, covetousness, lust, revenge, anger, pride, envy, hatred, resentment, theft, adultery, laziness, gluttony, etc.

Since it is impossible for an effect to exist without a cause, we can say that a thought could never exist by itself, by spontaneous generation… The relationship between the thinker and the thought is obvious. Each negative thought has its origin in a different thinker. Many negative thinkers exist within each one of us.

Examining this subject matter from the angle of “thinkers and thoughts,” it is understood then that each one of the “I’s” that we carry within is certainly a different thinker. Nonetheless, each one of these inner-thinkers believes itself to be the whole, at any given moment…

It may be difficult to accept the thesis of the “Plurality of Thinkers” because our perspective of ourselves would have to dramatically change. How can we accept the idea that we do not possess an individual mind? Through self-observation we can see this for ourselves.

The one who does not live in a state of alert novelty, alert perception, who thinks that they are thinking, easily becomes identified with any negative thought. And, as an outcome of this behavior, they strengthen the disastrous power of the “Negative I” who is the author of the corresponding thought in question.

The more we identify ourselves with a negative thought, the more we shall be slaves of the corresponding “I” that characterizes it. Those quarrelsome and negative “I’s” easily take control of certain mental films which are stored in our intellectual center, and create harmful thoughts from them. If we accept those thoughts, those negative “I’s”, which at any given moment control our intellectual center, we will then be incapable of freeing ourselves from their influence.

We must never forget that every negative “I” deceives itself (it self-deceives) and betrays, in conclusion: it lies. The negative “I” of jealousy deceives those beings who adore each other and destroys their happiness. The negative “I” of mystical pride deceives the devotees of the Path. Thus, believing themselves to be wise, they walk away from the Esoteric Work…

The negative “I” appeals to

• our personal experiences, • our memories, • our best wishes, • and our sincerity.

This negative “I” presents something under a false light, something that fascinates us and the outcome is failure… So, when one discovers that negative “I” in action, when one has learned to live in a state of alertness, then, such a deception becomes impossible… – Paraphrase from Ch.14 of Revolutionary Psychology

The Need to Dominate the Mind

“It is clear that we need to become independent from the mind. Right now, the mind is certainly a prison where we are all prisoners. We need to break out of that prison if we really want to know what liberty is, that liberty which does not belong to time, that liberty which is not of the mind.

First, we should remember that the mind is something that is not of the Being. We need to learn how to dominate the mind, not others’ minds, but our own, if we want to become independent of it. To do so, it is indispensable to learn to see the mind as something that we should dominate, as something that we need to tame.

Let us remember the Divine Master Jesus entering Jerusalem on his donkey on Palm Sunday; that donkey is the mind which we need to subdue. We should ride the donkey, and not have the donkey ride us. Unfortunately, people are victims of the mind since they do not know how to ride it." – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Working with the Mind: Doubts and Self-Criticism

“During meditation, we should talk with the mind. If a doubt crosses the mind, we should dissect the doubt.

When a doubt has been properly studied, when it has been dissected, it does not leave any trace whatsoever in the memory, it disappears. But when a doubt persists, when we want to incessantly combat it, then a conflict is formed.

Every doubt is an obstacle or impediment for meditation. But it is not by rejecting doubts that we are going to eliminate them, rather it is by dissecting them to see what they hide, what is real within them.

So, we need to analyze the doubt, tear it to pieces and reduce it to dust, not by fighting it, but by opening it up with the scalpel of self-criticism, by carrying out a rigorous dissection of it. It is only in this manner that we will come to discover what was important in the doubt, what was real and what was unreal in it.

Therefore, doubts sometimes serve to clarify concepts. When one eliminates a doubt through rigorous analysis, when one dissects it, one discovers a truth; and from that truth something more profound comes: more knowledge, more wisdom.

Wisdom comes from direct experience, from our own experimenting, and through profound meditation.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Working with the Mind: Talking to the Mind

“There are times that we need to talk with the mind, because many times, when we want the mind to be still, when we want the mind to be in silence, it persists in its stubbornness, in its useless chattering, in the struggle of the opposites.

Therefore it is necessary to interrogate the mind, to say to it:

“Well mind, what is it that you want? Well, answer me!”

If the meditation is profound, a representation can emerge within us; in that representation, in that figure, in that image, is the answer.

We should then converse with the mind and make it see the reality of things, until we make it realize that its answer is wrong. We must make it realize that its preoccupations are useless and the reason why these preoccupations are useless. And, in the end, the mind remains still, in silence.

But, if we notice that illumination does not emerge, that the chaotic state, the incoherent confusion with its struggle and incessant chattering still persists within us, then, we have to call the mind to order once again, interrogating it:

“What is it that you want? What are you looking for? Why do you not leave me in peace?”

One needs to speak clearly and converse with the mind as if it was a strange individual, because certainly it is a stranger, since it is not of the Being. We need to treat it like a strange subject, we may even need to recriminate it and scold it.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Essence should Discipline the Mind

“When it is said that we should dominate the mind, the one who has to dominate the mind is the Essence, the Consciousness. By awakening Consciousness we have more power over the mind and thereby, we become conscious of what is unconscious in us. It is urgent and undelayable to dominate the mind, converse with it, recriminate it, beat it with the whip of willpower and make it obey. This belongs to the Second Jewel of the Yellow Dragon.

Before all else, we should not become identified with the mind if we truly wish to take the most advantage of the Second Jewel, because if we feel ourselves being the mind, if I say: “I am reasoning! I am thinking!”, then I am affirming an absurdity and I am not in agreement with the Doctrine of the Yellow Dragon, because the Being does not need to think.

The Being is the life which throbs in each atom just as it throbs in each Sun. What thinks is not the Being. We do not have the entire Being incarnated, but we have incarnated a part of the Being which is the Essence or Buddhata, that part of Soul which exists in us, the spiritual, the psychic material.

It is necessary for this living Essence to impose itself upon the mind. We need to subdue the mind and interrogate it. We do not need to subdue other people’s minds because that is black magic. What we need is to subdue our own mind and dominate it.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

We must get beyond the Mind and the Emotions, in order to experience what is truly real and this is possible through meditation, prayer and applying all the methods given in the Gnostic Studies. In order to get out of the prison of the Mind, the Essence needs to dominate the Mind. We can use the following methods to achieve this: observing what is inattentive in us, talking to the Mind, analyzing doubts, using the key of synthesis (that is: the synthesis of the opposites or antithesis), and calling the mind to order with the whip of willpower.

Dissecting Doubts and Dominating the Mind

“To become independent of the mind is important so as to know what is real, not to know the truth intellectually but to really and truly experience it. While paying attention to what is inattentive in us, we can see different forms of skepticism, of disbelief, of doubt, etc.

When we see any doubt, we have to tear to pieces, and submit it to dissection in order to see what it truly wants. Once we have totally torn it to pieces, the doubt disappears without leaving any mark in the mind, without even leaving a trace in the memory.

When we observe what is inattentive in us, we also see the struggle of the antitheses (or the struggle of the opposites) in the mind. This is when we have to tear those antitheses or opposites apart to see what they have that is true within them. One should also dissect memories, emotions, desires and preoccupations which are ignored or those that we do not know where they come from or why they come.When we wisely see that there is a need to call the “attention” of the mind, there is a critical point where we have gotten tired of the mind that does not want to obey, then there is no choice but to recriminate it, speak to it forcefully, deal with it face to face, as with a strange and unfavorable subject.

One has to lash it with the whip of willpower, recriminate it with harsh words until one makes it obey. One has to converse many times with the mind so that it will understand. If it does not understand, then one has to strongly call it to order. To not identify with the mind is critical. One has to whip the mind, subjugating it, dominating it. In this manner we come out of the mind and arrive at Truth; that which is certainly not of time.

When we manage to reach that which is not of time, we can experience a radically transforming element. This transforming element can only be experienced when we come out of the mind. One has to struggle intensely until one achieves the intimate self-realization of the Being.

While we are bottled up in the mind, what can we know of the truth? For this, we need science, wisdom in order to emancipate ourselves and this is found in Gnosis.

When we think that the mind is quiet, when we believe that it is in silence, however, no divine experience comes to us, it is because the mind is not quiet nor silent. Deep down, it continues struggling. Deep down, it is conversing. Then, through meditation, we have to confront it, converse with it, recriminate it and ask it what it is that it wants. Telling it: “Mind, why aren’t you quiet? Why don’t you leave me alone?” The mind will give some answer and we will answer it with another explanation trying to convince it and if it does not want to be convinced, there will be no other remedy but to subjugate it through recrimination and the whip of willpower.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Meditation: What is Real is Beyond the Mind

“During meditation, there are two parts that we must become aware of: that which is attentive and that which is inattentive. We need to become conscious of what is inattentive in us.

Upon becoming conscious, we can evince that the inattentive has many factors, but one of the most prominent is doubt, there are many doubts, many many doubts exist in the human mind. Where do those doubts come from?

We see for example atheism, materialism, skepticism; if we tear them apart, we see that there are many forms of atheism, many forms of materialism. There are persons who say that they are materialistic atheists, and yet they fear spells and witchcraft. They respect Nature, but in their own way. When one talks to them about spiritual or religious matters, they declare themselves materialistic atheists, even though they see and are in awe of the Divinity in Nature.

There is another type of materialism and atheism, the skeptical, Marxist-Leninist type. Behind it all, there is something that that materialistic atheist is seeking, he simply wants to disappear, to not exist, to annihilate himself integrally, he does not want to know anything about the divine Monad, he hates it. And, continuing in this way, he will disintegrate as he wishes. That is his choice; he will cease to exist, he will descend to the infernal worlds, towards the center of gravity of the planet.

His choice is to self-destruct. He will perish, but in the end, he does continue, the Essence will liberate itself, it will return to new evolutions and will go through new involutions. He will return again and again in different cycles of manifestations and if he does not change, then he will fall into the same skepticism and materialism. In the end, the result will appear. On the day when all the doors definitely close, when the three thousand cycles come to an end, then that Essence will be absorbed into the Monad and it will in turn enter the Universal Spiritual Bosom of Life, but without mastery.

What is it that this Essence really wants? What does it look for in its atheism? What is its aspirations? Its aspirations is to reject mastery. Behind it all that is what it wants, what it gets, it does not value it and it finally ends up as a divine spark but without mastery.

If we analyze all the forms of skepticism and materialism that have been and are to be, we discover that there is not a sole skepticism; nor a sole materialism. The reality is that there are millions of forms of skepticism and of materialism; millions because simply they are mental, things of the mind.

That is, skepticism and materialism are of the mind and not of the Being. When someone has gone beyond the mind, they have made themselves conscious of the Truth which is not of time. Obviously, it cannot be materialistic nor atheist. He, who has at sometime listened to the Verb, is beyond time, beyond the mind. In the mind is where atheism and materialism are gestated. They are forms of the mind, illusory forms that do not have any reality. What is truly real does not belong to the mind, it is beyond the mind.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Psychological Judo (or The Second Jewel of the Yellow Dragon)

“The students of advanced Zen are used to the practice of Judo, but their psychological Judo has not been understood by the tourists who arrive in Japan. To see, for example, the monks practicing Judo, struggling with one another, it would appear to be a merely physical exercise, but it is not. When they are practicing Judo, they hardly notice the physical body; their struggle is really directed at dominating their own mind. The Judo in which they are engaged, is against each of their own minds.

Therefore, the psychological Judo has as its objective

• to subdue the mind, • to treat it scientifically, technically, • with the object of subduing it.

Unfortunately, Westerners only see the shell of Judo, taking it simply as self-defense and they have forget about the principles of Zen and Ch’an Buddhism. The Zen Ch‘an Judo, which precisely has as objective to subdue one’s own mind in each of its movements and stops, has degenerated, has lost its principles in the Western world and has become nothing more than something profane which is only used nowadays for personal defense.

Let us look at the psychological aspect of Judo. One needs to dominate the mind, the mind has to obey, we need to recriminate it firmly in order for it to obey. The Second Jewel of the Yellow Dragon implies the discipline of the mind, dominating, whipping, scolding it. The mind is an unbearable donkey that we need to tame! Therefore, we need to count on several factors during meditation if we wish to attain the stillness and silence of the mind.

We need to study the disorder of the Mind because it is only in this manner that we can establish order. We need to know what, in us, is attentive, and what, in us, is inattentive. Always, when we enter meditation, our mind is divided into two parts:

1. the part which pays attention, the attentive part 2. and the inattentive part.

It is not on the attentive part that we need to focus on, but rather, it is precisely on what is inattentive in us. When we are able to comprehend in depth what is inattentive in us and study the procedures so that the inattentive becomes attentive, we will have achieved the stillness and silence of the mind.

But we have to be wise in meditation, judge ourselves, and know what is inattentive in us. We need to make ourselves conscious of that which exists in us that is inattentive.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Using the Synthesis to Dominate the Mind

“The dominion of the mind goes beyond the struggle of the opposites. What do we do when a thought of hatred, an evil memory assaults us? Well then we have to try to comprehend it, to try to see its antithesis which is love. If there is love, why is there hatred? What for?

When there surges forth, for example, the memory of a lustful act. Then one has to pass through the mind the sacred chalice and the sacred lance, one has to say: Why do I have to profane the sacred with my morbid thoughts? If the memory of a tall person surges forth, one should see him short and this would be correct since in the synthesis is the key. Knowing how to always find the synthesis is beneficial because from the thesis one has to pass on to the antithesis but the truth is not found in the antithesis nor in the thesis.

In the thesis and in the antithesis there is discussion and that is what is really wanted: affirmation, negation, discussion and solution.

1) Affirmation of a bad thought, 2) negation of the same through comprehension of the opposite, 3) discussion: one has to discuss what is real from one and the other until one arrives at wisdom 4) and then the mind becomes quiet and in silence (solution).

This is how one should practice. All of this is part of conscious practices, of the observation of what is inattentive within ourselves.

But if we simply say: it is the memory of a tall person and we put a short person in front of it, period, this is not correct. What is correct would be saying tall and short (so what?), they are nothing but two aspects of the same thing, what matters is not what is tall or short but what there is of truth behind all of this. Tall and short are two illusory phenomena of the mind. In this way one arrives at the synthesis and at the solution.”– Paraphrase from Ch.3.05 (The Dominion of the Mind) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Making the Inattentive Attentive or Subconsciousness into Consciousness

“The inattentive is what is formed

• by the subconscious, • by the incoherent, • by the amount of memories that surge forth in the mind, • by the memories of the past that assault us over and over, • by the debris of the memory, etc.

The elements which constitute the subconscious should neither be accepted nor rejected, but one has to simply make oneself conscious of what there is inattentive and in this manner what is inattentive becomes attentive in a natural and spontaneous manner. This is what we want: for the inattentive to become attentive. One has to make a continuous meditation of daily life.

Meditation is not only that action of quieting the mind when we are at home or in the sanctuary; but it also encompasses the thread of daily living so that life immediately becomes a constant meditation. The mind in itself is the Ego. Ignorance is what there is in the mind. Why? Because we only see part of a thing with the mind, we do not see it as it is in itself, we only see our concept of it…

Real wisdom is not in the mind. It is beyond the mind. The mind is ignorant and because of this it falls into many serious errors. The mind has not made anyone happy. True happiness is very much beyond the mind.

Dreams belong to the unconscious. When one awakens consciousness, he leaves behind dreams. Dreams are nothing but projections of the mind. What is important in us is to awaken consciousness to stop dreaming, to stop thinking. This thinking, which is cosmic matter, is the mind. Even the Astral itself is nothing but the crystallization of mental matter and the physical world is also condensed mind.

In this manner, the mind is matter and is very gross, whether it be in a physical state or in a state called astral-manasic, as the Hindus say. In any case, the mind is gross and material, both in the astral as well as in the physical. Mind is physical or metaphysical matter, but it is matter. Therefore, it cannot make us happy. To know authentic happiness, true Wisdom, we should get out of the mind and live in the world of the Being; that is what is important.

We do not deny the creating power of the mind, it is clear that all that exists is condensed mind. But what do we gain with this? Has the mind perhaps given us happiness? We can do marvels with the mind, create for ourselves many things in life. Great inventions are condensed mind but these types of creations have not made us happy.

What we need is to become independent, to come out of that dungeon of matter because the mind is matter. We have to come out of matter, live in the role of spirits, as beings, as happy creatures beyond matter. Matter does not make anyone happy, matter is always gross although it assumes beautiful forms. It is always painful, if what we seek is happiness. If we are looking for authentic happiness we will not find it in matter but in the spirit.

What we need to know is how to free ourselves of the mind, that is the objective of our exercises and studies. In us there exists 3% of consciousness and 97% of subconscious. So what we have of consciousness should direct itself to what we have of unconscious or subconscious to recriminate it and make it see that it has to become conscious. This matter of the conscious part directing itself to the subconscious part is a very important exercise that can be practiced at dawn, so that in this manner, the unconscious parts become conscious, little by little.”

The Need for Comprehension

“In trying to comprehend any kind of psychological defect in depth, we have to be honest with ourselves… Unfortunately, Pilate, the Demon of the Mind, always washes his hands, is never guilty, [and] never recognizes his errors… But to comprehend, we must recognize our own mistakes without self-justification, without excuses and without any kind of evasion…

Self exploration is essential for profound self-knowledge and so is starting from a foundation of radical zero. The interior pharisee is an obstacle to Comprehension. To presume that we are virtuous is absurd. To judge others and label them as evil is absurd because all human beings, as long as they have not dissolved the pluralized Ego, are more or less evil…

Intimate SELF-EXPLORATION is certainly something to be taken very seriously; the Ego is, in reality, a book of many volumes. Full attention, natural and spontaneous, in whatever we are interested in; without artificialities, is truly perfect concentration. Any error is multi-faceted and inevitably operates in the subconscious.” – Paraphrase from Ch.22 of The Mystery of the Golden Blossom

Interrelations: the Psychological Gymnasium

“We need a psychological gymnasium if we want to discover all the different defects within ourselves. The path of family life with its infinite, sometimes painful details, is the best psychological gymnasium. The productive and creative job through which we earn our daily bread is another chamber of marvels.

Many aspirants to the superior life wish to escape their workplace; not to walk around the streets of their hometown; to take refuge in the forest with the intention of seeking Final Liberation… Those poor people are like silly children who skip school, and think that they are still going to pass to the next grade.

To live from instant to instant in a state of alert perception, alert novelty, like the lookout in times of war, is both essential and imperative if we really want to dissolve the Pluralized “I”. In human interrelations, in the co-existence with our fellow human beings, there are infinite possibilities of self-discovery. It is well known that in these interrelations, the multiple defects we carry hidden in the unknown depths of the unconscious always emerge naturally and spontaneously and, if we are vigilant, we see and discover them. However, it is obvious that this self-vigilance, this conscious attention must always exist from moment to moment.

A discovered psychological defect must be completely understood in the levels of the mind. In depth comprehension is impossible without the practice of meditation.” – Paraphrase from Ch.22 of The Mystery of the Golden Blossom

Comprehending a Defect

“Any intimate defect is multi-faceted and has diverse links and roots which have to be studied judiciously. SELF-REVELATION is possible when there is integral comprehension of the defect that we sincerely want to eliminate… New SELF-DETERMINATIONS spring up from the Consciousness when comprehension is complete…

SUPERLATIVE ANALYSIS is useful if it is combined with deep meditation, then the flame of comprehension springs forth… The dissolution of all those Psychic Aggregates which constitute the Ego is increased if we know how to take maximum advantage of the worst adversities. The difficult psychological gymnasiums – in the home, the street or at work – always offer us the best opportunities.

To covet virtues is absurd; it is better to make radical changes. Control of intimate defects is superficial and condemned to failure. Deep change is fundamental and it is possible only by integrally comprehending every error.

By eliminating the Psychic Aggregates that constitute the Myself, the Oneself, we establish proper foundations for correct action in our Consciousness. Superficial changes serve no purpose, we urgently need in depth change. Comprehension is the first step and elimination is the second…” – Paraphrase from Ch.22 of The Mystery of the Golden Blossom

Elimination

“At that marvelous instant in the garden of delights, at the exquisite moment when the male organ enters deep into the woman’s vagina, a very exceptional kind of electric induction takes place. In these moments our organism is undergoing electric impulses, and this offers us surprising possibilities…

In depth psychological change can emerge in the profundity of the Consciousness if we know how to intelligently make use of the cosmic opportunity we have in those moments… But we lose this marvelous opportunity when we intend to simply gratify our senses… Miserable is the Samson of the Kabalah who allows Delilah to put him to sleep… To fall like a beast into lustful temptation is equivalent to throwing away the best opportunity.

Instead of the fatal incontinence of the sexual libido it is better to pray. In the Ancient Mysteries it was taught (in secret) that sex is a form of prayer. The gnostic patriarch, Saint Augustine, said:

“Why are we not to believe that humans, before the fall into sin, could dominate the sexual organs in the same way as they do the other parts of the body?”” – Paraphrase from Ch.23 of The Mystery of the Golden Blossom

The Secret of Happiness

“The secret of happiness of the Intimate God of each creature consists in the relationship that It has with itself… The proper divine state is that of supreme happiness, sexual enjoyment comes from the relationship of the Divinity with itself… The seven cosmos, which shine gloriously in infinite space, sexually entwine… Why should the Microcosmic human being be an exception?

Man and Woman always adore each other… Sexual joy then, is a legitimate right of the human being and comes from the relationship of divinity with itself. In other words, sexual joy is terribly divine. Saint Albert said that

“the spiritual man must direct carnal intercourse towards a moral objective, and that a sexual function based only on the pleasure of the senses leads us to the most infamous of vices”.

If we valiantly grasp the sexual spear of Love with the sincere purpose of reducing to cosmic dust (in successive order), each one of the various subjective elements we carry within, then Light is brought forth within us. Inside each one of the varied and argumentative, loud-mouthed “I’s” which personify our psychological errors, exists substance, psychic Essence… Just as when the atom is split it liberates energy, so the total disintegration of any of the various infernal “I’s” liberates Essence, Light… We should therefore make light, create light…

Comprehension is basic in transcendental psychology but it is obviously not everything, we also need to eliminate. In Devi Kundalini, the Igneous Serpent of our Magic Powers, is the key. It is impossible to eliminate the Devil-“I’s” (psychological defects) without the help of our own particular Divine Mother, Devi Kundalini…

In the supreme moment of sexual surrender, at the height of sex, meditate and pray so as not to fall into temptation… In these moments of happiness, plead with all the force of your Soul, beg your Divine Mother Kundalini to eliminate the Devil-“I” from your interior, this refers to the psychological defect which you have comprehended through profound meditation. This is how we die from instant to instant. Only with death can the new arrive.” – Paraphrase from Ch.23 of The Mystery of the Golden Blossom

Conscious Attention and Psychological Death

“To be SELF-CONSCIOUS is something very difficult but it is possible to reach this state by learning to live alert and vigilant from MOMENT to MOMENT. If we want to achieve SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, then we need to know ourselves INTEGRALLY. Each of us has the “I”, the MYSELF, the EGO, which we need to explore in order to know ourselves and to become SELF-CONSCIOUS.

It is URGENT TO SELF-OBSERVE, ANALYZE and COMPREHEND each of our defects. It is necessary to study ourselves in the field of the mind, emotions, habits, instincts and sex. The mind has many SUBCONSCIOUS LEVELS, regions or departments that we should know thoroughly by means of OBSERVATION, ANALYSIS, IN-DEPTH MEDITATION and PROFOUND INTIMATE COMPREHENSION. Any defect can disappear from the intellectual region and continue existing in other unconscious levels of the mind.

The first thing we need is TO AWKAKEN in order to comprehend our own MISERY, NOTHINGNESS and PAIN. Afterwards, the “I” begins to DIE from moment to moment. The DEATH OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL “I” IS URGENT. Only by dying can the truly CONSCIOUS BEING be born within us.

AWAKENING, DYING, AND BEING BORN are the three psychological phases that lead us to TRUE CONSCIOUS EXISTENCE. We must awaken in order to DIE, and we must die in order to be BORN. Whoever dies without having AWAKENED becomes a STUPID SAINT. Whoever is BORN without having died becomes an INDIVIDUAL with a DOUBLE PERSONALITY, one very JUST and the other very perverse.” – Paraphrase from Ch.3 of Fundamental Gnostic Education

There is a saying in Spanish “the Devil is not smart because he is the Devil, he is smart because he is old.” Our ego is very smart because it is old, it has been with us for many lifetimes and it knows

• how to manipulate us, • how to convince us to do something ‘just this one time’,• how to justify itself, etc.,

and if we are not strong in our determination to fight it, then we will fall back under its spell sooner or later. Which is why we are going to have a lot of difficulty if we do not can ask for help from our own inner Divinity.

Prayer in Gnostic Psychology

“Prayer in the psychological work is fundamental for the dissolution of the “I”. We need a power superior to the mind if really we want to disintegrate this or that “I”, because the mind by itself can never disintegrate any “I”. To pray is to talk with God. We must appeal to God the Mother in the depths of our heart if we truly want to disintegrate our “I’s”, otherwise we will fail in the work upon ourselves.

Each one of us has our own particular, individual Divine Mother. All ancient civilizations adored “God the Mother”. The feminine principle of the Eternal One is Isis, Mary, Tonantzin, Cybele, Rhea, Adonia, Insoberta, etc. God the Mother within our own intimacy is the feminine aspect of our Father who dwells in secret. He and She are certainly the two superior parts of our inner Being.

Undoubtedly, He and She are our true Being which is beyond the “I”. He unfolds into Her. He commands, directs, and instructs. She eliminates the undesirable elements which we carry in our interior with the condition that we continuously work on ourselves. Thus, when we have died radically, when all the undesirable elements have been eliminated, after many conscious works and voluntary sufferings, then we will fuse and integrate ourselves with our “Father-Mother.” Then, we shall be terribly divine Gods, beyond good and evil.

Any of those “I’s” that have been previously observed and judged can be reduced to cosmic dust by means of the fiery powers of our own individual, particular Divine Mother. A specific formula in order to pray to our Inner Divine Mother is not necessary. We must be very natural and simple when we address Her. The child who addresses his/her mother never has special formula. The child utters what comes from their heart and that is all.” – Paraphrase from Ch.32 of Revolutionary Psychology

Dissolution: the Elimination of Defects

“Observation, Judgment and Execution are the three basic factors of dissolution.

First: one observes.Second: one judges.Third: one executes.

In war, spies are first observed; secondly, they are judged; and finally, they are shot. Self-discovery and self-revelation exist in our inter relationships. So anyone who renounces living together with their fellow human beings also renounces self-discovery. Any incident in life, regardless of how insignificant it may seem, undoubtedly has as its cause, an intimate actor within us, a psychic aggregate, an “I”. Self-discovery is possible when we are in a state of alert perception, alert novelty.

Any “I” discovered must be carefully observed in our mind, heart, and sexual center. Any “I” of lust could manifest itself in the heart as love and in the mind as an ideal. Yet, as we pay attention to the sexual center, we may feel a certain morbid, unmistakable excitement.

The judgment of any “I” must be definitive. We need to sit it down in the defendant’s chair and judge it mercilessly. Evasion, justification, and consideration must be eliminated if in reality we want to be conscious of the “I” that we are struggling to eliminate from our psyche. It would not be possible to execute any “I” without previously observing it and judging it.” – Paraphrase from Ch.32 of Revolutionary Psychology

Praying to our Divine Mother to Execute or Eliminate a Defect

“Remember that no “I” is instantaneously dissolved. Our Divine Mother must work and even suffer very much before achieving the annihilation of any “I’s”. Make yourselves introspective; direct your prayer within, seeking your Divine Mother within your interior.

Then, with sincere supplications, you will be able to talk to Her. Beg her to disintegrate the “I” that you have previously observed and judged. As the sense of self-observation develops, it will permit you to verify the progressive advancement of your work. Comprehension and discernment are fundamental. But elimination is necessary if what we want is to disintegrate the “myself”.

The mind can give itself the luxury of labeling any defect, passing it from one department of the mind to the other, exhibiting it, hiding it, etc. However, the mind can never fundamentally alter the defect. A special power superior to the mind is necessary, a fiery power that is capable of reducing any defect to ashes. STELLA MARIS, our Divine Mother has that power. She is able to pulverize any psychological defect.

Our Divine Mother lives in our intimacy, beyond the body, affections and the mind. She is, by Herself, an igneous power superior to the mind. Our own particular, individual Cosmic Mother possesses wisdom, love and power. Absolute perfection exists within Her.

It serves no purpose to repeat: “I will not be lustful,” because within the very depth of our psyche, the “I” of lust will continue to exist anyway. It is useless to repeat daily: “I will not have anger,” because within our psychological depths the “I’s” of anger will continue to exist. It would be useless to repeat daily: “I will no longer be covetous,” because within the different depths of our psyche, the “I’s” of covetousness will continue to exist.” – Paraphrase from Ch.32 of Revolutionary Psychology

We must observe, comprehend and eliminate the defects with the help of our Divine Mother in the garden of delights.

Our Particular Psychology, Self-Observation and Change

“The state in which we find ourselves is deep Darkness. There will come a day when the Light will have triumphed inside ourselves, and then we will be ENLIGHTENED. Darkness is Unconsciousness, Light is Awakened Consciousness. When the Light triumphs over Darkness, it shines in infinite space. Then we will become, true Enlightened Masters true, true Resplendent Masters…

But right now, we are miserable programmed robots… This is why we must understand these things; we must begin to OBSERVE OURSELVES PSYCHOLOGICALLY. Above all, we must admit that we have a Particular Psychology. People easily accept that they have a physical body that you can touch, but the majority do not accept the fact that they have a Particular Psychology, because they can not see it.

The Sensual Mind can not see the Intimate Psychology.

[To understand the 3 Minds (‘Sensual Mind’ is one of them), see Ch. 12 of The Great Rebellion]

But when someone really accepts that they have a Psychology, they can begin to observe themselves. They begin to observe, and this gives them hope, and in fact [they] become different from others.

Someone who is observing themselves, unquestionably, can change if they want to. But until you start to see yourself, you continue with the consciousness asleep, in deep Darkness, and that’s unfortunate…

Practical life is wonderful: We can observe our attitudes, what are they?

There is an intimate relationship between ATTITUDES AND EVENTS. An event, however serious, would be wonderful if we assume a good attitude. A circumstance, however great it is, could turn negative and detrimental, if we assume a bad attitude. The attitude that we assume at each instant is definitive.”

It defines how we are going to handle the situation.

“How we conduct ourselves, for example, with the employee of a store, of a hardware store, of a clothing store? In what way? Maybe we get upset because they did not bring the exact merchandise we ask for; or because they are dull; or because they do not understand what we are asking for and, then, we look at them angrily, right? And we scold them. We would like to change them, when in fact it is us who must change, we are the vain ones. Possibly we are conceited; that is why we look at the shopkeeper or employee of a store in this way.

CONCEIT has many phases, and is THE WORST ENEMY OF THE DISSOLUTION THE EGO!” – Paraphrase from the Lecture ‘MARVELS OF THE AWAKENED CONSCIOUSNESS’ [‘PORTENTOS DE LA CONCIENCIA DESPIERTA’] on page 117-120 of the El Quinto Evangelio by Samael Aun Weor

Why is Conceit the worst enemy of the Work upon ourselves? Because it would be impossible to find ourselves ‘wrong’ if we could never be wrong… We need to find ourselves ‘wrong’ if we want to discover the ego in us. What is wrong is the ego, then we have something to meditate on, something to work with, but if we are conceited, then this process never occurs…

Egoic Transactions

“The difficulty of profound, introspective analysis lies in “counter-transference”. This difficulty is eliminated through structural and transactional analysis. It is important to segregate and to dissolve certain undesirable psychic aggregates which are fixed in our mind in a traumatic manner. Transactional and structural analysis are intelligently combined in the matter of the exploration of the ego. Any psychic aggregate should be previously segregated before its final dissolution.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.30 (Transactions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Chief Feature

“Awakening is only possible by destroying the “I”, the ego. We have to recognize with complete clarity that that each person has their Particular Characteristic Psychological Trait (PCPT). Some will have lust as their characteristic trait, others will have hatred, for others it will be covetousness, etc. The trait is the sum of several particular characteristic psychological elements.

For each PCPT, a definite event, a precise circumstance, always exists. Is a man lustful? There will always be circumstances of lust in his life accompanied with specific problems. These circumstances are always repeated. We need to know our PCPT if we want to move on to a superior level of the Being and eliminate from ourselves the undesirable elements which constitute the psychological trait.

We need to become true solar human beings in the most complete sense of the word. The level of the worthy and modest woman is one level and the unworthy and immodest woman is another level. There are different levels of the Being.

Have we noticed our own level of Being, the level of the Being where we are? Are we conscious that we are hypnotized and asleep? All human beings are extremely mechanical, they are unconscious beings working with their consciousness asleep without knowing where they come from, or where they are going; they are profoundly hypnotized.

The hypnosis, which is collective and flows in all of nature, is derived from the abominable Kundartiguador organ. This race is hypnotized, unconscious, submerged in the most profound sleep. The intellectual animal becomes identified not only with external things, but he also goes around identified with himself,

• with his lustful thoughts, • with his drunken sprees, • with his anger, • with his covetousness, • with his self-importance, • with his vanity, • with mystical pride, • with self- merit, etc.

Have we perhaps reflected that we have not only become identified with the exterior but also with that which is vanity and pride? For example: Did we triumph today? Did we triumph over the day or did the day triumph over us? Are we certain that we did not become identified with a morbid, covetous, proud thought, with an insult or a preoccupation or debt, etc.?

Are we sure that we triumphed over the day or did the day triumph over us? What did we do today? Have we noticed the level of the Being in which we are? Did we move on to a superior level of the Being or did we remain where we were?

Can we perhaps believe that it is possible to move on to a superior level of the Being if we do not eliminate specific psychological defects? Are we perhaps content with the level of the Being in which we presently find ourselves? If we are going to remain our entire life in one level of the Being, then, what are we doing?

In each level of the Being there are specific bitternesses, specific sufferings, that is obvious. Everyone complains that they suffer, that they has problems, of the state they are in and of their struggles. Therefore, we must ask ourselves, does the intellectual animal concern himself with moving on to a superior level of the Being?

Obviously, as long as we are in the level of the Being in which we are, all the adverse circumstances that we already know and all the bitterness in which we, are will have to be repeated again. Over and over again, identical difficulties will surge.

Do we want to change? Do we want to stop having the problems which afflict us, the economic, political, social, spiritual, family, lustful problems, etc.? Do we want to avoid difficulties? We have no other solution but to move on to a superior level of the Being.

Each time that we take a step towards a superior level of the Being, we become independent of the egos that trapped us in the lower level of Being. This is why we need to know our PCPT if we want to move on to a superior level of the Being and eliminate from ourselves the undesirable elements which constitute that PCPT, otherwise, how will we move on to a superior level of the Being? The intellectual animal wants to stop suffering but he does nothing to change; he does not struggle to move on to a superior level of the Being, therefore, how can he change?

Many pseudo-esoterists, sincere people and of good heart, are bottled up in the dogma of Evolution, they wait for time to perfect them… Why? Because such persons do nothing to change the levels of the Being, they always remain on the same rung. Therefore, we need to go beyond Evolution and enter the revolutionary path, the path of the Revolution of the Consciousness.

Evolution and involution are two laws which are simultaneously processed in all of creation, they constitute the mechanical axis of nature but they will never lead us to liberation. The laws of Evolution and involution are purely material and have nothing to do with the inner Self-Realization of the Being. We need to be revolutionary, we need to enter the path of the Revolution of the Consciousness.

How could we move on to a superior level of the Being if we were not revolutionary? Each level of the Being has a specific number of activities that belong to it. When one moves to a higher level of the Being, one has to take a leap and abandon all the activities one had in the inferior level of the Being. If one moves to a superior level of the Being, one has to leave behind many things which are presently important to us, which belong to the level in which we are.

The transition to another level of the Being includes, therefore, a leap and that leap is rebellious, it is never of an evolving type, it is always revolutionary, dialectic. To be full of oneself, to have false images of oneself, fantasies of oneself, is to be in inferior levels of the Being. One is identified with oneself thinking that one is going to have a lot of money, a beautiful, latest model car or that one’s fiancée loves him, that one is a great man or that one is a sage. There are many forms of becoming identified with oneself.

One has to begin by not becoming identified with oneself, and then, not becoming identified with things outside. When one, for example, does not become identified with an offender, one forgives him, loves him, the offender cannot hurt him; and if someone hurts one’s self-esteem, but one does not become identified with self-esteem, it is therefore clear that one cannot feel any pain since it does not hurt one.

If one does not become identified with vanity, one does not care about walking on the street even if with mended trousers. Why? Because one is not identified with vanity. If we first of all become identified with ourselves and then with the vanities of the exterior world, then we cannot forgive; let us remember the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…” “ – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.31 (The Particular Characteristic Psychological Trait/Feature) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Resentment, Debts, Accounts and Authentic Happiness

“It is not enough to simply forgive, but we also have to cancel the debts. Someone could forgive an enemy but would never ever cancel the debts. We have to be sincere, we need to cancel…

The Lord’s Gospel also says: “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth…” This is a phrase that no one has understood. Blessed are, we could say, the non resentful. If one is resentful, how could one be meek? The resentful person lives keeping count: “And I who did him so many favors… I protected him, I did so many deeds of charity for him and look at how this friend has paid me back when I have helped him so much and now he is incapable of helping me!”

This is the “accounting” of the resentful. How could one be meek if one is full of resentments? The one who is full of resentments lives keeping count at all times, therefore, they are not meek. So, how could they be blessed? To be happy is very difficult, for that, one first of all needs to be meek. The word beatitude means inner happiness, not within a thousand years, but now, right here, in the instant that we are living.

If we truly become meek through non-identification, we will then get to be happy. But it is necessary not only to not become identified with our thoughts of lust, hatred, vengeance, rancor, resentment, but also to eliminate from ourselves the Red Demons of Set, those psychic aggregates which personify our defects of a psychological type.

We have to comprehend, for example, what the process of resentment is, we have to dissect resentment. When one arrives at the conclusion that resentment comes from possessing self-esteem in our interior, we then struggle to eliminate the “I” of self-esteem. But we have to comprehend it in order to be able to eliminate it, we could not eliminate it if we have not previously comprehended it. In order to be able to eliminate one needs Devi Kundalini Shakti, it is only she who can disintegrate any psychological defect including the “I” of self-esteem.

Are we sure that we are not resentful towards someone? If we want to become independent from lunar mechanicity, we have to eliminate from ourselves the “I” of resentment and of self-esteem. When one understands this, one advances on the path which leads to the final Liberation.

It is only by means of the fire of Aries, the Lamb, of the incarnated Ram, of the inner Christ, that we can truly burn those inhuman elements which we carry in our interior; as consciousness becomes unbottled, we will awaken. Consciousness cannot awaken as long as it continues bottled up within psychic aggregates that in their mass constitute the myself, the “I”, the loose cathexis.

We need to undergo Mystical Death here and now. We need to die from instant to instant; it is only with death that the new arrives. If the germ does not die, the plant is not born. We need to learn how to live, in order to liberate ourselves from that lunar heredity that we have.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.31 (The Particular Characteristic Psychological Trait/Feature) of Revolution of the Dialectic

We need to recognize how the Chief Feature works with our personality to mis-translate the impressions we receive in order to cause us to react mechanically to External Events.

The States of the Egos

“The states of the ego are classified in the following manner:

1) Sensory or STEREO-PSYCHIC: Are the identifying states which are intimately related with the exterior perceptions which are received through the five senses and which are connected with the world of impressions. Stereo-psychic or Sensory egoic states are related to how we receive information with the senses. Example: How sounds, colors, smells, sensations seem to us.

2) Interpretive or NEO-PSYCHIC: Are the data processing states, in other words, those which properly interpret or misinterpret all the multiple situations which the intellectual animal lives. Our bad secretary, the personality, works in these states. Neo-psychic or Interpretive egoic states are related to how we process information and specifically how we mechanically interpret situations or events through our false personality. Example: “when someone does not have the money they owe me, they do not respect me, they think I am soft or weak, and that I am going to let it slide…”

3) Memorial or ARCHEO-PSYCHIC: Are the regressive states -memory of the ego- which are found in the 49 levels of the subconscious. They are the memories of the past which are filed in a photographic and phonographic manner. Archeo-psychic or Memorial egoic states are related to associations we have to certain: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensation, etc., from the Stereo-psychic or Sensory egoic states and the Neo-psychic or Interpretive egoic states. Example: “in the morning my father or grandfather always used to drink a cup of coffee and read the newspaper”. So the smell of coffee and the smell of the newspaper have a certain association for me with something – my father or grandfather, mornings, adulthood, etc.”

– Paraphrase from Ch. 1.39 (The States of the Ego) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Transformation of Life

“We are going to talk about the transformation of life and this is possible if one profoundly resolves to transform oneself. Transformation means that one thing changes into another different thing. Everything is susceptible to change. Sugar is transformed into alcohol and alcohol is converted into vinegar by means of the action of fermentation. This is the transformation of a molecular substance.

The alchemists of the middle ages spoke about the transmutation of lead into gold. However, they did not always refer to the mere metallic physical matter. Normally, they wanted to indicate the transmutation of the lead of the personality into the gold of the spirit.

In the Gospels, the terrestrial man is compared to a seed that is capable of growth, and has the same meaning as the idea of the rebirth of the man who is born once again. If we study biology, then we know that if the grain or seed does not die, the plant is not born. Death and birth exists in every transformation.

In Gnosis we consider man to be like a factory of three floors which normally absorbs three foods. Ordinary food corresponds to the 1st floor of the factory related to the stomach. Air corresponds to the lungs and the 2nd floor; And impressions, are associated with the 3rd floor or brain.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

“Impressions, air, and physical food enable the organism to live to the end of its normal term of life and to produce the substances necessary not only for the maintenance of life, but also for the creation and growth of higher bodies.” – From Ch. 9 of In Search of the Miraculous

The Economy of Energy

“The food which we eat suffers successive transformations. The process of life, in itself and by itself, is transformation. Each creature of the universe lives by means of the transformation of one substance into another. The plant, for example, transforms water, the air and salts of the earth into new vital vegetable substances, into elements which are useful to us, such as nuts, fruits, potatoes, lemons, etc. Therefore, everything is transformation.

Through the action of solar light, the ‘fermentation’ of nature varies. The sensitive film of life, which normally extends over the face of the Earth, leads every universal force towards the very interior of the planetary world. But each plant, each insect, each creature and even the human being, absorbs, assimilates specific cosmic energies and then transforms (as well as unconsciously transmits) them to the inferior layers of the planetary organism. Such transformed energies are intimately related with the whole economy of the planetary organism in which we live.

Every creature, according to its species, transforms specific energies which it then transmits into the interior of the Earth for the economy of the world. Therefore, each creature that has existence fulfills a function.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Food we Eat and the Air we Breathe

“When we eat a food necessary for our existence, it is transformed, clearly, from one phase to another, into all of those elements which are so indispensable for our existence. What carries out those processes of the transformation of substances within us? Obviously, the Instinctive Center. The wisdom of this center is really astonishing.

Digestion, in itself, is transformation. The food in the stomach (in the inferior part of this three story factory of the human organism) goes through a transformation… This is why the food we eat needs to undergo a transformation.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

When something is not transformed properly it is called indigestion and we are not able to extract the vital nutrients from it. The Air we breathe also undergoes a certain process of transformation in the lungs related with the blood. The de-oxygenated blood comes to the lungs, which is then oxygenated through respiration. The waste products are exhaled and new air is inhaled in order to provide the necessary elements to the lungs, which (in turn) passes them to the blood which is then circulated around the body thanks to the heart.

The Impressions we Receive

“It is clear that physical Foods are transformed and that Air is also transformed, but there is something which invites us to reflection: Does an educated transformation of impressions exist within us?

For the purpose of nature itself, there is no need whatsoever for us to transform impressions. But we can transform impressions by ourselves, by comprehending the reason for that necessity through gnosis. It is magnificent to transform impressions.

The majority of people believe that the physical world will give them what they yearn for and seek. Really, this is a tremendous error. Life, in itself, enters into us, into our organism, in the form of impressions. The first thing that we should comprehend is the significance of the world of impressions and how this is intimately related with the esoteric work. One can not really transform one’s life unless one transforms the impressions which reach the mind.

We are talking about something very revolutionary, because the entire world believes that the physical is what is real, but if we go a little deeper, we see that what we are really receiving at each moment, are merely impressions. If we see a person that pleases or displeases us, the first thing that we obtain are impressions of them.

Life is a successive series of impressions, and not as is believed by the learned ignoramuses, a physical thing of an exclusively materialistic type. The reality of life is its impressions! It is clear that this may not be easy to grasp at first.

Most people feel that life exists as it is and not as its impressions. They are so influenced by this physical world that, this is how they think. The person that we see seated, for example, on a chair; the one who greets us, the one who smiles at us, etc., are for us, really true. But if we meditate profoundly on all of them, we arrive at the conclusion that what is real are the impressions.

These impressions arrive at the mind through the windows of the senses. If we did not have senses (for example, eyes to see, ears to hear, mouth to taste the foods which the organism ingests) would what is called ‘the physical world’ exist for us? Clearly not, absolutely not. Life reaches us in the form of impressions and it is there, precisely, where the possibility of working upon ourselves exists.

We have to comprehend the work that we should do. How can we achieve a psychological transformation of ourselves? By carrying out a work on the impressions that we are receiving at moment. This first work receives the name of First Conscious Shock and is related with these impressions (which is everything that we know of the exterior world).” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Work with Impressions

“We need to transform ourselves internally each day. When we want to transform our psychological aspect, we need to work upon the impressions which enter into us. Why do we call the work of the transformation of impressions “the First Conscious Shock”? Because the “shock” is something that we could not observe in a merely mechanical manner. This could never be done in a mechanical manner, one needs an self-conscious effort.

It is clear that when one begins to comprehend this work, one begins to cease being the mechanical person who only serves the purposes of nature. If you now think about the significance of everything that you are taught here, by means of your own efforts, beginning with the observation of oneself, you will see that on the practical side of the esoteric work everything is intimately related with the transformation of impressions and with what results from this transformation.

The work, for example:

• on negative emotions, • on angry states, • on identification, • on self-consideration, • on the successive “I’s”, • on lying, • on self-justification, • on excuses, • on the unconscious states in which we are,

is all related with the transformation of impressions and what results from all of it.

It will be convenient for the work upon oneself to be compared with dissection. It is necessary to form an element of change at the place of entry of impressions. By comprehending the esoteric work, we can accept life itself as work and then we will really enter a constant state of self-remembering.

The transformation of impressions will lead us to a better life and untransformed impressions will no longer act upon us as they did before. But as long as we continue thinking in the same manner, receiving life in the same manner, it is clear that there will be no change in us.

To transform the impressions of life is to transform oneself. This totally new manner of thinking helps us to carry out such a transformation. If one does not transform oneself, nothing is achieved. Life continuously demands that we react or adapt to it. All of those reactions [or adaptions] form our personal life. To change one’s life is to really change our own reactions.

Exterior life reaches us as mere impressions which incessantly force us to react in a stereotypical manner. If the reactions which form our personal life are all of a negative type, then our own life will also be negative. Life consists of a successive series of negative reactions which happen as incessant responses to the impressions which reach the mind.

Therefore, our task consists of transforming the impressions of life in such a manner that they do not provoke this type of negative response. But in order to achieve this, it is necessary to be observing oneself from instant to instant, from moment to moment. It is urgent, therefore, to be studying our own impressions.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Transformation of Impressions and the First Conscious Shock

“One cannot allow impressions to reach us in a subjective and mechanical manner. We cannot give ourselves the luxury of allowing impressions to be received mechanically. By acting in this manner, we transform impressions and then, we begin to live consciously. The First Conscious Shock consists in transforming the impressions which reach us.

If we manage to transform the impressions which reach the mind at the moment of entry, we obtain marvelous results which benefit our existence. This Gnostic esoteric Work should be taken to the point where the impressions enter, because they are mechanically distributed to wrong places by the personality in order to evoke old mechanical reactions.

If we throw a stone into a crystalline lake, impressions are produced in the lake and the response of those impressions produced by the stone manifest in the form of waves which go from the center to the shore.

Now, imagine the mind as a lake. Suddenly, an image of a person appears, that image is like the stone of our example, which reaches the mind. Then, the mind reacts in the form of impressions. The impressions are those which the image that reaches the mind produces and the reactions are the responses to such impressions.

If a ball is thrown against a wall, the wall receives the impressions, then the reaction follows which is the return of the ball to the one who sent it. The ball bounces back and that is the reaction.

The world is formed by impressions, for example: The image reaches our mind through the senses. We cannot say that the table has arrived or that the table has entered our brain, but the image of the table is inside us, then our mind reacts immediately by saying: This is a wooden or metal table, etc.!

There are impressions which are not so pleasant, such as the words of an offender… But we can transform the words of an offender, right? Words are as they are, therefore, what can we do? Transform the impressions which such words produce in us.

The Gnostic Teaching teaches us how to crystallize the Second force, the Christ in us, through the postulate which says: “One has to receive with pleasure the unpleasant manifestations of our fellowmen”. In the previous postulate we find the way to transform impressions which the words of an offender produce in us. Receive with gladness the unpleasant manifestations of our fellowmen.

This postulate will naturally lead us to the crystallization of the Second Force, the Christ within ourselves; it will cause the Christ to come and take shape in us. If we only know the impressions from the physical world, then, in reality, the physical world is not so external as people believe.

With just reason Immanuel Kant said: “The exterior is the interior”. If the interior is what matters, we should therefore transform the interior. The impressions are interior, therefore, all objects and things, everything that we see, exists in our interior in the form of impressions.

If we do not transform impressions, nothing will change in us. Lust, covetousness, pride, hatred, etc., exist in the form of impressions within our psyche which vibrates incessantly. The mechanical result of such impressions have been all of those inhuman elements which we carry within and which we have normally called “I” which in their mass, constitute the myself, the oneself.

Let us suppose, for example, that a man sees a provocative woman and that he does not transform those impressions; the result will be that the same impressions, of a lustful type, will produce in him the desire of possessing her. Such a desire is the result of the impression received and it crystallizes, it takes shape in our psyche and becomes one more aggregate, in other words, an inhuman element, a new type of lustful “I” which adds itself to the sum of inhuman elements which in their totality constitute the Ego.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Egos and Impressions

“Anger, covetousness, lust, envy, pride, laziness and gluttony exist in us.

Why Anger? Because many impressions reached us, our interior, and we never transformed them. The mechanical result of such impressions of anger form the “I’s” which exist and vibrate in our psyche and which constantly make us feel angry.

Why covetousness? Indubitably, many things awakened covetousness in us: money, jewels, material things of all types, etc. Those things, those objects, reached us in the form of impressions. We committed the error of not having transformed these impressions into different things, into an attraction for beauty, into happiness, etc. Such non-transformed impressions naturally became the “I” of covetousness which we now carry in our interior.

Why lust? Different forms of lust reached us in the form of impressions, in other words, there surge in the interior of our mind images of an erotic type whose reaction was lust. Since we did not transform those lustful waves, that unhealthy eroticism, naturally new morbid “I’s” were born in our psyche.

Therefore, today we have to work on the impressions which we may have in our interior and on its mechanical results.

Within, we have impressions of anger, covetousness, gluttony, pride, laziness and lust. We also have within, the mechanical results of such impressions, a bunch of quarrelsome and vociferous “I” which we now need to comprehend and eliminate. The work of our life consists in knowing how to transform impressions, and also, in knowing how to eliminate the mechanical results of impressions which were not transformed in the past. The exterior world does not exist the way many people think it does.

What does exist are impressions of the external world and these impressions are interior, and the reactions of such impressions are completely interior. No one could say that they are seeing a tree in itself. They may be seeing the image of a tree, or smelling the scent of a tree, but not the tree in itself. The thing in itself, as Emmanuel Kant said, is not seen by anyone; one sees the image of things, in other words, the impression of a tree, of a thing, surges in us and these impressions are internal, they are of the mind.

If one does not carry out one’s own internal modifications, the result will be: the birth of a new “I” is produced which comes to enslave our essence, our consciousness, even more, which increases the intensity of the sleep in which we live.

When one really comprehends all that exists within oneself related to the physical world, and that they are nothing but impressions, one also comprehends the necessity of transforming those impressions, and upon doing it, the transformation of oneself is produced.

There is nothing that hurts more than the words of an offender. If one is capable of transforming the impressions which such words produce in us, they then remain without any value, in other words, they remain like a check drawn against insufficient funds. Certainly, the words of an insulter do not have any more value than that which the insulted person gives them.

Therefore, if the insulted person does not give them any importance, they remain like a check drawn against insufficient funds. When we comprehends this, we then transform the impressions of such words into something different, into love, into compassion for the insulter and this, naturally, means transformation.

Therefore, we need to be continuously transforming impressions, not only the present ones but also the past and the future ones.“ – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Transforming Impressions and Transforming our Lives

“Within us exist many impressions with which we committed the error of not having transformed in the past, and many mechanical results of the same impressions which are the so-called “I” which we now have to disintegrate, annihilate, in order for the consciousness to remain free and awake.

Things, persons, are nothing but impressions within us, within our minds. If we transform those impressions, we transform our life radically. For example, when there is pride in us, it has ignorance as its basis.

A person, for example, who feels proud of their social position, or of their money can be transformed if this person thinks that their social position is a mere mental matter, that it is a series of impressions which have reached their mind, impressions about his social status, when they think that such status is nothing but a mental matter or when they analyze the question of their worth, they come to the realization that their position exists in their mind in the form of impressions.

Those impressions which money and social position produce, are nothing but impressions of the mind. With the simple fact of comprehending that they are only impressions of the mind, there is transformation of the oneself. Then, pride, decreases and collapses by itself and humility is born in us in a natural manner. By means of comprehension, we can transform the impressions which emerge in the mind.

The exterior world is not so exterior as people normally believe. Everything that reaches us from the world is actually interior because what reaches us are nothing but internal impressions. No one could put a tree, a chair, a palace or a rock into their mind. We must transform impressions through comprehension.

If someone greets us, praises us, how can we transform the vanity which this or that flatterer could provoke in us? Obviously, the praises, the flattery are nothing but impressions which reach our mind and the mind then reacts in the form of vanity; but if those impressions are transformed, vanity becomes impossible. How could the words of a flatterer be transformed? By means of comprehension.

When we really comprehend that we are nothing but an infinitesimal creature in a corner of the Universe, we immediately transform those impressions of praise, flattery, into something different; we convert such impressions into what they are: dust, cosmic dust, because we comprehend our own position.

We know that the Galaxy in which we live is made up of millions of worlds. What is the Earth? It is a particle of dust in the infinite. And if we were to say that we are just some organic microorganisms belonging to that particle, then what?

If we were to comprehend this when we are flattered, then we would carry out a transformation of the impressions related to the praise and flattery and as a result we would not react in the form of pride. The more we reflect on this, we will see the necessity of a complete transformation of impressions. All that we see as external is interior.

If we do not work with the interior we are treading the path of error because we will not modify our habits. If we want to be different, we need to transform ourselves integrally, and we should begin by transforming impressions. By transforming the animal and bestial impressions into elements of devotion, sexual transformation, transmutation then surges forth in us. This aspect of impressions deserves to be analyzed in a clear and precise manner. “ – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

The Personality (the Bad Secretary) and Reactions

“The personality that we have receives the impressions of life but does not transform them. If the impressions fell directly upon the Essence, it is obvious that they would be transformed because the Essence would immediately deposit them exactly in the corresponding centers of the human machine.

Personality is the term that is applied to everything that we acquire. It is clear that it translates impressions from all sides of life in a limited and stereotypical manner in accordance with its quality and association. This is why, in the gnostic esoteric work, the personality is sometimes compared to a terrible secretary who is in the front office, who is occupied with all the ideas, concepts, preconceptions, opinions and prejudices. It has many dictionaries, encyclopedias of all types, reference books, etc., and is not in communication with the centers, in other words, with the mental intellectual, motor, emotional, instinctive and sexual centers, according to its unusual ideas.

As a result it almost always encourages the wrong working of the centers. This means that the impressions which arrive are sent to wrong centers, in other words, to places which do not correspond to them, and this produces, naturally, incorrect results.

Example: Let us suppose that a woman attends to a gentleman with much consideration and respect; it is clear that the impressions which the gentleman is receiving in his mind are received by the personality which sends them to wrong centers.

Normally, it sends them to the sexual center and this gentleman firmly believes that the lady is in love with him, and as is logical, it does not take long before he rushes to ask her out, or buy her flowers, etc. But, if that lady has never had that type of caring for the gentleman, with much reason, she cannot, but feel surprised. This is the result of untransformed of impressions. Here we see how much of a bad secretary the personality is.

Unquestionably, the life of the human being depends on this secretary who seeks transformation in its reference books without comprehending at all, what the event means, and consequently transmits incorrect conclusions, without preoccupations for what could happen, but feeling only that the secretary is fulfilling its duty. This is our interior situation.

What is important to comprehend in this allegory is that as the human personality is acquired, it begins to take charge of our lives. It is useless to imagine that this happens only to certain and specific persons; it happens to everyone no matter who it is. One finds out through observation that numerous characteristic reactions exist which are produced by the impressions which we receive. These mechanical reactions, unfortunately, govern us.

It is clear that each person is governed by their reactions to life. These reactions constitute our own life. And because our reactions are based on our personality’s pre-determined way of processing impressions we can say that humanity is completely mechanical.

Any person has formed for themselves an enormous quantity of reactions, which come to be the practical experiences of their existence. It is clear that every action produces its reaction, actions of a certain type and such reactions are called experiences. The important thing is for us to get to know our actions and reactions better, to be able to relax the mind. This “mental relaxation” is magnificent. To lie down on one’s bed or on a comfortable armchair, to relax all the muscles patiently and then empty the mind of oil types of thoughts, desires, emotions, memories.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

Relaxing the Mind and Knowing Ourselves

“When the mind is still, when the mind is in silence, we can know ourselves better. In these moments of stillness and mental silence, is when we really come to experience in a direct manner the crude realism of all the actions of practical life.

When the mind is in absolute repose, we see the multitude of:

• elements and sub-elements, • actions and reactions, • desires, • passions, etc.

as something foreign to us but which awaits the precise instant to be able to exercise its control over ourselves, over our personality. This is the reason why the silence and stillness of the mind is worthwhile.

Obviously, the relaxation of the mind is beneficial in the most complete sense of the word because it leads us to personal, individual self-knowledge. So it is that all of life, in other words, exterior life, what we see and live, is for each person, their reaction to the impressions which arrive from the physical world.

It is a great error to think that “life” is a fixed, solid thing, and the same for each person. Certainly, there is not a single person who has the same impressions which (with respect to life) exist in the human species, because they are infinite. Life, certainly, are our impressions of it and it is clear that we can transform such impressions (if we so resolved to). This is an idea is very difficult to understand or comprehend because the hypnotism of the senses is very powerful.

Although it may seem incredible, all human beings are in a state of “collective hypnosis”. Such hypnosis is produced by the residual state of the abominable Kundartiguador organ; when it was eliminated, the different psychic aggregates or inhuman elements which in their mass constitute the myself, the oneself, remained. These elements and sub-elements, in turn, condition the consciousness and keep it in a state of hypnosis. This is how collective hypnosis exists. The entire world is hypnotized!

The mind is engrossed in the world of the five senses and does not manage to comprehend how it could become independent of them; it firmly believes that it is a god. [To understand the ‘Sensual Mind’ (one of the 3 Minds), see Ch. 12 of The Great Rebellion]

Our interior life, the true life of our thoughts and feelings, continues being confused for our mere reasoning and intellective conceptions. Nonetheless, at the same time we know very well that the place where we really live is our world of thoughts and feelings; this is something that no one can deny. Life is our impressions and these impressions can be transformed.

We need to learn to transform our impressions, however, it is not possible to transform anything in us if we continue attached to the world of the five senses. As it says in the “Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology” experience teaches us that if the gnostic esoteric work is negative, it is our own fault.

It is from the sensorial point of view that this or that person of the exterior world whom one sees and hears through the eyes and the ears, has the blame; this person in turn will say that we are the ones to blame, but really, the fault is in the impressions that we may have about people. Many times we think that a person is bad when in reality the person is a humble lamb. It is very convenient to learn to transform all the impressions which we have of life. “We have to learn to receive with pleasure the unpleasant manifestations of our fellowmen”.” – Paraphrase from Ch. 1.43 (The Transformation of Impressions) of Revolution of the Dialectic

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