If one does not feel love towards the esoteric work, it is impossible to make contact with Gnosticism. If there is no contact between this work and our life, then we obviously, are not working in it.
If we are content going to lectures, meetings and reading books, without working on the teachings, we will be unbalanced and useless. When a person does not work with the teachings that are given through the lectures and books, he will fail to understand the Gnostic work.
Let us remember the parable of the merchant and the pearl in the Bible. This merchant wanted the most precious pearl in the whole world, and once he found it, he had no means of acquiring it. So what did he do? He sold everything he had with the sole aim of getting it and finally he got it.
This esoteric work is similar to the precious pearl. In order to attain it, one has to abandon all kinds of secondary interests in life, leaving all that attracts us in this world to dedicate ourselves exclusively to the Great Work.
We have many psychological “I’s” that personify greed, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, and so on. All these diversionary elements pull us in different directions, heading towards their own selfish interests, having their own psychic energy directed toward this or that value. One must free his or her psychic energy from these various psychological “I’s.” If one can free this energy, one can direct their energy towards the precious pearl, which is the Gnostic work.
When one frees the energy that the psychological “I’s” have trapped, one takes out the energy from all our materialistic and egotistical interests, thereby freeing oneself.
In order to concentrate on only one thing, thereby performing the Gnostic Work precisely, one must extract this energy from all of the passions and desires that entrap us within this ego. By doing this, one obviously forms a union with the Work, thereby dedicating a fullness to the work on oneself, which, naturally, will lead us to radical transformation.
It is necessary for us to understand this point if we really want this radical transformation. Undoubtedly, having love for the esoteric work is a basic factor. To speak of love, we must be very precise in the analysis, so do not forget that I am exact in the investigation and demanding in the expression.
Love itself is an abstract word, so we must try to specify what it is that we call love.
Jesus the great Kabir said, “In loving one another you will be my disciples,” “Love God above all things,” “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
When people hear the word love, they feel something in their hearts, but this does not matter because they have their mentality imprisoned in a subjective state. They have not formed their thoughts objectively; they cannot understand the deep significance of the word love.
The phrase, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” could be translated as, “Be conscious of others and of yourself.” The phrase “Love God above all things” and “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” could be translated as, “Be conscious of the Divinity that exists in your inner self and love your neighbors’ inner divinity, as yourself.” We need to make ourselves conscious of what we call love. Love would then be translated as “consciousness.”
How can we love and understand our neighbors if we are not conscious of them?
In order to have love for our neighbors, we must understand them and make ourselves conscious of them. To enable us to be conscious of our neighbors we must first of all be conscious of ourselves, because if we are not conscious of ourselves, how can we understand them? So if we cannot understand them, what will be our behavior in relation to them? This is an important point.
In the Gnostic esoteric work, if we feel affection towards the work, but are without comprehension, the result will be nil. Therefore, comprehension is fundamental. When Jesus asked his disciples, “What kind of love do you feel for me?” well, we must understand what he was asking. There are three kinds of love. Firstly, the purely sexual love. Then, purely emotional love. Lastly, there is conscious love. We say that love is the law, but this law refers to conscious love.
Many people understand each other merely through the sexual aspect, and this is only sexual love. Other people have their love centered only in the emotional aspect. This love is full of bitterness, jealousy, and passions.
Unquestionably, only conscious love deserves our veneration, but for it to exist it is indispensable for us to work on ourselves. We need to eliminate the undesirable psychological elements within us. Thus it follows, if we do not work on ourselves successfully we will never know what conscious love is. How can anyone, purely emotive and full of passions, jealousy and suspicions, experience conscious love?
So to give birth to conscious love we must eliminate these elements. To learn how to understand one’s neighbors’ point of view and put oneself in his or her place is very difficult.
However, one who learns how to attain conscious love will then see his neighbors’ viewpoint, thereby understanding it.
The phrase, “Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you,” could be translated thus: “Become conscious of others and yourself.” So accordingly, if one does not put himself in his neighbors’ place he fails totally and will therefore neither love nor understand anybody. But in order to put ourselves in another’s place and understand their point of view, we must reject our self-esteem.
This “I” must be eliminated if we truly want to understand another’s point of view. Normally, nobody sees another’s point of view, because we all live so dominated by the “I” of self-esteem and are incapable of putting ourselves in their place.
Self-esteem
We are incapable of truly comprehending until we kill the “I” of self-esteem. This would be a big essential step forward. All these psychic elements personifying arrogance, intolerance and superiority must be destroyed in order for us to make progress towards awakening.
For example, arrogance makes us feel superior to other people. In reality, however, it only makes us behave like despots. An arrogant person can never feel Love for another. Therefore he cannot awaken. How can he, if he is arrogant? What can we say about the “I” of superiority? Why do we feel so superior, high and mighty, so important in front of others. Why, when we are in fact only miserable worms in the mud of the earth.
Superiority is another obstacle to awakening. Superiority breeds intolerance, and intolerance breeds criticism. The critic sees many defects in others and fails to see any in himself. He is therefore blind to his own faults. So it is obvious that only when one puts oneself in another’s place, and sees with their point of view, can the individual develop and learn tolerance towards others. The result of tolerance is then the disappearance and eradication of criticism.
Therefore, it is essential to learn how to place ourselves in other points of view. We criticize a person who has robbed, but can we be sure we have never stolen from another? Can we honestly say we have never committed a theft?
Somebody commits adultery, and we criticize again. How can we be sure that never in our life we have not done the same thing? Then again, we see someone guilty of a particular defect, and criticize once more. How can we be certain that we also are not guilty of the same defect?
However, when one develops tolerance, the destructive criticism within us disappears and the Psychological and destructive “I” is destroyed. So this is what we need to do.
Develop tolerance within, allowing the natural annihilation of intolerance to eventuate.
As tolerance develops, intolerance is destroyed. This is very clear in the most complete sense of the word. If for just an instant we could exchange our personality with our neighbor, we would be amazed to discover just how much we criticize him. Then with the experience of changed personalities we would learn not to criticize.
It is indispensable for us to place ourselves in others’ viewpoints. Unfortunately though, people do not know how to see, they don’t want to see another’s point of view. So naturally they fail lamentably.
Consciousness means love. Love and consciousness are two parts of the same thing. If you were really conscious of yourself you would be conscious of others. Therefore, if we torture others, we torture ourselves. We may be unconscious but still, sooner or later, we will be tortured in return. This is a vicious circle.
You must see all those aspects if you want to realize advances in the level of Being. When someone comes to the Gnostic esoteric work, there is a rightful difference between our past values and the work that must be realized.
As I have told you there exists multiple interests in ourselves. They are multiple psychological “I’s” pointing towards economic, political and passionate interests.
They are obstacles not allowing fullness to the Gnostic esoteric work. One phase must be passed so we can go into another. Everything in this world must be abandoned in order to dedicate ourselves completely to the esoteric work.
Unfortunately people, usually the students, linger lengthily between the past and the future. Between the past values and the Gnostic work. This makes the work vague and incoherent, giving it no completeness.
The conclusion is that people lose a lot of time. Of course, there are people who resign themselves to leaving the past behind in order to attain the precious pearl. It is obvious they have made a transvaluation in their lives.
A transvaluation is needed in order for us to dedicate ourselves with great intensity to the serious work on ourselves. What should we understand by a transvaluation? What does it mean? It allows total comprehension, permitting us to see that all economic and political interests are useless and vain. For the work on ourselves is more important than anything. A transvaluation can bring us to leave egotistical interests and dedicate ourselves with fullness to the transcendental Gnostic Work. So the Buddhist Annihilation is fundamental.
Theosophists have great fear of the word “annihilation.” It is said here and all over the universe that the Buddhist Annihilation is very painful. However, we must pass through this annihilation. Actually, we do not have to fear death, but unfortunately people fear to die and are unconsciously resistant to this teaching.
You who are reading this, are you sure at this moment you are not putting up any resistance to my explanation on the Esoteric Work? Have not some of you been bored? Have you not been yawning? Do you not feel the knowledge has become very arid?
If I began to speak instead of the football pools or something else, maybe how to make your economic situation better or how to be successful in love, I am sure you would not be yawning or bored, but to refer directly to the work on yourself which we call the “Buddhist Annihilation,” deep within you there is a resistance. Why? Because the ego does not want to discontinue its existence in any form whatsoever.
The ego rejects this type of teaching because it goes against its very existence. Are there any of you who want to discontinue existing? Do you want to exist here and beyond there?
Some of you would say, “Well, I do not want to exist in this world, I would like to die!” But, you say it with such shallowness and pain simply because you are longing to live in the superior worlds in a better situation, don’t you?
Why do the clergy have such a large following? Because they do not give the doctrine of Buddhist Annihilation to their followers. They only offer heaven through some means of payment, giving a sort of passport to a comfortable life in the beyond, with complete enjoyment.
For example, if a widow leaves a fortune to the church they give her a passport to heaven. Or an individual, maybe a criminal, by confessing to the priest, he thinks he gets a passport to heaven. If the widow then leaves a further fortune to the church before dying, according to the priest, she will go straight up to heaven, without having to pass anywhere near Purgatory. After all, attractions are what people like because the ego does not want anyone to put a gun in its chest.
I receive many letters from Central and South America asking me for initiations, powers, chakras, social positions, economic positions, etc., but seldom in this life have I received any letters asking about the dissolution of the ego. Everyone demands powers, degrees, money, etc., but much to my dismay I receive no letters from anyone who wants to work with totality on the death of the self. Yes sir, to die, not to live; it seems everyone, even black magicians, wants to live, to be a great person, powerful without the trouble of dying. It is only the dying that can bring up the new. For, “if the germ does not die, the plant will not grow,” and you do not want to understand this point.
Some people complain in their letters that they still cannot go out into the Astral World. They want to be illuminated but still they do not receive messages from the superior worlds and so on. They do not want to realize that illumination cannot be reached without having previously liberated the consciousness. They do not want to realize that the consciousness can never be liberated without having previously destroyed the ego.
They want to be illuminated yet they do not want to die. What use are these other occult schools that do not teach the death of the ego? Illumination and freedom cannot come unless you kill the ego, and if one does not die in oneself, he is wasting his time miserably. To die in oneself, one has to love the work, to feel the effect, to have affection for it.
The consciousness is bottled up in the ego, and the different psychological “I’s” form the “I-self,” “myself.” Therefore, its progress is in accordance with its own condition, so while one has one’s consciousness inserted in the ego it is abnormal. He has then, an abnormal psyche.
We constantly hear of cases of people being taken by extraterrestrial beings and carried away in space ships to be examined, to later on be returned to the planet from which they were taken. It is obvious that these great spacecraft come from other worlds. Why do they take some of us up and put us in their laboratories?
The answer is so simple. You are creatures that have your psyche in an abnormal state. You are not normal people. You are creatures of a psyche which is very, very strange, living in a somnambulistic state. This is the reason why they are examined in their laboratories. The extraterrestrials’ attention is drawn to the abnormal people of this world. This is the harsh reality.
In the archaic times of our world the psyche of the “three brained biped” was normal and the human was as one with other worlds. Unfortunately though, after the annihilation of the abominable kundabuffer organ, given to humanity for the purpose of solidifying the crust of the earth, the human psyche became abnormal.
The consequence of the abominable organ that remained among the five centers of the human machine is what we now call the ego. The consciousness inserted into the ego began then to work in an abnormal state. Now, unfortunately, this abnormality is complete.
Our purpose is to create normal creatures, to take them out of the abnormal psychic state that they are now in and look at the diverse deformities within them.
One of the abnormalities that we have is “intolerance.” After all, it is serious to see another’s defects when we have greater ones ourselves.
The criticism upon our neighbors’ attitudes, thoughts, or projects, without previous evidence, is abnormal. Why, when one sees in his neighbor such or such attitudes, should judgment be thrown upon them? The facts in themselves can only be understood when they are examined with the sense of psychological self-observation. After all, how can we understand facts in an integral form?
As we advance along this path we realize that humans are abnormal, what so and so said that so and so said is gossip, and this is only known in our world Earth. This is normal only in a world where the people are abnormal. Gossip among normal people does not exist.
We have observed how the mind reacts to other minds. For example, observe how when someone says something to another, the other reacts violently, resulting in feeling hurt and insulted. All this is abnormal. In an advanced world in space, if someone has something to say to another, the other keeps silent. He does not argue or feel insulted. This is because everyone has the freedom of speech.
On a certain occasion I was speaking (about thirty years ago) in the superior worlds with the Angel Anael about a determinate quality I believed that I possessed, which in fact I did not possess. Anael, after some observation made me see my mistake, with a just reason. However, I was still accustomed to arguing like the present humanoid, and so I made some objections to Him, appealing to Him, using all the dialects that I had. Anael continued listening, then just turned His back to me and went on His way. He did not say another word, having said all that he wanted and allowing me to do the same. Yet I had said so many things to him and he kept respectfully silent, listening with kindness to all that I said before going on his way.
On another occasion in the superior worlds, I was speaking to Sivananda who had recently died. I remember that I was attending a conference and giving a speech. I was speaking in the Secret Secretorum about Tantra and about the alchemist laboratory. We were suddenly visited by Sivananda, who said, “Don’t you see that you are vulgarizing the knowledge? If we were given the key to Alchemy, we were given it knowing that we should never vulgarize this sacred knowledge!”
When we started to discuss it I said to him, “I am ready to answer all your questions.” Now Sivananda, even though a human being, had very good sense. He sat down in eastern style and went into deep meditation. A little while later I felt that somebody was scratching my head from the inside. When I looked into my head, I saw this yogi there in profound meditation. When he finished his meditation, he stood up and said, “Now I understand the message you are giving to humanity, and I agree with you Samael. I will advise the people to read your books because now I understand all that you are doing.”
I embraced him saying, “I also hold you in high esteem, Sivananda.” Of course he is a human being, but he is more judicious than others, at least having the aptitudes of not being a human being, and also possessing extraordinary mystical abilities.
My dear brothers and sisters, one becomes comprehensive when one dissolves the ego, that is obvious. To learn how to see another’s point of view, to become tolerant, making the destructive critic disappear, is essential. One becomes normal when one destroys the ego, and begins to act in a different way, completely distinct from others. However, to see how one reacts to another is something that causes us pain. We see this only in our world where there are abnormal psyches. Where there are normal psyches, these kind of reactions are non-existent, so reflect and think.
Love the Great Work. If you do not work on yourself you will never comprehend and if you do not love the work you will never work on yourself. If you really do not get to love the work, and do not live your life in relationship to the work, you will, in reality, never comprehend.
The instructor only wants you to pass through the Buddhist Annihilation and awaken consciousness, because as long as you do not do this, you’re really doing very poorly. If you ask me, “How am I doing in my own work”? I would say, “Very badly.” Why? Simply because I see that you are very much alive, and that is grave, because when one is alive he cannot understand others. He cannot do any real authentic investigation. He is still in the world of the interchanges of subjective opinions and the concepts he emits are incoherent and not exact.
Would you therefore believe that you, as you are, “very much alive,” will reach Nirvana? Obviously not. Heaven is Nirvana. As the Buddhists have said, “Nirvana is the dissolution of the “I.”” That is fundamental.
I cannot over emphasize to you the importance of the Work. I advise you to dissolve the “I’s” of self-esteem and the other “I’s” that we call intolerance, self-importance and arrogance.
How can we feel ourselves to be important? None of us are important. Arrogance, intolerance and self-importance are obstacles to loving your neighbors. It is indispensable to eliminate the purely emotional Love and to replace it with conscious love. And although I am sure that I am boring you with such repetition, I must say to you again that we must learn to Love our neighbors. We will not Love them if we do not understand them and we will not understand them if we do not make ourselves conscious of them. Then lastly, we will not make ourselves conscious of ourselves if we do not become conscious of our neighbors. We must eliminate these “I’s” that I have spoken of here: self-esteem, arrogance, intolerance, etc.
To disintegrate all these defects you must also disintegrate self-esteem, because we are not important. Not even my person is important. Even as President of the Gnostic Movement I am not important. I consider myself a vile worm in the mud of the earth’s surface and that is all. I do not think, or want to think of myself as more important than you are. I am just your servant, your humble servant.
While we have a sense of self-esteem, we walk the path of error.
Samael Aun Weor
