Editor’s Notes

This book was not written for the lazy reader who expects everything to be organized in a linear, intellectual, easy to follow way (for even then, their eyes move along the page while the mind wanders elsewhere, a clear sign of being totally asleep). This book is concerned with living realities, and reality, truth, is not organized in an intellectual, easy to follow way. Reality is highly dynamic, incredibly sophisticated, and yet profoundly simple. To help you really understand the reality of our existence and our purpose in living, this book was written for the only part of us that has any chance of understanding it: the consciousness, which is non-linear, intuitive, insightful, and wise. Most importantly, the consciousness understands reality through lived experience; those who have experienced something consciously understand it in a way that the inexperienced can never understand. As a book of gnosis (knowledge from experience), that is the core ethic of the author: he wrote what he lived, and what he found to be vital guidance for you to learn to experience reality for yourself. At first glance, what is written here may not appear to be related to the development of the consciousness and the escape from suffering, yet in truth it is: but one must know how to read in order to see it.

For you, dear reader, the challenge is thus: to understand this book, read it consciously, slowly, listening to the quiet impulses of your heart, and then go further: meditate profoundly on what you read here, for only then can the meaning become clear. If read strictly intellectually, emotionally, or mechanically, the message and importance of this book will escape you. 

And, just to make it perfectly clear at the outset, each chapter of this book weaves together a very specific message for your soul, a message that is not written intellectually, literally, obviously, but must be sought intuitively, between the words and letters, in the empty space that surrounds them. For that, as you will see right away, is the fundamental message of this book: reality is found not in the appearance of things, but in the abstract space that allows them to appear. The intellect cannot see this, but the active, awakened consciousness can.

To aid you in this ancient and essential pursuit, we have added explanatory footnotes to this edition, as well as some of the source texts that inspired Samael Aun Weor to write this book. Namely, we begin with the “Stanzas of Dzyan,” the basis of The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky (which he also quoted often). Like any scripture, the “Stanzas of Dzyan” are a deep well of profound insight into reality, and can only be understood through meditation. Regarding the Stanzas, H.P. Blavatsky explained,

“...if a great portion of the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Mongolian works... are known to some Orientalists, the chief work — that one from which the Stanzas are given — is not in the possession of European Libraries. The Book of Dzyan (or “Dzan”) is utterly unknown to our Philologists, or at any rate was never heard of by them under its present name. This is, of course, a great drawback to those who follow the methods of research prescribed by official Science; but to the students of Occultism, and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of little moment... 

“This first installment of the esoteric doctrines is based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a “scholar,” in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings seriously...

"The Stanzas which form the thesis of every section [of The Secret Doctrine, and likewise Cosmic Teachings of a Lama] are given throughout in their modern translated version... these being now rendered for the first time into a European language. It is almost unnecessary to state that only portions of the seven Stanzas are here given... 

“The Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to that of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels and is exhausted in the effort.

“The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Purânas as the “Seven Creations,” and in the Bible as the “Days” of Creation.” —H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

In short, in the following pages you will embark on a journey into the nature of the fabric of existence and non-existence, in an attempt to understand the laws and structures that surround our every experience. We, the editors hope that by intuitively understanding those laws you will begin the greater journey: the one that leads out of suffering and into the fulfillment of your reason for being.