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The Elements in Spiritual Growth

This is a transcription of a lecture originally given live and unscripted on Gnostic Radio. You can download the audio here: Alchemy 01 The Elements in Spiritual Growth AUDIO . There is also a reference PDF: Alchemy 01 The Elements in Spiritual Growth PDF .

Today we are going to talk about the elements in spiritual growth. To understand what the elements in spiritual growth are, we need to understand what we mean by spiritual growth.

There is a lot of misinformation about spirituality in the world today, in modern culture, that causes us to have misconceptions and misunderstandings about things that, unfortunately, we take for granted as “correct,” but can gravely harm our spiritual growth. To understand what spiritual growth means, we need to understand what is “spirit.”

This word spirit in English has been terribly abused, especially in the last one hundred years. Nowadays, no one can give an accurate or consistent definition to the word spirit. We use it for things ranging from the feeling of a certain kind of music or art to descriptions of ghosts and phantoms to discussions of god, and even alcohol (spirits). So, our definition of spirit is very imprecise, and not founded in the ancient, accurate, specific knowledge regarding how to awaken consciousness.

If we look at what the Gnosis teaches us about spirit, we can look at any of the ancient traditions and the etymologies of the words used for spirit and they all agree.

spirit: mid-13c., "animating or vital principle in man and animals," from O.Fr. espirit, from L. spiritus "soul, courage, vigor, breath," related to spirare "to breathe," from PIE *(s)peis- "to blow" (cf. O.C.S. pisto "to play on the flute"). Original usage in English mainly from passages in Vulgate, where the Latin word translates Gk. pneuma and Heb. ruah.

The true meaning of spirit is “animating principle.” So, ultimately, what has given us life?

The Pneuma and the Psyche as depicted in Genesis, as Ruach Elohim and Adam

The Hebrew word ruach can mean “breath, wind, spirit” and refers to our inner Spirit, or in Christian terms, our “Father.” In Kabbalah, this is related with the sephirah Chesed, and is represented in the Bible by Abraham, the patriarch (“father”) of the tradition.

The equivalent symbol in Hinduism is Atman. Directly translated, Atman means “self,” but refers to our inner spirit, the essence of ourselves, the ultimate sense of where we come from.

In Buddhism, it is simply the Buddha, “the awakened one.” We are not that, yet.

The Natural Man

So in genuine mysticism when we talk about spiritual growth, we are talking about the emergence of our Innermost. It is the growth of the Being. It is the emergence of the Buddha within us. That Being is not the terrestrial self. We here are what Saint Paul called in his writings the psychikos soma, usually translated as the natural man or the animal man, which is the terrestrial person. The Being, on the other hand, is related to πνευμα pneuma, the spirit.

“There is a ψυχικός [psychikos, psyche] σῶμα [soma, body], and there is a πνευματικός [spiritual] σῶμα [body]. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a ψυχή psychē; the last Adam [was made] a quickening πνεῦμα pneuma [spirit]. Howbeit that [was] not first which is spiritual, but that which is ψυχικός psychikos; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man [is] of the earth, earthy: the second man [is] the Lord from heaven. As [is] the earthy, such [are] they also that are earthy: and as [is] the heavenly, such [are] they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” - Paul, from 1 Corinthians 15

When we talk about spiritual growth, we are not talking about the spiritual “person.” We are talking about the growth of our Innermost, Atman, Chesed, our inner Buddha.

Real spiritual growth is the empowerment, growth and expansion of our Innermost, and through that growth we as a terrestrial person also benefit. It is a reciprocal relationship. That is why Paul in his writings talked about the relationship between the heavenly man and the earthly man. They are two parts of one being.

Physically, terrestrially, we are what Paul called a “natural” human being, meaning in the natural world, in the physical world with an earthly body, with a physical body. We are in what the Alchemists called the “philosophical earth.” This body is built up out of the earth as it says in the Bible, from the dust of the earth. Our earth houses spiritual attributes or archetypes.

“And the Spirit of God [Ruach Elohim] moved upon the face of the waters.” - Genesis 1:2 “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. “And יהוה Elohim formed אדם adam [of] the dust of the אדמה 'adamah [ground], and breathed into his nostrils the נשמה nĕshamah [breath] of life; and man became a נפש חיה [nephesh chaiah, living soul].” - Genesis 2

That spirit or vivifying energy is what gives us life. It is the Ruach [spirit, breath] that causes this body to have existence, life. Our consciousness is an agent of the Innermost. It is an agent of the spirit. It is related to the spirit, but it is not the same thing as the spirit.

So this title “the elements in spiritual growth” really requires that you understand that spirit is the Being, our inner Being, our inner Father, our inner Mother, our inner Buddha, whatever names you want to use. It is that root of our inner experience as a self, as a soul, where our soul comes from: our spirit.

Real Spirituality

We need to understand that, because until we clearly grasp that the terrestrial person is not everything and that we are just an extension of something more, something that we ignore, we cannot understand genuine spirituality. This is the problem in this day and age. People think that spirituality is about “me” and spirituality and religion have become all about “me” and “myself.” Nowadays, people really just want to adorn themselves with whatever “spiritual” elements comfort their ego; they want to dress themselves in robes and in different garments psychologically to give of a certain appearance or to feel certain things. They want to feel comforted; they want to feel secure because, as they say, they are “spiritual.”

The real spiritual person is in connection, in dialogue with their inner being. This connection is not vague, invented, or fantasized. It is experienced. True spirituality is the direct connection between the terrestrial person and the spiritual man, Atman, our inner Buddha.

Real spirituality begins when that connection is established. So, spiritual growth can be defined in that way. First, by accessing and acquiring that connection, so that we no longer believe in God or theorize about our inner Self, but we know it. We can experience it, we can taste it, we can touch it, we can talk to it, we can get information from it. We know what it is from experience. That is the beginning of real spiritual growth.

We need to know the elements that cause that to occur.

The reason we do not have spiritual growth now and the reason we do not know our Innermost now is because we do not know the elements, and we do not know the Spirit. We are in a deep state of ignorance. So we have a lot to learn.

The Elements

In an ancient scripture from Hinduism, we find a scripture that explains the elements for spiritual growth. This is in Taittirīya Upanishad which is a very ancient writing. This Upanishad states:

“From Atman did space come into being;

from space, air;

from air, fire;

from fire, the waters,

from the waters, the earth;

from the earth, plants;

from plants, food;

and from food, man...” - Taittirīya Upaniṣad

This ancient scripture outlines the unfolding of elements in the spiritual sense. Unfortunately, people read this in the literal, physical sense, and think that is its meaning. It does have some application to physical matter, and how matter is created literally and physically, but this not why the Upanishad was written. The Upanishads and the Vedas and the other scriptures of ancient religions were written for the growth of spirit, not the growth of physical matter.

From the spiritual point of view, physical matter is the lowest, most unimportant aspect of life. We need physical matter, and that is why we have physical bodies, but physical matter dies. Physical matter is impermanent and unreliable. So, scripture is not written for physical purposes, it is written for spiritual purposes.

This scripture explains that “from Atman did space come into being.” I explained to you that Atman is a Sanskrit word that literally translated means “self,” but it does not mean our terrestrial self. It means our spiritual self, what some people call our real self. We can say that it is our real Being. We can say that it is our Innermost, or in Christian terms, our inner Father. In Buddhist terms, it is our Yidam, our inner Buddha.

The space referred to here is not physical space. It is not the space outside of this planet. It is a psychological and spiritual space. This phrase, “from Atman did space come into being” is in the first few lines of the book of Genesis:

“And ארץ erets [“earth”] was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Ruach Elohim moved upon the face of the waters.” - Genesis 1:2

That formless and void is the Absolute, what in Hebrew is called the Ain, the Ain Soph, and the Ain Soph Aur. In Sanskrit terms, this is Sunyata. In Buddhist terms it is called Samantabhadra or Adi-Buddha. It is the level of beingness that is empty, ultimate, the repository of all potential. It is not nothing, but it is also not something. That is this “space.”

As it comes into being, it becomes what we call Akash in Sanskrit terms. Akash is the root vibration of the pure potentiality that is entering into manifestation. It is the root energy or root substance of everything. We can also call it mulaprakriti, the seed root of all things, the root energy.

From this space came air, from the air came fire, from the fire came the waters, and from the waters the earth.

Here we see the classic four elements; air, fire, water, and earth. Anyone who has studied philosophy knows about these four elements. We find them in every major tradition in the world. They were known in Babylonia, Chaldea, amongst the Greeks and Romans, amongst the ancient Chinese, the Taoists, amongst the Hindus, and the Buddhists. In every tradition in the world, these four elements have been described in varying ways.

Once again, humanity has made the foolish mistake of believing that these four elements are literal. So, our modern so-called “scientists” and “philosophers” read these ancient texts and laugh at the ancients, and say it is ridiculous that all the ancients thought that literally everything was made from physical air, from physical fire, from physical water. and physical earth. The fools are not the ancient philosophers. The fools are the modern ones who do not know how to read, who do not know how to understand what was written.

These four elements do not refer to physical elements. If you have studied the writings of Paracelsus, Aristotle, Plato, Lao-tzu, Krishna, Buddha, all of them talk about these four elements. They talk about them in every religion, but they are not talking about physical elements. They are talking about subtle energies, psychological, spiritual forces in nature, in everything, in every level from the Absolute down.

The space, the Absolute, comes into being. That is the manifestation. In the four worlds of Kabbalah, this is the movement from the world of Atziluth into Briah, where the archetypes move into creation. That process of creation is where the space becomes air, fire, water, earth; everything that exists emerges out of the space.

So, all the way at the top of the Tree of Life is the sephirah Kether, “the crown,” the Father of the the Father. Kether, the Ancient of Days, comes into being through air, fire, water, earth but at the level of Kether. It is in a very high dimension that is extremely subtle; physically, we cannot see it; it is in the seventh or zero dimension. From that root archetype, everything emerges and elaborates into different combinations of these four vibrations. Really, that is what they are.

This term “air” uses what we experience physically as air as an archetype, as an allegory, as a metaphor, as a way of understanding something that is not physical. What is the quality of air? Movement, something subtle, something not fixed and solid. So air in this scripture and all the ancient scriptures refers to a vibration of energy, a vibration of Prakriti that is very subtle and moves rapidly.

The elements represent qualities, not physical matter.

space represents expansiveness

air represents mobility

fire represents temperature

water represents fluidity

earth represents solidity

Fire has the quality of temperature: heat and cold. Air also has a temperature. It also has fluidity related to the waters. It also has the potential for solidity related to the earth. So we see these four elements really relate to qualities of matter and energy. Not literal air, not literal fire, not literal water and not literal earth but qualities.

Now you can better understand what was written:

“From Atman [Spirit] did Expansiveness come into being;

from Expansiveness, Mobility;

from Mobility, Temperature;

from Temperature, the Fluidity,

from the Fluidity, the Solidity...” - Taittirīya Upaniṣad

In this way we can understand that these four elements are just a deeper condensation of the three qualities [gunas] of Prakriti, which we talked about in a previous lecture. That primordial space when it emerges into manifestation does so with three descriptive attributes, which in Sanskrit are called gunas. The Triguna [three gunas] are three different attributes or qualities of matter and energy. As those descend and become more complicated, they become four. Those four descend and create all the worlds that exist.

Our Descent into Matter

So, where this affects us is in how we have come into being. Our inner consciousness, our true nature, enters into manifestation in the way that is described here.

At the ultimate root of our self is space. Inside that space is Atman, our true self. That is the Ain Soph, and what emerges out of that Ain Soph is a ray of light, the Ain Soph Aur or the ray of okidanokh, the ray of creation. It passes through that space. That space in Hinduism is called at the highest level Prakriti. At the highest level it becomes Akash. That Akash is space, which becomes “air, fire, water, earth.” These are the differentiating qualities of the consciousness as it enters into manifestation.

A long time ago, when that spark of light descended out of the Absolute, when our spark first came into matter for the first time, we did not come into matter as a human being; we came into matter as a simple spark of light that needed to learn, grow, and develop, so it starts at the lowest level: as a simple mineral element. We started at the bottom, as an elemental, a simple spark of consciousness in nature. Slowly, we developed through many aeons through the kingdoms of the elementals.

The Elemental Kingdoms

Minerals

Plants

Animals

“...from the earth, plants;

from plants, food [animals];

and from food [animals], man...” - Taittirīya Upaniṣad

Each kingdom has these four elements (air, fire, water, earth) developing as qualities. That is why the sparks that evolve there are called Elementals.

Gradually, while simple sparks in the mineral kingdom, we evolved, becoming more sophisticated, and eventually we began using plant bodies. After a long period of time where that consciousness was growing in the existence at the level of plants, we graduated and became animals, what here is called “food.” Really, all the elementals are food in the cycle of nature. Even we are food for nature.

Gradually, after many aeons of development, we became more knowledgeable and experienced with the inner relationship between consciousness, matter, and energy, so we then entered into the humanoid kingdom. That is, we are elementals who are in humanoid bodies. We are animals who have intellect. Now we find ourselves in a mess, because being in the humanoid kingdom for a while, we have made a lot of mistakes, and we have forgotten where we have come from. We have forgotten who we are. We need to learn.

The Fifth Element

Here are the five elements outlined in that scripture.

space: akash, vyom, shunya

air: vayu, marut, pavan

fire: tejas, Agni

water: apas, ap, jala

earth: prithvi, kshiti, bhūmi

Space is the first element to emerge out of the being. In Sanskrit it is called Akash, vyom, and Shunya, which related to Shunyata (the Absolute).

From space comes the air, which in Sanskrit is traditionally called vayu, but can also be called pavan or marut. We spoke in our lecture on Hanuman about Maruts, which are beings related to the air.

From the air comes the fire, tejas or agni.

From the fire comes the water, which is called apas, ap, or jalal in Sanskrit.

Finally there is the earth, which is traditionally called prithvi but can also be called kishti and bhumi. (It depends on the scripture that you are reading).

These are the five elements that we find in every religion. In many cases the lower four are specified, because the fifth is the secret. The lower four come from the Akash, space, but this element is usually left unexplained. It is called the fifth element because from the “earth” going upwards towards more subtlety, the akash is fifth. The fifth element is the one we need. In most written scriptures and documents about the secret tradition, the fifth is left undefined. The fifth is left unspoken. If we study the scriptures of Alchemy, for example, in the West we can find a lot written about these four elements, which some Alchemists, such as Paracelsus, even condensed as three. Yet, the fifth is always there, and we may talk about that in future lectures.

These five elements are not physical. We are not concerned with the physical aspects. They relate to physical matter. Obviously, our physical fire is a reflection of spiritual fire, but we are not concerned with the physical aspect; we need to be concerned with the spiritual.

Attributes of the Five Elements

We need to understand what these five symbolize.

space represents expansiveness

air represents mobility

fire represents temperature

water represents fluidity

earth represents solidity

Space represents the attributes of the Absolute. Psychologically and spiritually it represents expansiveness. If you have ever studied Chinese Taoism, it is all about the fifth element, space. The way of the Dao is the way of being expansive, all embracing, all awareness, all encompassing, nonreactive, capable of receiving anything and not being disturbed, because there is so much room in oneself.

Air symbolizes the psychological and spiritual quality of mobility, flexibility, movement.

Fire reflects the spiritual and psychological characteristic of temperature, our psychological temperature, our spiritual temperature. This relates with our temperament.

The fourth is water, which relates to fluidity, the ability to be spiritually and psychologically fluid or flexible.

Finally, the element earth is solidity, firmness, to have a strong conscious foundation, a powerful strength, willpower.

These five elements in any scripture symbolize these psychological and spiritual qualities that we need to develop and understand.

Of primary importance to us is how these elements relate with the nature of our consciousness, not our personality; not our mind either, but consciousness. This is where these five elements are most important: in qualities of consciousness. They do reflect into our qualities of our ego and personality, because the ego and personality are created through misuse of consciousness. Yet, since ego and personality are impermanent and not trustworthy, what we really need to grasp is how to utilize these five qualities with the free, awakened consciousness.

Mantric Value

When we study these five elements in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Gnosis, we find that there are many attributes related to them. So this graphic shows you these many attributes and they are all important and they have practical value.

However, we are not going to spend a lot of time on this graphic. If you want to study this in detail, read the book Tarot and Kabbalah by Samael Aun Weor. These attributes and relationships are really important, and they become more important to you the further you go along in your spiritual process. Briefly, what I want to point out on this chart is that every element also has a mantric value, a sound that stimulates that quality.

By working with mantra or vibration—conscious energy—these qualities can be developed, invoked, and nourished. Some mantras are related to all the elements, for example, the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, about which we gave an entire lecture.

For today’s lecture, the mantra of specific importance is related with the fifth element, the Akash or ether. That mantra is Ha. If you listened to the course that was given recently about the runes, you will remember the rune Hagal, a very ancient rune that is at the heart of every language. The Hagal is shaped as an X with a line through it. In other words, it is somewhat like a six pointed star. Interestingly, Hagal begins with the sound “Ha,” and if you put a circle around that rune Hagal, you make the esoteric sign of ether, the Akash.

The rune Hagal is the root creative force in all runes. From Hagal come all the runes. All the runes are hidden in the Hagal, in that shape. So you see, the “Ha” is the fifth element from which all the other elements come. Remember the scripture stated:

“From the space comes the air.”

So from the ether, Akash, comes the air, then the fire, then the water and then the earth. All of the other elements come out of Akash or ether, and that makes this vibration “Ha” the most important.

Tattvas and Spiritual Power

In Hinduism, these five elements are called tattvas. This word tattva means truth, thatness. The term is used to describe the fundamental forces at work throughout nature. There are innumerable forces at work, thus there are innumerable tattvas. For simplicity’s sake, we use this basic system of five tattvas.

All five tattvas are vibrations of the same root energy, but are differentiated by the quality of their movement. The earth, water, fire, and air all come from the Akash, the ether. They are just modifications of ether. Vayu, the air, is the mobility of ether. The earth or the Tattva Prithvi is the solidity of the ether, Akash.

This might seem theoretical or unimportant to you, but if you want to have any real impact in changing your life or helping to influence the lives of others, this will become the most important thing you know. Why is that?

Most everyone who wants to be spiritual wants to be a priest or a priestess. That is the goal: to be someone who has power. Where does the priest or priestess get their power? The ancient word for priest is “mag.” If you have ever heard of the three magi or the three kings (which is malachim in Hebrew), those were three priests. From mag we get the word magician. A priest or a magician is someone who knows how to work with the forces of nature, both outside and inside.

What was Moses? He was a great priest, a great magician. He commanded the water, the air, the fire and the earth. He commanded them outside of himself, literally, physically. What about Nicholas Flammel, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Galen, Hermes Trismegistus, Jesus of Nazareth, Krishna, Milarepa, Quetzalcoatl? They were all magicians, priests.

The power that they had and still have is derived from the tattvas, from these elements, not from anywhere else.

The power to command nature is the ability to conquer, command, and control these elements: akash, air, water, fire, and earth.

That begins not outside of oneself but inside. We have to first command these elements inside of ourselves, to control our own kingdom, our own earth. When we can command those forces in ourselves, then by the laws of nature we can also command them outside. The ancient axiom says:

“As above, so below.”

If you can control the forces here in your own earth physically, psychologically, spiritually, you can do it outside also. This is accomplished by understanding that these elements are not matter in the form we think matter exists, which is as dead matter.

Matter, Energy, and Consciousness

We have the very mistaken idea that matter is inert, lifeless, dead. We are wrong.

We observe a cup of water and we think it is dead matter, lifeless, lacking consciousness. We think the water and the cup are just a bunch of atoms, molecules, and minerals sitting there, and are nothing more. We are wrong.

Similarly, when we read any scripture, and we read about the elements, we think of physical elements, and that physical elements are dead matter. We are wrong.

Every atom in nature is a trinity of matter, energy, and consciousness.

Every atom in nature has matter. Every atom in nature has energy. Those we can verify easily. What we do not realize is that every atom also has consciousness.

Nowadays, fortunately—even though it may be too late—finally the scientists are beginning to recognize that this is a fact: that all atoms have consciousness. As they are performing experiments with quantum physics, they are discovering that the consciousness of the scientist affects the experiment. When the consciousness of the scientist is observing the behavior of a quanta of light, the light changes its behavior. If that quanta is not being observed, it behaves differently.

All atoms are like this. Every atom as consciousness at its level. All atoms have a spark of consciousness, an essence, just as we have. Obviously, the consciousness of an atom is not the same as the consciousness of a humanoid like us. Atoms are much simpler than we are because they are at the beginning of their manifestation, whereas the human organism is far more advanced than a simple atom of hydrogen. Yet, millennia ago, we were evolving at the level of atoms: as a spark of consciousness that was just beginning to develop. All the atoms here and now are like that: beginning a long process of evolution. Only a few will reach the level we are at now. Similarly, only a few of us will go beyond this level to higher levels.

Everything has consciousness at its own level. We can compare the consciousness of a humanoid to the consciousness of a hydrogen atom in the same way we can compare the physical body of a humanoid with the physical body of the sun. The scale is simply too huge to conceptualize accurately. Nonetheless, we need to understand this similitude, and that all atoms have consciousness.

All atoms have consciousness in relation to these elements, and not only the atoms, but all of the matter, all of the organisms, all living things. The magician, the priest, knows that, and knows how to use it.

When Milarepa was able to fly, how did he do it? He commanded the elements of the air, not only inside of himself, but outside of himself. When Moses parted the waters, how did he do that? He commanded the elementals of the waters. But, it was not the terrestrial body of Moses that did it. It was the Innermost of Moses, the spirit, the inner Being, the pneuma, the Ruach, that worked through the human part, the psyche.

Our consciousness enters into matter, into energy, to become that trinity, in order for that trinity to grow. Our purpose is to become a “god”—a being with power—filled with knowledge of how all things work. That knowledge should give rise to a great love for all beings. To be a magician, we need to learn how these five elements work in ourselves physically, psychologically, spiritually, and be able to control them and command them. This is not an easy task. This is a task that requires an enormous amount of self-knowledge and a lot of study and training. So, we are introducing these five elements to you so that you will understand how to start seeing them in yourself and in nature.

These five elements are living forces, not dead. They are not inert matter; they have consciousness inside of us and outside of us.

Even merely on the physical level, everything about us physically is a process of the interaction of these five elements. When we eat, drink, walk, talk, we are using energy, and all that energy has been made available to us through a process of transformation through our eating and drinking and breathing and through the energy of the consciousness that is active in our bodies.

All of that motion of energy inside of us—we do not do it consciously. We are not digesting our food consciously. We are not transferring to oxygen into the bloodstream consciously. We are not managing the forces and fluids in our glandular system, in our endocrine system, consciously. It is happening on its own. How? Well, we may have a lot of scientific explanations of what is happening in the matter, but as I explained, all matter is a trinity of matter, energy, and consciousness. So what about the consciousness of your stomach, the consciousness in your blood stream, in your heart, in your lungs, in your liver? There is consciousness there, but not your consciousness, because we are asleep, unaware of what the liver is doing right now; somebody is aware, but who? The elementals in the body. An uncountable number of monads serve us physically. Our physicality is constituted by atoms that are not as developed as we are, but who are growing and learning. They are in the process of growing and learning. These are atomic intelligences. If you want to know more about this, read the book Dayspring of Youth by M. The whole book is about this. Within us is a hugely complex and beautiful system that we all ignore.

Those atoms are related to the elements. Those atoms are intelligences in nature. Moreover, everything we eat and drink is related with elementals. When you eat a plant, you are eating the physical body of an elemental. You are killing it so that you can live; that is the plants role in nature, to die for you, so that you can live, so that you can grow. Are you using that well? Do you respect the plant? Are you grateful for the plant? Are you grateful to the animal? Do you express gratitude? Do you express that understanding and knowledge, consciously? Every single thing you eat and drink and breathe has consciousness, and you are killing it, and that you have to, and that is nature.

Spiritual Nourishment

All the elements we ingest and breathe in we incorporate, we transform, with the help of other elementals that are in our body. All of that effort is just to sustain our physical life. If we want spiritual life, we need to take that same phenomena of transformation to a another level.

The incorporation and transformation of energy is the basis of spiritual life. We know that the incorporation and transformation of energy is the basis of physical life; we can see that. We have to take in and transform energy everyday, all day, to stay alive. If you stop breathing, you will die. If you stop eating, you will die; if you stop drinking water, you will die.

Your spiritual life also requires nourishment. If you have no spiritual life now, if you are spiritually dead, it is because you have not been nourished. You need to know the nourishment that will grow your spiritual life.

What is that nourishment? It is to take the elements in consciously, and to transform them consciously. It is to be awake in everything you do. If you et consciously, not only do you nourish your body better, but you take in nourishment for your consciousness.

Even more specifically, there are certain sources of nourishment that are more potent in relation to the elements. But if you ingest them unconsciously, you will transform them unconsciously, resulting in nothing different from the rest of mechanical nature.

To bring into our spiritual health atoms related with the Akash or ether, we see on this chart the letters A.Z.F.; this is an Alchemical equation, three elements in harmony that relate to the trinity. These are three elements that relate to forces in nature that are transformed in one way, which is chaste sexuality, White Tantra, Alchemy. These are the basic three forces in nature, the three gunas, the three elements that here we are calling four but are transformed specifically through the retention and transformation, the transmutation, of sexual forces.

Related to the tattva of the air, we can ingest grape juice to get atoms of the vayu tattva to nourish our consciousness. In the physical juices of the grape are hidden spiritual atoms. These atoms are not only in grape juice, it is just a primary example that we utilize. There are other elements in nature that have those atoms.

Related to the fire, we can consciously ingest red meat; that is because in the physical matter of the red meat are spiritual atoms, and if you take them in consciously, you will nourish your spiritual growth and life with spiritual fire.

Furthermore, with apas or water, we can consciously ingest fish.

For atoms of Prithvi or earth, we can consciously ingest grains.

So we see here there are five types of food specified as sources of atoms related to the tattvas. It is not to say these should be the only foods you eat or that you have to eat them all. What this is saying is that related with these five elements, the most potent spiritual atoms related to these five elements are in these five foods.

Yes, we are calling sex a type of food, because if you use sexuality in the right way, it does not deplete you of your forces, rather, it gives you forces. Most people use sex to deplete themselves, to exhaust themselves, but that is not the right way. Upright sexuality or chaste sexuality utilizes sex in order to nourish to body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit, the soul.

In transmutation, spiritual atoms are absorbed physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The clue to do this is: every time you eat or drink or engage in any type of sexual activity, you should do it consciously, with full awareness of what you are doing, with full attentiveness, being there, present, and paying attention to what you are doing. Being conscious, present, here and now, is how you nourish the consciousness. If you are distracted, you are not feeding your consciousness.

So, you can just simply eat an apple, and if you eat it consciously, the atoms from that apple are transformed and nourish the consciousness as well as the body. But if you eat the apple while thinking of somethign else, like daydreaming or wandering in memories or fantasies, you only give the body a little nourishment, and nothing to the soul, the consciousness. It remains asleep.

To facilitate the nourishment you receive from being conscious, here and now, and to make it more powerful, you can use a sacred mantra, which is from Sanskrit, and which we spell Krim but is pronounced Kreem (“e” pronounced like the “e” in the word “tree”). Pronounce it mentally as you eat, drink, breathe, and have sex.

The mantra Krim is related to the Divine Mother Kali, who is “the destroyer.” When you use the mantra Krim, you are invoking the power of the Divine Mother to pulverize those elements, and separate the bad from the good, and to absorb the goodness in yourself consciously. This is how you nourish yourself consciously. This is on all levels: physically, spiritually.

We recommend that students try to have these elements in their diets—not necessarily everyday, but to at least try to incorporate them. You can also use the Pancatattva Ritual.

It is especially useful to use these resources when you are dealing with the particular tattvas that these foods are related to. For example, observe someone who has a lot of fire in their psychological temperament, who is a fiery person. If they eat a lot of red meat, they will become even more fiery. So, to reduce the intensity of their temperament, they should eat less meat. Similarly, a person who is very irritable or very listful should eat less red meat.

An airy type of person, who is very mobile, very swept about by life, can counter that by eating more grains. It will give them more solidity and firmness. It will help them settle down.

In this way we can see that there are subtle influences that we can work with in relation to these foods.

Nevertheless, all of us, without exception, need the elements of the akash that we derive from sexual transmutation, whether we are single or in a couple. This is the most important element we need.

Rituals of Priesthood

To become a magician (a priest or priestess), you need these forces in your body, in your atoms, because in order for you to command the forces of nature outside of you, first you have to be able to command them inside of you. We are going to talk about that in detail in a moment. The way it is accomplished is important for you to understand. These four elements in conjunction with Akash all have specific relationships psychologically, spiritually, with everything in life.

Any goal that you want to achieve will have a relationship with the tattvas. So if you have a goal to help someone, you can work with the tattvic, elemental forces in order to help that person. There are specific priestly activities, rituals of priesthood, that harness these forces. I will give you an example. Most people know about the catholic Mass. The function or purpose of the mass can be found in other religions but with different names and symbols. The exact same function with different words and different structures exists in Buddhism, in Hinduism, etc. In Buddhism, instead of taking what the Catholics and Christians call the Eucharist or the host, the Buddhist take tsok. In each religion, we find the “body” (wheat, rice, corn) and the “wine” (grape, barley, beer, etc). You can learn more about this in The Sacraments of the Gnostic Church.

In those rituals in every religion there are symbolic elements related to these tattvas. The tattva of the air is sometimes represented by grape juice or wine (it should be non-alcoholic, but in many traditions alcohol is used, unfortunately). The tattva of the fire can be represented literally by a fire, a candle, while in some traditions it is present as meat. The tattva of the water of course is usually given as water, and sometimes by fish. The grain in the west in the Eucharist is wheat (bread, wafers), while in Asia it is rice. The ancient Americans used corn (maize). In every case, these foods are symbolic in the rituals, but when properly consecrated, blessed, and ingested consciously, with great awareness and cognizance, they can have spiritual atoms of high value.

If you have participated in any religious tradition, you will find the same ritual elements, where the congregation will receive blessed food from the priest. That food is really symbolic, and if it properly blessed, it will convey spiritual atoms that have been blessed and consecrated through the consciousness of the priest. This is the important point.

The priest, the magician, is the one who consecrates that event, and through the purity of his or her psyche brings those divine forces into the foods. How can that priest do that unless they themselves are pure? They are the vehicle of the force. If the priest or priestess is a fornicator, they are incapable of delivering spiritual atoms to the congregation.

In the Bible, we see this established in very ancient times by Melchizedek who blessed wine and bread and gave it to Abraham. He was a priest to Abraham, and Abraham was a great magician. Jesus was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. That is how we got the Eucharist of today from Abraham, from Melchizedek, who got it from others. It is very ancient.

That is a symbolic ritual, in which spiritual atoms are brought in through these elements for the blessing of the congregation in order to give spiritual nourishment. That is the value of those sacraments. aWe gave a whole course about The Sacraments of the Gnostic Church. If you want to know more about this, you can read that. There are rituals you can perform yourself, on your own, and it is all explained in the course.

So the priest performing a ritual has to command the elementals. The atoms that are placed in that bread are brought there by “pygmies” and “gnomes.” We do not mean literal pygmies or gnomes in the physical world. We are talking about the consciousness of the elementals related to the tattva Prithvi. All the elements have consciousness, their conscious value. We need to know what they are and how to command them.

The Quintessence

Everything about us is derived from the elements, and the elements are derived from one source. To understand this, I want to read to you a quote from Paracelsus. Paracelsus is one of the greatest doctors this planet has ever seen, and is also a great alchemist, and is one of the teachers of Samael Aun Weor. Paracelsus wrote:

“The Magi in their wisdom asserted that all creatures might be brought to one unified substance, which substance they affirm may, by purifications and purgations, attain to so high a degree of subtlety, such divine nature and occult property, as to work wonderful results. For they considered that by returning to the earth, and by a supreme magical separation, a certain perfect substance would come forth, which is at length, by many industrious and prolonged preparations, exalted and raised up above the range of vegetable substances into mineral, above mineral into metallic, and above perfect metallic substances into a perpetual and divine Quintessence, including in itself the essence of all celestial and terrestrial creatures.” - Paracelsus, The Aurora of the Philosophers

In synthesis, when the descent of forces into nature occurs, in all of those forces remains the seed of their sources. In all of our atoms is a connection back to their roots in the Ain Soph. In other words, in every atom of earth, there is a connection back to Akash, which in turn connects back to the root of all things. The root of all things in that scripture was called Atman or the “self.”

Paracelsus was stating that it is possible through purification to return the creature back to that ultimate root and thereby acquire all the power of the magician. That root power, the perfection of that energy, is called quintessence. In English, we use this word quintessence a lot now, but its roots and true meaning come from Alchemy.

The Tree of Life

Here we see an image of the Tree of Life on a physical body. This represents us. We are a Tree of Life, physically, spiritually. Once again, it is not the physical component we are concerned with. We are really more concerned with the psychological, spiritual aspect, of how this Tree of Life functions in ourselves.

Every single portion of the Tree of Life is a combination of Tattvic elements in varying degrees of subtlety, and with all of the huge variety we see in all of existence. Everything about us is rooted in the elements, both in the positive, free, unconditioned consciousness, which is symbolized as the upper portion of the Tree of Life, and also in the conditioned consciousness that is symbolized in the lower portion, which we generally call “hell.”

Hell is our subconsciousness, unconsciousness, and infraconsciousness. We have our own hell. Hell is the blackness that we see when we look into our hearts and minds. It is what we see in our nightmares. It is all of those elements that surge and fill our psyche with desires that manipulate us and motivate us to perform all the mistaken actions that we perform physically, emotionally, and mentally. Hell is a condensation of elements, the five elements but through mistaken action. So we can see that hell is a karmic (“cause and effect”) condensation or crystallization of those elements. That is our ego. That is our karma.

So here we are, caught between two worlds.

It is possible to take that quintessence and perfect ourselves. On the other side, we see that which traps us. To become one with the quintessence and become the perfect magician, priest, or priestess, requires that our inner hell be purged, purified, destroyed, so that all the energy that is trapped there is liberated. That energy is what creates the quintessence. It is what liberates the forces that raise us up to heaven.

This is the essential foundation of spiritual growth. In order for our Innermost to grow, we have to free ourselves from our conditioned state, our state of ignorance. In other words, our pride traps the spiritual atoms of our Being. Our Being cannot grow because of our pride. For our being to grow, our pride must be destroyed so that those energies, those Tattvic forces, can be freed, and so that that consciousness can grow. If we do not free the consciousness trapped in pride, destroy pride and free the consciousness from crystallization, nature will do it for us, and natures way is very painful and very long.

This is what all religions have traditionally represented as hell. It is a process in which we are purified of pride, anger, lust, laziness, gluttony, greed, envy and all of the other discursive factors that cause us to behave in the wrong way. Nature will purify us, and we will not enjoy it. This is the law, and this is how nature functions. So our choice is to let nature do it and suffer, or to do it ourselves.

To do it ourselves requires that we learn the science. In this science, we analyze ourselves and appeal for divinity for help, but divinity will not make you feel good about it. Purification is not easy. To be purged of lust requires that you see the lust, that you confront it, and that you deal with it. If you avoid it, you cannot deal with it. We have to become conscious about everything about ourselves, and remove that which is impure. This is the only way to grow spiritually. If you ignore your anger or your pride or your envy, then you are in ignorance, and thus you are spiritually stagnant or dead, not growing, and maybe, even getting worse. Most likely, we are getting worse.

“The psychological “I,” the myself, does not become better with time and experience; on the contrary, it becomes more complicated, more difficult, more laborious.” - Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

Spiritual growth—the growth of our Innermost—comes through cognizance, knowledge, and that is knowledge of ourselves.

The Three Mother Letters

To understand that, we will back up one step and talk about how those forces work in us. I explained that Prakriti is that first root level of existence, raw matter that becomes differentiated into different forces. At the top level, it has a trinity, three aspects, that we talk about as Gunas or root forces in nature.

In Kabbalah, those root forces are called the three mother letters.

Aleph א is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and its shape is a trinity. It has all three forces in its self. It relates to air—not physical air, but the mobile quality of that root energy. It is highly mobile, flexible, and incorporable. It has the value of the number one.

The second mother letter is מ Mem, which relates with water, fluidity. It is the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It also has a trinity in its shape. It has a dot, a curve and a line. You see the three elements are starting to differentiate. Mem relates with water. To water in Hebrew you say mayim, which is spelled with two Mem’s and a Yod in the middle.

The third mother letter is ש Shin, which is also a trinity. Shin is related with fire, temperature, and is the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

It is stated in the kabbalistic book The Sepher Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) that these three mother letters were the first emergence, and from them came all the other letters. Again, the letters are not literal. The letters represent spiritual archetypes, forces in us, spiritually. The letters are runic symbols of archetypal spiritual aspects of the Being. These three letters represent the trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Air, water, and fire.

These three forces are behind all creation. Anytime there is a creation, there are three forces at work.

When we look at the Tree of Life we see these three forces at the very top. Aleph is with Kether. Shin is Chokmah. Mem is with Binah. These three forces or the trinity above express to create through Daath, which is the hidden sephiroth hidden below the upper trinity. That shape of Daath is the rune Hagal. The rune Hagal in Judaism and Hinduism is represented as a six-pointed star, two interlocked triangles. In other words, the upper triangle divides itself into a duality (two triangles), and unites with itself, forming Daath, Hagal, Shiva-Shakti, Yab-Yum, Elohim. From that comes everything else, all the letters, all the tattvas, all the forces in nature.

In us they create our inner trinity, our three brains. These three letters rule the three triangles of the Tree of Life spiritually and in us psychologically.

Aleph is related with the upper trinity, with our head, with our intellect. Aleph is the air. The mind, the intellect, is related with air.

Shin rules the second triangle of the Tree of Life, the triangle of ethics. Shin is related with our heart. Shin is fire. This is why we feel fire in our hearts; temperature is related with the heart; coldness and warmth. Some of us have a warm temperament; some of us have a cold temperament. It is related with the movement of shin in our hearts.

Finally, Mem, the water, rules the lower triangle, the triangle of priesthood, which relates with the motor/instinctive/sexual brain. Mem is related with water, and water is sexual. All creation comes out of the water. We create through sexual waters. Every universe, every sun, is born through sexual waters. Mem or mayim is in sex.

Here we see these three mother letters, spiritual archetypes working through us energetically in our three brains. The question then becomes, how do we use them? How do we use the powers of the air? Have you ever observed how your mind is very mobile, always darting around, and the thoughts just come and come like a great wind that you cannot stop? The intellect, the mind, is related with air.

The heart is related with shin, with fire, and here is were we feel the temperature that is always changing in us as we react to our circumstances. We feel the heat of anger in our heart. We feel the warmth of love in our heart. We feel the coldness of resentment. All emotions have a temperature.

In our bodies we feel the waters of sex boiling. Sometimes they are calm, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are icy and frozen. Other times they are a raging storm.

Purification

These basic elements function in our psychology, and we can learn about them through self-observation. What we need to understand is that for spiritual growth to occur, these elements are used to test us, to purify us.

Observe the three mother letters—Aleph, Shin and Mem: air, fire and water. What is the fourth element? Where is the earth? It is your body. So here you are, spiritually, psychologically, as the four elements incarnated;

your body: earth

your mind: air

your heart: fire

your waters: sex

Obviously, this is a simplification, because remember, all of the elements have the other elements within. We are just describing the basic flavors.

If you want spiritual growth, all four elements need to be purified so the quintessence can emerge.

How does it happen? Are you going to do it on your own? Can you do it on your own? If you observe your mind, and you observe the density and strength of your psychological tendencies, and you compare that to the strength of your free consciousness, you will quickly come to the realization that it is impossible to do it on your own. It is impossible, it cannot be done. It has never been done. You can only do it with the help of divnity within, with the help of the divine.

The one that showed us how to do it is David. In the myth of David, we see a young shepherd, powerless, with no training, no weapons, just a boy, but by circumstance he has to face and defeat the greatest warrior of the Philistine army, who is Goliath. The only thing David has to help him is his faith. Armored only with faith in divinity, he approaches is enemy and he picks up a stone, and kills Goliath with it, and then chops off his head.

That stone in Alchemy is called a Sophic Hydrolith. Sophic comes from Sophia, wisdom. Hydro is water. Lith is stone. So “the wise water stone.” The water is in your earth, in sexuality. So the Sophic hydrolith is sexual energy being utilized by Sophia, Christ. Wisdom is Chokmah. Wisdom is Christ. That trinity above will aid us by stimulating these elements in us so that we will see them for what they are. That is why those who begin to transmute their sexual forces, to work with the stone, which is centered in Yesod, the sexual energies, begin to receive ordeals, difficulties, psychological tests.

The Four Ordeals

Someone who is genuinely transmuting their sexual energy will also begin to face a lot of psychological difficulties, because this is how the work progresses. People enter into these types of studies and believe because of their training in pseudo-occultism that everything in the spiritual path is an ever-increasing ecstasy, and as soon as you become spiritual, life just becomes rosier and rosier. Spiritually, this is true, but psychologically it is not.

A genuine aspirant for full awakening has to face the entirety of their ego, all of it, step by step, and facing that is not something we do willingly. We do not want to face ourselves. We do not want to see how foolish we are, because we want to feel proud. We do not want to see that we are animals, psychologically. That we are beasts, filthy, we are not divine. We want our religion to tell us how divine we are. We want our spirituality to make us feel good. That is all lies. The truth is that we are dirty and we need cleansing. The cleansing comes from our own inner Being.

When we begin to transmute our sexual energy, we begin to nourish our spiritual growth, and the most important place that energy can be used is to clean us, not to give us experiences in the astral plane. We might get that from time to time, but that is not what is important. What is most important is that we become pure.

So our Innermost, our divinity, is the one who takes that energy to bring the ego up, to show the ego to us, so that we will face it and change. That comes through what we call the four ordeals. These four ordeals are related with these four elements. Do you get what I am explaining here?

When you transmute the sexual energy, you are transmuting Akash, the fifth element, and from that fifth element come the other four. When you transmute sexual energy, you give rise to the ordeals that you must face. Expect it. Don’t avoid ordeals. You need the ordeals. It is only through psychological tests that you will see what you are and be able to change. So you need to know how to use the four elements to your advantage in order to conquer the ordeals, to know how to face ordeals and overcome them. The four ordeals are related with the four elements.

The four ordeals, from Atalanta fugiens, by Michael Maier, 1618.

This image was crafted by an alchemist named Michael Maier. This image is four hundred years old. It shows the alchemist facing himself, one against four. Those four are the four elements. Who is the one? It is Akash, Ether, willpower, transmuted sexual energy. That is why he is raising the club over his head. That club is his will. It is the club of Heracles from the Greek mysteries. Heracles represents willpower, the Christic force, the Christic energy of willpower. That is how you overcome the four ordeals: christic, conscious willpower.

Each of these four is an element: one has fire, one has air, one has water and one has a stone, and they are all coming to get him, but they all are him. If you look closely at the drawing, you see that it is five of the same person. These drawings are of one man. You see, it is all the same person. He is facing himself. This is the psychology of Alchemy.

Our Being will give us these ordeals. We are going to describe them briefly so we can understand what to expect.

What are these ordeals? They are psychological tests, circumstances that cause your ego to be visible. Let me talk about what these ordeals are then we will talk about the specifics. Samael Aun Weor talked specifically about these ordeals in two of his books: The Revolution of Beelzebub, and The Perfect Matrimony. Any sincere student of Gnosis needs these books, and needs to study them deeply. They are very important. They are two books that he wrote first, and they set the foundation for everything else he wrote. So he wrote in The Revolution of Beelzebub:

“In the White Lodge, the four ordeals are given in order to examine the white disciple’s morals. For instance, in the ordeal of fire, the disciple is attacked by crowds of enemies who insult him. Instead of returning insults, the disciple offers love towards his enemies. This is how he triumphs in this ordeal, when, with serenity, he passes through the fire without being burned. {...} “Therefore, the four ordeals of earth, fire, water, and air are presented simply for the moral examination of the disciple. All of our defects and moral faults are precisely the negative aspects of the four elements of Nature, and we have to convert ourselves into kings and queens of it. “In the White Lodge, the four ordeals are accompanied by a verbal test in order to know what level of purification the disciple has reached. “All of these ordeals occur in the Astral plane. The prepared disciple, that is to say, the disciple who has spiritual maturity, brings the memory of all of this to the physical plane, just as if he would have had a dream.” - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub

When we begin to transmute our sexual energy, we begin to receive these types of ordeals, and we receive them at our level. The beginners receive them for beginners, at their level, so they can see their ego and be tested.

These ordeals continue throughout the entire path until you are finished. In the beginning, we face four symbolic ordeals that represent how each ordeal functions throughout the rest of the path. Those four symbolic ordeals occur in the astral plane. Most beginners do not remember these experiences.

Every initiate faces these ordeals throughout life, both in the astral plane, and in the physical plane. We have to face them physically because we create the ego physically. We have ego physically, here, now, therefore we need to deal with it here.

Ordeals get harder if we continually fail them. Ordeals also get harder as we succeed and go deeper into the ego. It is especially happens when we are failing ordeals constantly in the internal worlds, that those tests can happen physically. So if you have a dream related with one of these ordeals, and you fail, be prepared: the ordeal might come physically, too.

In every case, all ordeals are given to us in relation with our karma. We face our karma, our ego, through ordeals. This means that the ordeals I face will be determined by the content of my egos, and will be different from yours.

The Ordeal of Air

Ordeals of air are situations given to us by our Innermost Remember every ego is a consequence of and a stimulator of karmic consequences, of karmic circumstances. When we have attachments to things, when we depend on material things for our security, when we are attached to money or to people or things or environments or places or status we have egos created in relation with that circumstance. So in order to see that ego, that circumstance needs to be shaken by a wind, by the air, so that we will see it in ourselves. So in relation to air, initiates face ordeals related with the loss of what they love. You might find out that your company is going to be closed and you are going to lose your job and if you are going to lose your job, you can lose your house and everything else. That would be an ordeal of air. You can especially see this is an ordeal because you heard a rumor and your whole reaction is all in your head. It may not even be actually happening, but you hear the rumor, and you begin to think about it and your mind gets upset. The mind races; the mind is very airy, and that ordeal becomes quite intense. All of this in relation with the mind (air).

The reality is that we have a lot of conceptual or intellectual obstacles because what we perceive as our security or what we love is often just intellectual, just concepts in the mind. So in these ordeals we are being tested for our psychological mobility, our attachments, our capacity for withstanding adversity, and our detachment from material things. It is painful.

You can see this in dreams when you have dreams or visions of falling, or you are on the edge of a cliff, or you are on a very high place and you feel like you might fall, and you become afraid. You do not want to lose were you are or what you have. These types of dreams relate to this type of ordeal. How do you conquer an ordeal of air? With willpower. With remembrance of God. With the fifth element.

The Ordeal of Fire

In ordeals of fire, we will be attacked with fire, persecuted, we will be wronged, criticized, blocked or obstructed, betrayed, in order to rouse our anger, our passion, our emotion, our resentment. This ordeal tests our temperature, our sweetness and serenity. We all have our own flavor of fire in our psyche, different types of egos that are fiery.

In dreams, we can see big fires, flames, or the threat of being burnt, and all different forms. Also, criticism can come in the form of arrows and bullets in dreams. So if someone is shooting at you, that is criticism. Also, someone stealing your wallet or your I.D.: they are doing that to steal your image, to gossip about you, to criticize you, to spread negativity about you. That can also be an ordeal of fire. Remember, these ordeals can also happen physically.

The Ordeal of Water

The ordeal of water is where our circumstances change radically, and this tests our fluidity and adaptability. It also tests our altruism and philanthropy. The reason is that generally we consider our circumstances only in regards to our well-being, not others. The inclination of the water element is to give life. So, when we have an ordeal with water, it is usually in relation with our happiness for others, or our generosity, or lack thereof.

With this ordeal, we can have dreams of drowning, raging waves or seas, floods, we can be trapped out on the ocean or trapped out on a great water. You can also have dreams of rain. Rain specifically symbolizes karma is coming, something difficult and painful. If you dream of a big rain storm and you are getting soaked, you are going to suffer some kind of karmic scenario that will be painful. Yet, if you dream of having an umbrella, that can be your Being, or your psychological work, or some protection. So if you dream that you have an umbrella and the rain is around you and your are not getting wet, that means you have protection. That is a good dream.

The Ordeal of Earth

Ordeals of earth are where we are obstructed, have no way to proceed with our goals, we are restrained or weighed down. If you have had a dream were you cannot walk, you are trying to run but are so slow, you cannot get any speed, then you are weighed down, either by being asleep, or by attachments or by psychological habits, ways of seeing things that make you stuck, you cannot move the way you need to. That is an ordeal of earth.

Ordeals of earth test our solidity, perseverance, and ability to deal with inconveniences. Ordeals of earth can also be like where we feel like we are being crushed. So if we see in a dream that we are being crushed between giant rocks, or we are being buried alive, or somehow we are doing something in relation with a mountain or a cliff, these can be related with ordeals of earth. If you have a dream of an earthquake, and everything is changing, it is related with all your circumstances: everything is going to change. This is an ordeal related to change.

Astrological Influence

You can see that these four ordeals are difficult, not easy, but they also become a little more difficult for us depending on our astrological influences. We all have a personality that was born at a certain time and at a certain place, and because of that, that personality has influences in its formation, and also the body, because they were born at the same time. This was what I was talking about in the previous lecture I gave called The Perception of This Moment.

The astrological influences affect how we see things, and affect what we feel is our natural inclination, but really, it is just personality.

There are twelve signs in the zodiac, so there are four groups of three.

Air: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius

Fire: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius

Water: Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces

Earth: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn

Every astrological sign is related with an element.

Related with air are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Air signs have a tendency to behave in an airy way. They like air, mobility, movement, but it is also their weakness. An air sign tends to be highly mobile, thrives on change, and so in that sense they do not have much earth, fire, or water. It is hard for them to be fixed and firm, to be solid, to be consistent and when things are not changing, they get frustrated, because they want rapid change.

Fire signs are Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius; these have a great range of temperature. They tend to be hot, quite dynamic, and quick to move from cool to hot. They can get angry easily, but they can also cool easily. They tend towards the dramatic.

The water signs are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces; these are very fluid, but they have to do it “their way.” They like change if it is according to their taste and interest, but if they do not like it, they suffer a lot.

Finally, the earth signs are Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; they do not like change. They like things to be solid, fixed, decided, done, not changing. When things change, they struggle and suffer to adapt.

By understanding your astrological sign, you can start to understand how to deal better with ordeals.

Bear in mind that your astrological sign only corresponds to this lifetime, to this personality, to this body, not as much to the ego. The ego is much older than this body. We have made egos in this life, so those egos were made through the filter of this astrological influence, but the majority of our ego we made in many lives in which we had different astrological influences. So when you are studying yourself, do not look at everything as if it is astrological with your current astrological sign. You have to go deeper.

We need to understand how these elements function in us psychologically, how they work. These attributes are most important in our consciousness. Ordeals come to test these qualities in us. Ordeals come to test these qualities in us, to see how they manifest in us.

We have a lot of egos related with earth, that want things solid and decided, and we have a lot of egos related with fluidity, a lot related with temperature, and a lot related with mobility. Just because you are a Gemini (air) it does not mean that all your egos are airy; they are not. We all have egos related with all of the elements.

How to Conquer Ordeals

The way to conquer the ordeals is to use the other elements. If you are getting an ordeal of fire and your temperature is being tested, does any one have an idea what to do?

Audience: Use water.

Water, of course. So if you are getting hot, angry, you need to cool it, and you cool it by being fluid, with a consciousness that is flexible. That is an easy way to counteract the other elements: use the other elements against it.

Yet, if you really want to transform an ordeal completely, and never have to repeat it, you need to use the fifth element, the Akash, which is expansiveness, which is self-observation, self-remembering, the remembrance of the presence of God, and an attitude in the psyche that does not become identified with any of the other movements of energy or matter.

Be fully present and cognizant. In that state, if you receive criticism and gossip, if you are are really cognizant and conscious, the gossip will pass right through you, and will not disturb you at all. You will not react with fire, with anger, because you have that expansive quality in your consciousness in that moment. So that ordeal is seen as it is: nothing, just a modification of elements that arose and passed away. So in that way, you can pass ordeals easily. Even when your ego is reacting inside, you do not allow it to express itself or influence the situation. Thereafter, in meditation, you can dissect that ego and eliminate it.

The reason we fail ordeals is because we become identified, fascinated with the perspective of an ego, and we forget the perspective of the consciousness.

The Quintessence

This is really important, because the fifth element summaries everything about the work with consciousness.

In the Greek mysteries, the fifth element is symbolized with this curious sign, which looks like the upper part of an “S”. It is also where we get the number five. Do you see how that shape looks like a number five? It is the origin of how we write the number five. This is a very ancient sign. It also looks like a serpent.

In the Alchemists tradition, the fifth element is called the quintessence, from Latin quinta, quintus "fifth" + essentia (essence) "being, essence," an abstract noun formed in imitation of Greek ousia "being, essence," from ontos, einai "to be", from essent-, esse "to be".

So quintessence means “the beingness,” “the essence of a thing,” “the synthesis of a thing,” or its root, and comes from the Greek “ouisia” which means “being” or “essence” from “ontos” which means “to be” from “essi”, which means “to be”.

The fifth element is related with consciousness. Remember I explained earlier that the fifth element is related with Akash, ether, and it is that element that all the elements come from.

“ÆTHER, in esotericism, is the very quintessence of all possible energy, and it is certainly to this universal agent (composed of many agents) that all the manifestations of energy in the material, psychic and spiritual worlds are due.” - Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

This is what Paracelsus was pointing out. The potential to become a magi, a priest, a magician—in other words a Buddha, a master—is through the perfection of this Quintessence, the fifth element in ourselves. It is the root of everything; it is the synthesis of everything. Where is it in us? It is in everything in us, because every atom that we have comes from this quintessence, but is differentiated, it is not perfected. We need to work with it. Where is its root value, where do we find it? In every atom, of course, but specifically, we find it most concentrated in the sexual energy.

The mantra of the Akash is “Ha,” that rune Hagal. Here we see an image from Tibetan Buddhism, an image that was hidden in the Lu Kong, the ancient secret temple of the Dalai Lamas. The Lu Kong is a secret temple that was filled with paintings of Tantra. This image shows a yogi performing an exercise called pranayama, a Sanskrit word which means “to harness the wind.” That wind is not the wind of air, it is the wind of Akash. It is the “Ha,” the ether. Pranayama is an exercise to harness the Akash, the wind of Aleph, and the mantra for this is “Ha.” We see on this image that was hidden in Tibet two mantras. One is in the sky, which is the Tibetan letter “Ah,” and one at the mouth of the yogi, which is the Tibetan letter “Ha,” which is the same mantric value you find in Hinduism and the Greek mysteries and all the ancient mysteries around the world. The ether, the Akash, has the value “Ha,” the rune “Hagal.”

This yogi is transforming all of his forces to raise it in his spinal column. In other words, the Akash, the ether, which is prana, becomes kundalini. It is the same thing. The kundalini is the ultimate synthesis, the ultimate energy within all things, and when we work to transform sexual energy, we awaken kundalini, the power of the Divine Mother, who is Prakriti. Her name is Prakriti, that rises in the spinal column.

When we work with that energy, successively, through the process of our spiritual growth, we create what are called solar bodies. Instead of creating physically, outwardly, we begin to create inwardly, through Tantra, through a specific science where those energies are raised in us physically, vitally, emotionally, intellectually, and in our body of will, and we create solar bodies, not lunar bodies, solar. These are bodies created by the Akash in the fifth and sixth dimensions.

In other words, the kundalini begins to manifest those three forces in us through these bodies. We see here how these Hebrew letters are related with these bodies and those solar forces. That is a long work, but what that represents is the power of the magician.

This triangle Hod, Netzach, and Yesod is the triangle of magic. The magician is the one who has created those bodies, therefore created perfect vessels for the expression of the Akash. The Akash works through those four forces, through the four elements, through these bodies. The Akash works through Tiphereth, through the causal body of the Boddhisattva who commands the power of the air in the mental body, the power of the fire in the astral body, the power of the water in the vital body, and in the physical body.

All of that is kundalini raised and awakened and empowered. It is the power of Akash. To acquire that, you have to first conquer the elements in your psyche, and that is not easy.

Questions and Answers

Audience: You mentioned that these bodies that we create are solar bodies, not lunar bodies…

Instructor: What we have now are lunar bodies, because they are bodies that are created under the influence of the moon, physically and spiritually. The moon is the divine mother, Luna or Selene. Our physical bodies were created under the influence of the moon, as were the bodies of our mind and heart. Our psyche is a child of the moon. Those lunar bodies will be returned back to nature. We did not create them. In order to become immortal, you need immortal bodies, and those bodies are created by the sun, by Christ.

“All flesh [is] not the same flesh: but [there is] one [kind of] flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, [and] another of birds. [There are] also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial [is] one, and the [glory] of the terrestrial [is] another. [There is] one glory of the sun, and another glory of selene [the moon], and another glory of the stars: for [one] star differeth from [another] star in glory.” - Paul, from 1 Corinthians 15

That is why Jesus said we must be born again.

“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” - John 3:1-6

That spiritual birth is the creation of the Chariot of Ezekiel or the Merkabah of the Kabbalists, and that is this, the golden body of the solar man that is hidden in the Greek and Egyptian mysteries. It is the creation of what in Hinduism or in Buddhism is called the subtle body or the illusory body. That is a different type of body that exists in the internal worlds and which is immortal. It is a body of an angel. It is created through the highest and most perfect atoms that we have access to. The creation is not physical, it is internal. It is a long process. Someone who has that has developed a vehicle to be conscious in the internal worlds and to use that to further redeem themselves from their mistakes. So it is something that is not vague, but very real. It is something that you would experience if you had it.

Audience: In the book Tarot and Kabbalah, Jachin and Boaz and the four bodies of sin; is that related, is there a direct connection with all this?

Instructor: The four bodies of sin are the lunar bodies. It is the same thing. Those four bodies are the four lower sephiroth: the lunar mental body, lunar astral, lunar vital, lunar physical. Those are the “four bodies of sin,” because these are bodies through which we have created that which is called in Hebrew Rasha or Rah, “impurity, sin.”

The word for sin in Hebrew is Rah. The so-called “tree of knowledge of good and evil” from the Bible does not say “good and evil” in Hebrew, it says “purity and impurity,” and that impurity is Rah. So the four bodies of impurity are those four lunar vessels that we have infected with our ego. They were not that way when they were first made. We infected them with desire and made them sick, so we made them into bodies of impurity, through our mistakes.

Audience: So they are the same vessels?

Instructor: Yes. We have had lunar bodies since we have entered into manifestations. The ones that change are the vital and physical bodies, because we take new ones with each incarnation, but the mind-heart or astral-mental is the same one that you had when you were a plant, an animal, and a mineral. This is a lunar vessel that is given to us by the moon and taken away by the moon. So at some point, we need to redeem ourselves from that lunar aspect. It is a difficult work.

Audience: In the Taoist or Chinese Alchemy there is first the Wuchi, and Prakriti, then there are five elements being fire, metal, wood, earth, water. So does Wuchi make the sixth element? Are wood and metal different types of elements?

Instructor: So the question is about how Chinese Alchemy or Daoism breaks down the manifestation and expression of these images. In Daoist Alchemy if you study how it is laid out it is exactly the same as Kabbalah. It is only slightly different and it is mostly a psychological point of view, but it is expressed essential in the same way. The way we decided to explain it today is slightly simplified, because it is already a lot to understand. It is complicated. We are trying to present it in a way that we can use practically in our moment to moment work.

The reality is that the expression of the Absolute into manifestation is far more complicated, and there are many more levels. Chinese Alchemy or Daoism conceptualizes those complexities, but again it is a little out of context to go into all the details.

Audience: You mentioned Michael Maier in his Atalanta Fugiens; there is one of the plates shows there, they’ve got these screens and they are collecting the dew, the rose, and there are two Alchemists that are bringing out one of these into and you can see the dew coming into this vessel; and my understanding is that it is sexual Alchemy, but one of those sheets is in the form of a lozenge which is the quintessence. As I’ve read through whenever you see water in these images its, I’ve always understood it that you’re working in the astral. From what your saying here is that the water is very different. It is a very deferent different to that. Am I just misinterpreting?

Instructor: I have seen the images that you are referring too from Atalanta Fugiens and that same images is also in the Mutus Liber, where you see the couple gathering the dew and purifying the dew. That meaning of course is symbolic. It is related with sexual energy. It is also related with emotional energy. As I have explained, all of these elements are in all of the levels. Even in Kether, you find these in that level. So at every manifestation you find these elements have different correspondences according to that level. In every level of manifestation you find these elements.

Specifically, in relation with water or Mem, we see that its primary mode of expression is in the vital body—it is a sexual water, but at the same time, Mem, water, is emotional. Sex without emotion is dead. Sex is an emotional process. Emotion is what empowers it. So, Mem, water, is also emotional.

I mentioned in dreams that if you see a raging ocean, that can represent the churning of sexual waters in you, but it can also represent your emotions, and it could be both meanings simultaneously. You need to look into your circumstances to see how the dream should be interpreted. In that sense, we can see that mem is in Yesod related with the forces of the vital body, sexual forces, but that Mem is in the physical body, too. The physical body is mostly water, and that water is stimulated through all these forces. Likewise, in the astral body, as the emotional body, is very influenced by the tattva Apas, that watery element.

This is partly what the intellect struggles to grasp, is that symbols are multi-dimensional and multifaceted, and this is the beauty of Kabbalah: you cannot put a single definition to anything, because everything is interconnected and interpenetrating. So in order to understand your dreams, in order to understand Alchemy, in order to understand Kabbalah, in order to understand these symbols, you need the consciousness that has these qualities.

Especially intellectually, we want things to be very fixed and solid, because here in our physical bodies, in our earth, we want that. The mind that we have here in this earth (body), it wants solid definitions, for things to be either black or white. That is why today we love a politician, and then they make a mistake, and then we hate them. We do not understand that is just a human being and he is not perfect. We cannot stand that in-between place, and we are that way with everything. When we see a symbol, we want it to be one thing, and we do not want to grasp that it is more than one thing. So this is why these other elements can be important in our interpretation of things. Samael Aun Weor said a very useful thing about interpreting dreams. He said:

“The interpretation of symbols is very delicate. Symbols must be analyzed coldly without superstition, maliciousness, mistrust, pride, vanity, fanaticism, prejudgments, preconceptions, hatred, envy, greed, jealousy, etc. All of these factors belong to the “I.” “When the “I” interferes by translating and interpreting symbols, it then alters the meaning of the secret writing and the orientation which symbolically the Being wants to give us in relation with our own internal psychological state. “Interpretation must be tremendously analytical, highly scientific and essentially mystical. It is necessary to learn how to see and how to interpret in the absence of the loose cathexis, that is, the ego, the “myself.” “It is necessary to learn how to interpret the symbols of the great Nature and those of the bound cathexis in the absolute absence of the “I.” Nonetheless, self-criticism must be multiplied because when the “I” of the Gnostic believes that he knows a lot he then feels himself to be infallible, omniscient, and wise, he even supposes that he sees and interprets in the absence of the “I.” - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

Dreams should be analyzed without desire, with wanting a particular result. What he was saying is that we need to analyze our dreams from the point of view of Akash, with a totally open mind, without any preconceptions, but to see it for what it is, and use intuition. The same is true when we study Alchemy and we study those old paintings. There are levels and levels of meanings, especially in the genuine Alchemical writings and images. There are levels and levels and levels.

Audience: How should we breathe and guide the breath towards the spinal column?

Instructor: Well, there are specific techniques and breathing that we teach in this tradition. Especially in regards to harnessing sexual energy, we teach techniques called pranayama. Also runes, mantras, and other types of exercises to harness that energy, and they depend on the quality of breath that we have. We need a type of breathing that is very relaxed and is very cognizant or conscious.

Most importantly, in order to harness that energy and direct it, we need to be working on our psyche. We need to work on being here and now, and stopping harmful thoughts, feelings and actions. This is the most important way to redirect energy.

The truth is that we are so asleep, and we are so beginners that we cannot be trusted with the powers that are in the Akash. If we look at what we have already done with our energy, we have committed a lot of really harmful actions against ourselves and others. For that reason, depending on your karma and your situation, it is most likely that your Innermost—through the auspices of your Divine Mother—will snatch every atom that you manage to realize or purify. So if you manage to overcome an ordeal and free consciousness from an ego, your Divine Mother will immediately take the liberated energy so that you cannot abuse it. She knows that we are like little children in a kitchen filled with sharp knives. She has her eye on us, and she does not want us to get hurt or to hurt someone else. So my advice to students in the beginning is: learn the exercises, but keep your focus squarely on changing your behaviors physically and psychologically. Let your Divine Mother manage your spiritual energies. Let her take those forces and use them for your benefit, and pray to her in that regard, constantly; always pray to your Divine Mother, as she is the one who guides us along the path and leads us back to where we should be and beyond that.

So in the meantime learn the practices, learn the visualizations, mantras, and techniques so that you understand how they work, but keep your attention on working on your psychological defects.

Audience: How do matter, energy, and consciousness relate to affirming denying, conciliating or creator, preserver, destroyer?

Instructor: The interrelationship of the trinity in all its levels is expressed in the Tree of Life. So to understand how the upper trinity [creator, destroyer and sustainer] manifests in creation, look at the Tree of Life. The trinity is the expression of how the one law creates. So if we look at the shape of a triangle, we see three points. What is the most important part of that triangle? It is the space inside of it. Those three create definition. They establish a firmament, which was explained in a recent lecture. The way those three express and work changes through all the levels of manifestation. It is always different. We have three brains. We have three nervous systems. They relate to each other. To create sexually, we need the power of three—man, woman and sex. To have electricity, we have three aspects of that energy—positive, negative, or grounding, neutral. So in every case, we see the forces of three, but we would not be able to make a chart that connects force number one with force number one with force number one with force number one, because in all those cases, what is making that power possible is that empty space in the middle. It is the ether, the Akash, it is the Prakriti. Those three are one. Those three are none. They are empty, yet they are active as three. Moreover, each one acts as the three. Within Kether are Chokmah and Binah, etc. The three are always together.

In other words, instead of trying to connect the corners of each triangle to all the other corners of all the other triangles, look at what connects them all together, which is that space in the middle. It is the power of Akash. The intellectual connections between those corners are often not existent. Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not, but ultimately, it is more or less irrelevant to see the intellectual connections. What is relevant is to understand the principles that make it all work. That principle is not the three, it is what allows the three to create, destroy, and sustain.

In this case, however, let us realize that each of the three basic elements of an atom (matter, energy, and consciousness) can create, destroy, and sustain. In other words, all three are one, and each one can perform all three. Consciousness can create, destroy, and sustain. Energy can create, destroy, and sustain. Matter can create, destroy, and sustain. But for one to do it, it needs the other two.

Audience: Is it possible to have built the solar bodies and still be asleep and not know that we have done work in the past, or would be know we have these bodies by our dreams?

Instructor: So the question is how will we know if we have created solar bodies before, will we see some sign? Well, my question to you would be, if you woke up in a hospital bed having been in coma, how would you know what you did before, where you were, who you were, what type of life you had, who your family were. The answer is the same. You have to awaken, and you have to wake up and recapitulate your memory, in order to know if you created solar bodies before, or if you reached some level of development in a previous existence. You have to awaken. It is the only way to find out.

If some one comes into the hospital room and says, “You were really bad,” or “You were a king, you were a pharaoh.” Naturally, your pride will say, “I knew it, I suspected as much,” but honestly, you will not know if it is true. If you are lying there in your hospital bed and you dream that you are Tutankhamen and all your slaves are feeding you grapes, honey, and wine. You wake up in your hospital bed and you say, “I was Tutankhamen.” The reality is that you have no idea if it is true, because you are sick, delirious, comatose, in a hospital bed.

That is in our state spiritually. We are in a spiritual hospital. It is called Gnosis. We are all sick, spiritually. Near death, spiritually. There are doctors trying to help us. I am not a doctor, I am just a nurse. The doctors are the masters of the White Lodge. Your own being who is the doctor who can give you the medicine you need.

Your memory will be recovered as you work on yourself. As you are lying on your hospital bed and you are observing your psychological qualities, you are seeing what you were in the past, because what you were in the past created what you are now. Everything is cause and effect. If you are lying there asleep, with no intuition about anything, with no knowledge about anything, chances are you never did anything. Chances are you are no one, just like the rest of us.

Generally, that question comes up, “did we create the solar bodies in the past” because the ego is saying “Maybe I am better than everybody else, maybe I did it before.” That is pride. So, that is where you should work on yourself. Maybe you did the spiritual work before and created the bodies, but let me tell you something: if you did create the bodies in the past and now you are asleep, fallen, then you are actually worse than everyone else, because you had that development and you threw it away. So as to that pride that is looking to be better than others? You need to see that, and see that, actually, you are worse. So, be careful what you ask for, because you might find out that you are actually worse than others, not better.

Audience: How can we overcome spiritual lethargy or laziness that prevents us from working?

Instructor: The best antidote for spiritual or conscious lethargy is to try and comprehend the teachings based on your own experience. Look from a day to day experience at your suffering and the suffering of others, and look to see what causes it. You have to become convinced about karma. You have to become convinced. You also have to become convinced about the inevitability of death.

In other words, you need to start from the beginning. I have explained in many lectures now about the three levels of instruction that are given traditionally in Asian traditions but are also visible in the Western traditions. The first level for instruction in Classical Buddhism is in the Sutrayana level, and those are the two focuses that students go even for lifetimes: comprehending karma and comprehending the impermanence of the physical body, the inevitability of death. If you have a strong spiritual laziness, it is because you have not fully understood that you are going to die, and you do not know when and you do not know how, and you have no control over it.

If you really focus on that from moment to moment—the impermanence of the body and its weakness—and you combine that with how your behaviors and how the behaviors of others produce suffering, you will develop natural spiritual motivation, the recognition that you must change, and that change has to come from psychological changes in order to change the trajectory of your life. That is the antidote, and the way you empower that is where you can and how you can, applying the techniques.

Generally, people have spiritual laziness because they have not been able to use the techniques effectively, so they have not been able to get any fruit from them. People who do not meditate, do not meditate generally because they have not gotten anything out of it, or they did not learn how to get anything out of it. If you learn how to meditate properly, you will want to meditate because you will get fruit, you will get nourishment. It will help you. You will want it. The same way you want to eat a meal because you have hunger, you will have spiritual hunger that can only be satisfied by meditating. Until someone gives you that first bite of food and shows you how to eat it, you will never know its taste or its importance. So you have to learn how to practice.

Meditations, mantras, vowels, runes, and the other types of exercises all provide nourishment that strengthen our spiritual motivation. So you need all that. If you do not have it, find a way to learn. We have many books, we have many lectures, we have many courses, there are retreats, there are schools, there are many ways that you can acquire that type of training and you need that. If you feel that you need more spiritual motivation, that is motivation in itself. If you feel that you are spiritually lazy, you are recognizing what you need, which is nourishment.

Audience: Does the Innermost suffer in ego or is it just the ego?

Instructor: In hell, we only find those atoms of our consciousness that have been trapped through our mistaken behaviors, physically and psychologically. All those atoms of our consciousness belong to our Innermost, so by extension, our Innermost suffers because we are in hell. Anyone who has been a parent would suffer if that child was imprisoned or sick with a fatal illness. We would suffer. Our Divine Mother and our divine Innermost suffer in the same way, but far more profoundly for us, because we are their child and we are suffering in the consequences of our mistaken behaviors. We are trapped in our anger, pride and lust, and are suffering in the consequences of those actions. So our Innermost suffers in that way, not in hell, but suffering because we suffer.

Audience: How is the Akash related to time?

Instructor: There is no relationship between Akash and time. Akash emerges out of the Ain Soph, which is timeless. There is a progression of change, because things move and change, so from our point of view we could call that “time,” but in that place, it is timelessness. What we experience as time is strictly related with the third dimension, to physical matter. When you move out of that dimension, and you have your consciousness awake in the fourth, fifth, sixth and the zero dimensions, you find that there is no time there. It is an eternal moment, an eternal now, even though there is change. What I am explaining sounds conceptual but it is something that you can experience.

A simple example that illustrates that reality: If you have ever taken a nap for ten minutes and felt like you were out for hours. You lie down and you sleep and you have dreams and dreams and dreams and then you wake and think “I am late for work” or “I am late for this and that” but you look at your watch and it has only been ten or fifteen minutes. That is an illustration of that. There is no time there, and dreams happens just in the fifth dimension. The difference is even greater in the higher dimensions. In those realms, we can experience change and things happen, but it is not with that impression we have of time. The impression we have of time is produced by the physical brain in relation with the senses and the body.

Audience: Is the symbol for the quintessence a serpent?

Instructor: Yes the symbol for quintessence is a serpent, the Kundalini. It is the nahash.