The Living Scripture of Nature

Listen to this lecture. 

The inspiration for this talk came from a reflection on the book of Samael Aun Weor, Revolution of Beelzebub.

I hope in this talk to delve into the themes of recapitulation, or repetition, within nature and the cosmos. And to learn more to look to nature for teachings on how our world is structured, and therefore how our consciousness is structured, and find inspiration for awakening.

The book Revolution of Beelzebub takes us through the epochs of existence. Epoch from Greek roots meaning “cessation”, “fixed point”, or “to pause”.  The epoch is the cycle of existence, marked by each pause or cessation when existence withdraws into the Absolute.

In this book we learn about the nature of the different epochs of a forgotten history, and through that the important teaching of recapitulation. Recapitulation, which is like a review or restatement of a previous occurrence, happens for the individual soul moving through successive existences, as well as worlds passing through the great Cosmic Days and Nights. 

All things ebb and flow

All things are repeated, on higher and lower levels. Nothing is made from scratch, there is a particular design latent within everything, which is born, grows, matures, ages, dies, and is reborn. From the seed of a tree, to a human, to a world, to a universe.

The cycles of the moon and Sun, the ocean tides, the rhythms of all our body functions operate according to the law of ebb and flow. And there is the ebb and flow in the emergence and decline of entire worlds. We can learn about the creation of a world from the patterns of nature in a single day. The wisdom of the divine Mother Nature contains all the secret teachings of the universe.

The Epochs

Our world developed through the epochs, or cosmic days and nights known in Sanskrit as (maha) manvantaras and (maha) pralayas. Each epoch, age, or round, links to the one previous and before, recapitulating the experiences to generate the matrix of knowledge and experience for the next level of existence of humanity.

Just like when we wake up refreshed in the morning, we take what we experienced from the previous day plus what we learned into the new day. In ancient previous cosmic days the Earth existed in the superior, rarified dimensions. In ancient previous cosmic nights the Earth was only a seed in the mind of God, and was reborn into the subsequent level of density of creation. The starting point of the creation of our world or universe was in the Mental Plane, known as the Saturnian epoch. 

Samael writes in Revolution of Beelzebub:

“These human beings of the epoch of Saturn were Human… true Humans, because they had a Being, and they knew that this Being was within them.”

Within our own psychology is the memory of these past epochs. Somewhere within us we remember existences as human beings in the Mental plane, and our lives now as somewhat of a repetition of these ancient times. After that Saturnian Root Race had fulfilled its process with the 7 sub-races, creation was enveloped into the Cosmic Night for a repose. 

Creation was born again from that seed into the next epoch, the Solar Round, with the blueprint of karma from the previous round that needed to be played out. This process continued through the Solar round in the Astral plane, the Lunar round in the Etheric plane, and the current Terrestrial round in the Physical plane.

The Lunar Round

The Lunar Round was the epoch before this Terrestrial Period. Matter existed only in the etheric realm, but the great plan of creation was always toward the physical. 

The physical plane is the spiritual nadir within creation, but a necessary point to reach before the process of gradually returning to the more rarified dimensions. In the chapter ‘The Lunar Period’ in Revolution of Beelzebub, Samael Aun Weor notes something very interesting about this time: the pentagrams on the altars were pointed downward, indicating the spiritual direction, the will of God, was directed toward matter.

The pentagram is a complex symbol, but in its essence it depicts the four elements of matter with the fifth element of spirit pointing upward toward the divine. In our current state of saturation in the material an upright pentagram is necessary to orient us toward the spirit. When a pentagram is upside down now it is negative because it is about a complete commitment to materialism, intellectualism, and atheism, which can ultimately lead to a kind of cynical nihilism and hopelessness. 

The problem with these outlooks is a reliance on the mind, which is limited and temporal, over the consciousness and the Being, which are infinite and eternal. In the Lunar period the leaves of trees drooped downward like umbrellas, as written in Nature’s living scripture, and this process of development was necessary.

From Revolution of Beelzebub:

“The flora and fauna of that time were very different from our own. Here we clairvoyantly see plant-minerals—that is to say, semi-plants, semi-minerals, semi-animal plants, etc. In other words, the three kingdoms of Nature were not completely defined as in the present time, since in that epoch one kingdom was integrated with the other. Among the trees there was the marked tendency for the branches and leaves to make a concave shape, which caused them to resemble gigantic umbrellas. Through all existent things, this marked tendency of inclining downwards was Nature’s living scripture foreseen everywhere. Its process downwards was towards the condensation of our present physical Earth. Nature is a living scripture everywhere; therefore, its designs are written based on this living scripture.”

Scripture

There was a time when writing itself was a sacred act, a rare skill someone might dedicate their lives to as a scribe. In gnosis we have as our Bible the Pistis Sophia, a gnostic or apocryphal scripture containing the teachings of Christ to his disciples after his resurrection and ascension. 

Each disciple is an archetype, a representative part of our own Being. These different parts interact with Christ, they respond to each of his teachings from the Old testament psalms and teachings of the Absolute. This book has tremendous depth and must be meditated and reflected upon. Each part of the Being has its role and function, which is realized and perfected in relation to Christ. Like the planets rotating around the Sun, receiving the light and life of the Sun, and also expressing various qualities and facets of Being.

The scribes in the Pistis Sophia are Matthew, Thomas, and Philip. Therefore, there are parts of the Being dedicated to recording, organizing, and comprehending the teachings, and internal revelations of the path. To record, to inscribe the teachings of a master, of the Being, is to generate the tradition, the chain of compassion, the dharma, of passing the teachings to the next generations. To write, record, organize and pass along sacred teachings is a sacred act itself.

What is nature?

Potentiality, chaos, substrate. These are all attributes of the Divine Mother, but particularly Divine Mother Nature. Divine Mother Nature is related to memory; we have that part of our Being called the Maiden of the Memories that can be invoked to help us in our dream work. (Written about in Occult Medicine and Practical Magic)

The inscription of all that has happened is written in nature, also known as the Akashic Records. As a gnostic, we respect nature, we honor nature, we strive to live in harmony with nature, but we do not exclusively worship nature. 

We know we are a born of nature with the potential to be born in God. We are always moving from potentiality into actuality. Pure potential, pure nature is essentially chaos. Actuality, or manifestation, is necessary in order to realize that potential. And actuality is impossible without potential, which is why we cannot do the work without our Divine Mother. 

While we honor Divine Mother Nature, and our physical bodies, and we obey the laws of nature, we do not enslave ourselves to nature. The teaching of the four ways illustrates this beautifully. In order to not be a slave to nature it is necessary to conquer the cravings of the body, the negative emotions, and the mind itself. 

The gnostic path integrates the disciplines of body, mind, and emotion which have historically been 3 separate paths to overcome nature and realize the spirit. These 3 disciplines are integrated most profoundly within the act of sexual alchemy. The gnostic work is about intelligently, wisely, using nature to build something spiritual within ourselves. To bring about the self-realization of the Being, which is a massive project. That is why it is called the Magnum Opus, the Great Work. 

The most fundamental aspect of nature is sex. Sex is natural, and in normal life sex is used in a so-called normal way, with an externalization of the energies. As time goes on with this externalization, what is considered normal becomes more entrenched in the mechanical aspects of nature and less conducive to spirit.

Honoring the sexual energy and recognizing it as sacred is not unnatural. It is a higher order of nature that is taught within the natural world if we pay attention. We are building a cathedral within ourselves, a beautiful edifice in line with the cardinal points, full of art, music, sculptures, stained glass windows, incense etc. Where the parts of the Being can gather and be reunited in the Father. How do we build an internal cathedral? With the divine sexual energy, transmuted, purified, and elevated.

Akashic Records

The Akashic records are the eternal memories of nature, the hidden records of all that has happened in creation.

Cosmic Teachings of a Lama: The Akashic Records

“Any deductive or inductive logical system invites us to comprehend that the whole history of the Earth and of its Root Races could not have been lost. The Hindu sages frequently state in their books to us about that which we can indeed denominate Akash, the causa causorum of the Ether of science…This Akashic substance is the same omnipresent and omni-penetrating Okidanokh, which fills the whole infinite space…

All of the cosmic concentrations from the infinite space are the mathematical outcome of the multiple crystallizations of the omnipresent Okidanokh…It is written within old archaic documents that when the human beings were still in possession of that sight which is called “Olooesteskhniana vision” (the open Eye of Dangma), then they could correctly perceive all of the cosmic concentrations from starry space. Hence, the human beings knew how to read the Akashic records of Nature. In those forgone times, nobody ignored the memories of creation.

However, when the human beings abused sex, when they ate from the tree of the science of good and evil, their terrestrial visual organ progressively degenerated, thus converting them into that which is called a common and current “Koritesnokhniano,” one who has eyes that only see the tri-dimensional world of Euclid. Nevertheless, upon the face of the earth there still exist some Mahatmas who can study the memories of Nature within the records of the omnipresent Okidanokh. Any event leaves its living photograph within the Akash. It is obvious that all of our former lives are within those mysterious cosmic records.”

Nature’s living scripture

Just like written scriptures, teachings exist at different levels- exoteric and esoteric. Exoteric- how to live life, how to use our energies intelligently to preserve life. Cooperation with nature, living simply, existing in community and family.

An example of an exoteric teaching of nature is how waste products generate soil for new growth. Humans wisely observing this in nature can use waste or compost products to create rich soil, grow food, and build their society, whether small or large. Nature also contains esoteric teachings- how to walk the path, how to use our energies intelligently for the inner work. We may see that everything in nature dies, but is reborn anew. That we must die within ourselves, let go of what is rigid, stuck, selfish, and let it compost so that the spirit can be born, little by little.

Walking the path requires conscious cooperation with our inner Being and Divine Mother. The higher teachings of our inner Being are written in nature.

It is necessary to live in a way where the Being is center and everything else radiates from that. 

The Being is our center of gravity whether we remember or not. When we forget the Being then we drift to the external and start to look for external solutions to problems that can only be solved internally. When we remember the Being we find that simple and pure happiness. We are not as swayed by the temptations and pitfalls of external life. Anyone who has been in gnosis for any length of time knows that being completely detached from life is cold and robotic and is not the way to walk the path either. 

The key is to relax, be in the present moment, remember the Being, and have faith, because truly we do not know what the next moment will bring, only God knows. Our world now is materialized. In Revolution of Bel we see that this world has descended into the most dense aspect of material reality, there is a great spiritual urgency to return to the rarified realms. 

We can see the materialism everywhere. Does not mean necessarily being only interested in money and things, but it can be that. Materialism is a worship of the intellect, of science that is disconnected from mysticism, religion, wisdom, philosophy, and beauty, on other words a science that is disconnected from humanity and human life. Now we see a worship of political ideologies, of looking for solutions to the problems of the world in social movements, and revolutions. 

The only true solution to the problems of the world is an internal, freely chosen, inspired, psychological revolution. Which is the story of the revolution of Beelzebub. Within this materialized realm, we understand from the gnostic teachings, there is spirit in everything. We learn that our bodies are imbued with subtler bodies and there is consciousness circulating within our system. 

The problem is that we are asleep to it. We are hypnotized by the impressions that come in to our organism untransformed, we are weighed down by so many impressions. When we are not conscious then the impressions cause imbalances in our centers, our brains. We have to learn to protect and strengthen our consciousness, our Essence. 

While it is not necessarily possible to avoid all negative impressions, we can certainly limit ourselves, particularly when it comes to media. When we are consuming media, whether for entertainment, news, social media, we are imbibing a flow of garbage into our centers, we are ramping up the sympathetic nervous system, we are generating stress hormones, we are crystallizing tension within the physical body. 

We have to relax and remember the Being. Go for a walk in nature, meditate, pray, invite silence and stillness into your life, wake in the night sometimes to do a practice when it is quiet and dark. We have to practice energizing ourselves, waking up, dying to the ego that identifies, that stops our flow of consciousness. Now, the pentagram on the altars must point upright in order to indicate a path in alignment with God. The time of materialization is over, continuing on that path leads to the abyss. The living scripture of nature teaches the path to the light, as trees reach their leaves and branches toward the Sun.

“On the other hand, we see in our present epoch, in this twentieth century, a marked tendency of the human being to build very high buildings and airplanes, each time more and more rapidly, etc.

The branches of our contemporary trees do not want to incline downwards, instead they want to elevate themselves upwards to the sun. This is because our Earth has already reached its maximum material condensation, and now it yearns to elevate itself anew, to “Etherealize” itself again… Really, the ether is inundating the air and Etherealizing the Earth successively, more and more. Thus, at the end of the great Aryan Root Race, the ether will be totally visible in the air. Then, all the creatures who live in the ether will share all of their activities with the human being.”

In the Revolution of Beelzebub Master Samael investigates the entire history of the demon Beelzebub, back to the Saturnian epoch, when Beelzebub was just a carefree bohemian man. He loved his vices, and was helped by a black magician to win at gambling. This lead down the path of pure black magic.

As each epoch closes and a new one opens, Master Samael describes how Beelzebub commits more to the dark path, his appearance growing monstrous, and his vices now what he considers virtues. Helping being souls to the dark path, initiating souls into a worship of the ego and a rejection of God. In this book Master Samael was able to bring this demon on to the path of repentance.

Even though Beelzebub had amplified and reinforced his ego throughout vast stretches of time, he still had a spark of Essence and love, which made it possible for him to repent and walk the narrow and rickety path back toward the light. We have this opportunity every day, every moment, to repent, to walk back toward the light. 

The Principle of Sacrifice 

One truth of nature is that everything eats everything else, the autoegocratic law. That nature is brutal and cold is an observation that humans use to separate themselves from nature and deny their own internal brutality. Yet the highest truth of everything is the principle of sacrifice. 

On the basic life level, or horizontal level, sacrifice is necessary. We have to put aside our preferences, comfort, whims, laziness etc. in order to work a job and make a living. All jobs contribute something to the greater whole. A job could be having a career or job out in the world, or taking care of the home and children, or volunteering, etc. Taking care of family and home is a basic function of sacrifice in terms of life. Giving up our time, our so-called freedom, individual preferences, money etc. to take care of others. 

We can see this as a contrast in a situation where we refuse to work, refuse to take care of family or community, and that leads to a painful and dysfunctional situation where we are going against this basic sacrificial principle. In the Old Testament, spiritual sacrifice was performed through animal sacrifice to God. This is symbolic of giving up the best of ourselves, our prized possessions, whether it’s a goat, or sheep, or our beloved routine, our beloved sense of ourselves, our delusion of individual freedom of choice without regard to how it affects others.

This teaching reached a certain pinnacle in the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is told by God that he must sacrifice not a prize goat or sheep, but his beloved son. This story is wrenching to think about, that someday we might have to give up and destroy the most previous thing imaginable, our child, for God. 

In the story, Abraham is stopped from killing Isaac at the last minute by an angel of God, telling him that his faith and willingness to sacrifice was sufficient, that he did not have to go through with it. In this moment we have to ask, what is God? What does it mean to be in creation? This is not some guy murdering his child because he has a dogmatic notion that “God” a magical being is telling him it’s the best thing to do.

Abraham was working in accordance with the Trogoautoegocratic Law. Abraham paved the way for the possibility of Christ’s sacrifice, which was God Himself sacrificing His beloved Son into creation. 

It is no accident that Abraham received the great blessing of the bread and wine from the great regent of the Earth Melchisedek. The foreshadowing of Christ imparting Himself into the bread and wine at the Last Supper. And Abraham became the Patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the monotheistic religions which signify a certain totality of religious process in the Western world.

Christ came to raise the ethical octave

Christ was both a man who accomplished the Great Work, and the incarnation of the Word of the Father, recapitulated the principle of sacrifice at a higher octave, imparting a particular love into the world. He tore the veil off of the intimate Christic teachings, thereby changing the course of the world.

Trogoautoegocratic and Autoegocratic Laws

Autoegocratic and trogoautoegocratic are cosmic laws relating to the function of creation as a system. Autoegocratic refers to a closed, self-sufficient system. An autoegocratic system will not sustain indefinitely because it is subject to the law of entropy.

We could day that if we are not working accordance with the principle of sacrifice then we fall under autoegocratic law, and the law entropy. On that life example in regards to working, if we are not working at something, somehow, if we are not putting aside ourselves at least a little bit, then our lives quickly degenerate into chaos.

From a lecture of -Samael Aun Weor: Existential Wealth of Sacrifice:

“And we also know that there is a law, and that law is none other than the Law of Entropy. If we do not work on our thoughts, if we do not work on our mind, if we do not work on the “I”, on the “me-myself”, on the “oneself”, etc., thoughts tend to be of a more and more inferior nature, emotions become more and more negative, volitions gradually become weaker, they fall into entropy, areas of the brain become weaker (and not all the areas of the brain work, as at other times, but only a few; the best doctors, the best men of science, know this); they fall into entropy. 

Everything tends, then, to involute according to the Law of Entropy, and in the long run, entropy leads to the equalization of things. For example, in the golden coffin of a rich man and in the coffin of a poor man, the two bodies are equal in the end because only bones remain of them.”

Trogoautoegocratic refers to an open system dependent on and in relationship with external, higher forces. A system under trogoautoegocratic law will submit to a process of sacrifice and transmutation in order to sustain indefinitely. Transmutation is the generation of heat and light through conscious works and voluntary sacrifice.

From Judith Comer, a gnostic missionary: “The purpose of Gnosis is to light our inner fire so that we become a living flame within creation. That fire is kundalini plus consciousness plus will.” 

Transmutation then functions as Anti-Entropy, or a solution to entropy

Transmutation is dying to the external influences of life and offering our most precious possession, the sexual energy, alchemized with consciousness and will, to the Being. This opens us up to the higher law of Trogoautoegocratic. With contact with the higher forces, Christic forces of perpetual renewal through perpetual sacrifice.

 With the consciousness we transform the impressions of entropic life, with the will we choose “to be or not to be”, and with the sexual energy we become that flame within creation. Transmutation of the sexual energies allows for an indefinitely sustaining system under trogoautoegocratic law. Transmutation returns the sacred creative energies within our sexual glands back to the divine source, rejuvenating ourselves physically and spiritually.

Samael Aun Weor, in the lecture Foundation of Sexual Transmutation says:

“Therefore we need to imitate the sacred Absolute Sun, since it is the one who gives the note of Sahaja Maithuna. Thus, if it transmutes incessantly, why do we not imitate it? Obviously, our duty is to imitate it, and thus we will achieve what it gets. What does it get? It gets to stay, to continue, to shine more and more, etc. And what do we get? We get to transform ourselves radically, in a definitive way…

So, what is the foundation of sexual transmutation? What are we based on? Well, simply, on the transmutation of same sacred Absolute Sun. If we march in tune with it, we will radically transform ourselves…”

And in the lecture the Existential Wealth of Sacrifice:

“The very word sacrifice transforms us into apostles. Christ sacrificed himself to overcome the Law of Entropy, and this crucifixion and sacrifice must be made in each of us. We must always try to be different; we must sacrifice even our own identity. The heart must be shattered so the Solar Man may be born. We have to offer everything, absolutely everything.”

The living scripture of nature shows us something about the esoteric work in the most simple ways. According to Master Zoroastro, the esoteric gnostic path is shown in nature as the Sun, the Tree, the Bird, and the Serpent. 

“The sun is our Being,
the tree is our mediator or column,
the bird is the essence of our sexual energy
at the highest vibrational point to unite with the sun, while the serpent or dragon is the energy that’s still asleep, waiting to be awakened, sacrificed, and sublimated by the sun.”

The Sun

The Sun is the center of any solar system, and many stars in the sky are Suns in their own right.

The Physical Reality of the Sun

The Sun is a massive sphere of nuclear power, radiating light, heat, and infrared radiation into the universe. The Sun provides life to this planet by feeding the plant kingdom through photosynthesis, which in turn nourishes the animal and human kingdoms. Sunlight is crucial for all development of life and normal functioning. Prolonged lack of sunlight can cause severe physical and mental illness.

The Psychological Reality of the Sun

The Sun is the way that humanity organizes life. To be “oriented” literally means to be facing the East, where the Sun rises, where the day begins. To be oriented means we have direction in life, we know our way, and we are going always toward the light, toward life. The fact that on an astronomical scale the Earth revolves around the Sun is useful. But the psychological truth is that the Sun appears to revolve around the Earth, and this concept is important for our shared reality. The Sun rises in the East, a new day begins, a fresh start for life. The Sun sets in the West, the day is done, time to reflect and rest in the darkness.

The rhythm of the day and night is a fundamental part of psychological reality, as is the extended rhythm throughout the year of the seasons, and the gradual lengthening and shortening of days. 

Sun worship exists in all cultures and religions for this reason. The tropical zodiac of Western astrology is based on the interplay of light from the rhythm of the Sun and Earth.

The Esoteric Reality of the Sun

Esoterically the Sun is the cosmic Christ, the sacrificial principle of the universe known as the solar logos. Christ, the Son/Sun dies in the West and is reborn in the East, giving life, light, and love in abundance from His own radiant heart. The physical Sun is a part of the cosmos of spiritual suns.

“Unquestionably, the first cosmos [Protocosmos] is formed by multiple, transcendental, divine, spiritual suns. Much has been spoken about the Sacred Absolute Sun and obviously every solar system is governed by one of those spiritual suns. That means that our set of worlds possesses its own Sacred Absolute Sun, as do all the other solar systems of the unalterable infinite.”

-Samael Aun Weor

Christic Teachings and Christianity

We are starting to see that within nature are the teachings of sacrifice that are necessary in order to reach perfection. Therefore, Christic teachings are innate, within all of nature, all religions, all cultures. But it wasn’t until the master Jesus came and lived out His process that the teachings were revealed openly.

The process of the master Jesus Christ changed the energetic trajectory of the world. The fervor to spread Christianity was to allow all the cultures, religions of the world to recapitulate, to revitalize, to resurrect their existing culture or religion. It is fashionable to talk about the spread of Western culture and with it Christianity as a purely destructive process, but esoterically this process was necessary.

The Christic teachings spread in order to help each person recapitulate their own internal life, to be reborn in the spirit. All peoples, cultures, religions, so called pagan etc. have this capacity. The Christic teachings are meant to enliven and restore whatever has been fallen, neglected, incomplete in a particular culture. Just as they restore what is missing or incomplete within ourselves. 

Master Samael pointed out in Secret Doctrine of Anahuac, “When the Spanish conquistadors arrived at the holy land of the Aztecs, they found the cross on their altars.”

…Because they knew the universal cross.

In Aztec Christic Magic Samael says, “All the idols from all pagan religions fell from their altars in the very moment of the resurrection of Master Jesus. In Greece, the Oracle of Delphi became mute. In the submarine caverns of the island of Crete, the Minotaur was found dead…”

In other words, anything not reborn by the principle of sacrifice, which Christ taught, will be destroyed. The ego is against the principle of sacrifice and therefore when encountering the Christ, must die. And in order for that to happen there is a process of repentance, of renunciation to everything that is not selfless sacrifice. But when understanding Christianity not as a dogma, but as a path available to all, for salvation of the spirit, a force that drives through the karmic situations of this planet, we can see that this process is necessary. To have the possibility to sacrifice, to be under trogoautoegocratic law. 

It is not that the Christian religion or dogma is superior to the religions of indigenous peoples. It is that Christianity is the imperfect vehicle of the Christic teachings of individual and collective resurrection of the spirit. Just as the Gnostic movement is the imperfect vehicle of the Gnostic Chrstic teachings of the straight path. And we ourselves are the imperfect vehicles of the possibility of perfection in the Being. 

What can we do to remember this Christic path? Wake up with the Sun, do the rune FA facing the East. 

Practice, as Gurdjieff said, to wake up with the Sun and make conscious within ourselves everything that is not conscious.

“Only do not forget one thing… it is indispensable that every day when the sun rises, while watching the reflection of its splendor, you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various unconscious parts of your common presence.” 

-G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

The Tree of Life

Trees transmute water, sunlight, air, and soil into a magnificent bridge between the Earth and the sky. Just as symbolically the Tree of Life connects all the parts of our Being, the inferior and superior parts, toward the unity of the Absolute.

Trees contain stillness in the roots and movement in the branches. Trees contain death in the autumn and winter with the falling of fruits and leaves, and rebirth in the spring with the new buds, flowers, fruits, and leaves. 

Trees are holographic from the seed. The seed contains a single tree, and that tree contains a multitude of seeds, which each contain a tree etc. Every living being from an ant to a universe has within it a tree of Life, but can only be realized in the human form.

Trees represent longevity/immortality, they live for hundreds of years and only grow stronger. Trees teach us about transmutation, how the vital sap moves up through the system to nourish the entire organism. 

Trees teach us about multiplicity/diversity in unity, with the many fruits, flowers, leaves, and branches all uniting in the single trunk and connecting into the deep roots. What can we do to remember the Tree of Life within? Remembering the Being, gather our attention, meditate so that we become more subtle, more simple. Not in the personality but becoming more clear, more focused, more centered, with the consciousness. 

The Tree of Life is also the cross, Our body with the two arms extended is the cross. 

What is the cross?

Our cross is our life, here and now. Our setbacks and worries, our instabilities and restrictions, our limitations and mistakes. Our cross is the intersection of the sufferings of life with the possibility of eternity at every moment. Each person’s cross is unique, just as each person’s history is unique, and each person’s path to spiritual liberation is unique unto themselves. 

Carrying the cross is heavy, it is slow, it invites mockery. And it is only possible with love. Carrying a cross without love becomes bitterness, spiritual pride, and arrogance. When a person carries the cross of their life they accept their situation with humility and love. They make every effort to put others first, to love and bless their enemies, to fulfill their obligations without hope of reward other than the fulfillment that comes from a life of meaning and purpose.

The Christic Path

The Christic path is the intimate process of reconnecting the soul and spirit; of regathering our scattered conscious attention; of reviving ourselves for love of God and humanity; of renouncing all egoic attachments. With the gnostic teachings of Samael Aun Weor we understand the Christic process is completely internal, the cross we carry is the weight of our karma. 

When a master incarnates the Christ, then that intimate Christ carries the karma of the world. Transmuting the karma of the world, means transmuting our own internal sexual energies. I will provide one last example from nature. 

Clouds

Clouds are collections of water vapor that rise from bodies of water such as rivers, lakes streams and oceans. Vapor is lighter, ethereal, can drift and expand in ways that water in liquid or solid form cannot. For liquid to become vapor requires heat, and it leaves behind any impurities as it rises. Vapor is transmuted water.

Rain and Ice

As clouds gather and increase in density they condense into rain. Rain is one of the life-giving and cleansing properties of water that nourishes the plants, animals, crops, and all living things. Clouds also magnetically gather around mountains where they concentrate back into a liquid form or a solid form as snow and ice. Ice as the solid form of water represents energetic potential in a static state, it must be heated into liquid or vapor to become usable.

The Sexual Waters/Waters of Life

“See how the water of a puddle on the road gradually evaporates under the heat from the sun and becomes clouds, and ultimately energy, lightning and thunder. All the water from the seas and the rivers becomes clouds and finally lightning and thunder; that is, energy. The same happens with the Ens Seminis [sexual substance in men and women].”

-Samael Aun Weor, Lecture on Transmutation of the Sexual Energy

Water in the liquid state is our internal sexual waters, the aquifer from which we draw our basic vital energy. In normal life the sexual waters are never purified, just drawn upon for use. The vital energy is naturally dissipated throughout our lives through physical, sexual, mental, and emotional discharge. To transmute is to purify the sexual waters. Transmutation is a practice to heat, transform, and clarify the sexual waters. Using breath, willpower, and meditation the purified energy moves up the spine where it gathers like clouds in the higher centers.

The image above shows Mercury-Hermes, the intelligence of the sexual energy, emerging from clouds and holding a lit candelabra with seven candles, representing the awakened seven chakras.

Clouds and the Being

It is common to see depictions in many religions of God and heaven surrounded by clouds. When the transmuted sexual waters are formed as clouds the consciousness, which is contained within sexuality, is purified and awakened. God, the Being, can communicate with us, help us, work through us, when the consciousness is awakened. Clouds may imply a blockage like one’s vision was “clouded”, but the clouds provide an appropriate form for the mystery of the Being.

Clouds and Heaven/Nirvana

Likewise with heaven or nirvana. Heaven is not an external place but an internal state of consciousness where we are vibrating in the higher dimensions, either temporarily or in a permanent way. Clouds make heaven and God invisible to those with the consciousness asleep. With the consciousness awakened we are more attuned to that which is subtle, hidden invisible, vaporous, and ethereal and can experience the reality hidden in the clouds. Practice: transmute with ham-sah pranayama Meditate on the clouds in the sky.

Beyond the Clouds

The starry skies, the planetary movements, the galaxies. We are trying to not only imitate these cosmic principles, but to incarnate them. To create a cosmos, an order, within ourselves, that is full of perfect movement and harmony. 

I was reflecting recently on a scenario where if suddenly all the gnostics around me decided that transmutation wasn’t necessary, if I was told even by people I respect that we’re fine the way we are and it’s not necessary to do these practices to transform ourselves. Have we internalized these gnostic teachings in such a deep way as to know that they are the Truth? 

Can we look to nature and see the profound teachings of how sacrifice necessary for life, of how transmutation is the natural process of avoiding decay and degeneration, of the beauty and necessity of an ordered internal universe?

When we know how to see and understand then we are reminded constantly of the reality of these teachings, these are not in conflict with anything other than the ways of the ego and the identified mind.