In the Gnostic tradition, we are firstly concerned with studying the laws and the facts of our existence.
When we apply ourselves to study, to reflection, to analysis, it is upon the facts, that we rely. From this point of view, it is important that we cultivate an ability to discard theory, belief, but most especially those theories and beliefs that we have about ourselves.
You see, Gnosis, this word that comes from the Greek language, means "knowledge," but it is not book knowledge. Gnosis is not intellectual knowledge. It is also not mere belief, or something we appreciate or agree with and imitate. Real Gnosis can not be imitated. Real Gnosis is self knowledge, it is experiential. It is conscious. It is something that we aquire through self-reflection, through analysis of our mind, of our heart, of our soul, of our body, of everything that constitues what we call a human, a humanoid, or a human being. Real Gnosis begins there, with analysis of one's self.
In order to aquire that, we study the teachings, we study scripture. We study theories. We study a philosophy. We study a science. But all of that study, if it remains merely as theory, or merely as philosophy is useless; it is a waste of time, if it remains merely that. The reason that this important is because at the level of theory and dogma and philosophy, ideas and beliefs, we have not yet reached consciousness, soul, what is our true nature.
When we have theories and beliefs, when we have ideas, when we have dogmas, we may have different types behaviors or activities related with those phenomenon. But, when something beomes conscious, cognizant, when it is something that emerges out of one's soul, it is something real, something that is alive, something permanent.
You see, when we study the Gnostic tradition, that is our goal. It is to aquire a kind of knowledge that is eternal, that is immortal. It is to aquire Gnosis, conscious knowledge. And, to grasp that is something psychological, spiritual, internal. It is not physical. It is not aquired by adopting habits and behaviors, or by adopting beliefs and theories. It is aquired by awakening one's own cognizance, consciousness; active, intelligent, and aware.
This is in Sanskrit terms, called jnana. It is a type of knowledge that is not intellectual, a type of knowledge that is related with consciousness or soul, Essence, the Buddha Nature. This sort of intelligence or cognizant knowledge does not arrive mechanically. It does not come to us by inheritance. It does not come to us through a religion or a book. It comes through experience.
Gnosis is aquired through experience, not lectures, not books, not any teacher. I can not give you Gnosis. I can talk about it. And when we lecture and when we give these teachings, we discuss it and explain it, but we can not give you Gnosis. You have to get it your self. And it is not gotten through intellect, through reading. It is not aquired by accepting or believing in what we say or what you read. It is aquired through conscious awakening, through experience.
The moment as a child when you first experienced rain, or a beautiful sunset, or you saw your first dog, and you felt that astonishment, that was Gnosis. It was a moment of experience that no one can ever take away from you, something that you tasted and touched and saw and experienced for your self. That is Gnosis, but it is only Gnosis in a very small level.
When we study Gnosis, what we are interested in, is not so much how physical matter works, but how physical matter fits into the overall scheme of matter, becasuse physical matter is only the lowest level of existence. It is just a fraction. What we are physically is but as little tiny corner of what exists. What we truly are is what we need to find out. We need Gnosis of that, but unfortunately we still do not really have Gnosis of what we are physically. We still as "civilized" and advanced as we claim to be only use a fraction of the power of our brain. We have no cognizance of the all of the functioning of our physical organism. In fact, if you observe us in a scientific way, you could say that we are actually trying to destroy our physical organism because we force it to consume and digest all kinds of chemicals and types of materials that do not belong there. We inhale, we breathe in, we drink, we eat with our physical body all of kinds of materials, elements that do not belong there. But, worst is that we take those elements in through the mind.
We put into our mind all kinds of elements that really do not belong, that really do not create health, psychologically. We are addicted to all types of substances, physically, but worse we are addicted to all kinds of substances in the mind, elements like violence, greed, lust, envy.
So, in Gnosis, in this tradition we discuss this situation a lot, in order for us to begin to aquire Gnosis of how we do it. In lectures and in the books you will find many examples that we give, things to stimulate your own study, your own self-reflection. It is not enough for you to listen to our examples and look just for that in yourself. What is necessary is to find how you function, as a body, as a heart, as a mind.
What is the Personality?
In the last lecture, the previous lecture, we heard about different aspects of our inner psychology, which are represented in the Bible as the example of Cain and Able. We heard about our Divine Nature, our Human Nature, and our animal nature. And through listening to lectures like that we hear examples and explanations of psychological structures within our field of awareness. Things that we can come to know and observe in ourselves. We hear a lot about the ego, and a lot about the consciousness, and the different between the two, but these explanations are meaningless unless you can see the difference in your self. And not just once, but continually watching for that distance, that difference between them.
But, there is a key element that makes an enormous difference in how we study and learn and most of all comprehend this teaching and ourselves. That is an element that is not symbolized very much in religions, and is not talked about very much in religions because it is only in recent centuries, recent decades really, that it has become such an incredible problem.
You see, in ancient times, our personality was more passive. What we have as a personality has now become very active and a big problem.
This word personality get used a lot nowadays. Of course, it comes from Latin, personae, which means "mask." Nowadays, people use this word in a lot of different ways to mean a lot of different things, but in the Gnostic tradition the meaning is very specific. It does mean "mask." But the way we think of the definition of a mask is as something that hides. We always think of a mask as a interface to hide behind, something that hides our identity or something that you can be disguised within. And it is true, that meaning is there. But the original meaning, the original use of the word "personae" was for an actor. It was for that tool that one soul would use to communicate to another soul. So, a mask in that way is a filter, an interface, a device that is used for communication.
In ancient times, when the dramatic arts were still a conscious art and a way of teaching us psychologically and spiritually, the actor used a personae, a mask, in order to communicate the ideas and the teachings of that particular drama. This was true in the Greeks, the Egyptians, the ancient Hindu, the Aztecs, the Maya, in all traditions, amongst the Asians, the Tibetans, for example. All of these civilizations have great psychological teachings hidden in their stories, in great operas, in great epics. And the actors, or the dancers, the ones who would present the teaching would use personae, in order to teach through those dramas. This is where this word comes from.
We have a personality, a mask. We have not discussed a lot in this tradition because, really, it is impermanent. The personaity that we have, is fleeting, temporary, it has no real substance. It is somewhat vaporous or ephemeral. It is like a silken veil. Well, at least it should be like that.
In each existence that we have we are born into this physical world, we emerge from the womb of our mother with a physical body. And that physical body is a emergence of our past action condensed into matter. And as we grow, as we develop physically our consciousness, or soul, is within that body. And in order for the consciousness, or soul, to interact with outside world, it needs an interface. It needs a personality, a mask, in order for the communication to flow back and forth.
So, little by little, as a child, we begin to learn. We begin how to communicate, through our facial expressions and bodily movements, waving our arms and legs, crying, laughing, smiling. We learn to talk. We learn our language. We learn the customs and morals of our family of our village, of our town, of our city, of our country. We learn how to behave. This is all personality. We are given a name. We aquire a culture. We aquire morals. This is all personality.
When you reflect upon your self, with this Gnostic point of view, you have to become aware of what your personality is: the name that you have, the heritage that you have, the culture that you grew up with, the moral values that you have.
You see, we tend take all of these things for granted. And we tend to assume that all of these things are right and good. And we tend to be proud of it. We tend to take pride in our cultural heritage, and we tend to think that our's is better than everyone else's. Now, this is where things get interesting. Because, you see, this peronality was born with this body. So all of this cultural heritage that we are so proud of, the language we speak, the religion that we grew up with, the country that we came from, the music that we listen to, the politics, the morals... all grew around the development of this body. We think that it is our selves, that it is our identity, yet this is not the only body that we have had. It is also not the only personality that we have had.
As a serious student of Gnosis, or conscious knowledge, one has to begin to question this point of view, of pride in personality. We make a lot of assumptions that this personality is right, and the point of view that we have, culturally, is good. Some of us may have had the good fortune to live in another country, different than the one that we were born in. And with that type of experience, you are presented with a radical difference of personality, particularly, if you have gone from one extreme to another, socially, culturally, economically.
For example, someone who has grown up in or Canada, or the United States, or Europe, who then suddenly spends time living in a place like Guatamala, or India, or China, will suddenly see themselves in a totally new way. They will be able to see things about their personality that they never, ever, would have seen before. This is a valuable experience, and can teach you humility, and can teach you how temporary and blind the personality really is.
You see, in you past existences, you may not have been the same sex that you are now, the same race, from the same country. All of these assumptions that you make about how your country is so great, or your language is so superior, or your religion is so elevated are really all based on the experience of this one life, this one existence. Where as, in past existences you may have been Egyptian, you may have been Nordic, you may have been African. You may have been from any part of the world with a totally different religion, a totally different culture, totally opposing tastes, yet the same consciousness and the same ego.
The personality is a mask. It is a communication device that we create in each lifetime. So if in this life you are very proud of you religion or very proud of your culture, you were probably the same way in your previous existences, but with a different culture and a different religion. The pride is the same. The consciousness is the same. It is asleep. The culture is different. The personality is different.
The Cult of Personality
When you analyze yourself in this way, you suddenly start to see your self a little bit differently. Right? All of these assumptions that you have made about your self may not be true. Am I really this person that I have always thought? Who was I before, and how different? These are valuable questions to ask, but in order for us to really ask them, we have to learn how to let the personality become passive.
In this culture, this world-wide culture, which is strongly being influenced by the West, the personality is being worshipped. All of us are becoming victims of the cult of personality.
The word "cult" means worship, reverence. We associate the word cult with certain types of sects, groups that become fanatic. And it does have that association, but the original meaning of the word means, "to worship," "to revere." And we have all heard about the cult of personality, where a particular person will attract worshippers, and make them into fanatatics, and make them blind. We have seen this time and again through the centuries, but most especially in the last few decades, where the cult of personality has become extremely strong.
Why is that? It is because we have entered a phase of our development, in which new energies and forces are working upon us, as a psychology, in which we need to emerge, or to create a new kind of personality. But, unfortunately, because we are asleep, we are not conscious, those energies polarize and instead of us developing our Solar personality, we are developing a Lunar personality, our mechanical personality.
We are all victims of a cult of personality, but the one that we worship is our own. Sometimes, we worhsip an outside personality because that outside personality makes our inner one feel good. Many people come to spiritual movements seeking the Guru, the Master, and put their own development, their own realization into the lap of another person, which is impossible because the only one who can redeam us is within.
The cult of personality, that we suffer from the most is by believing that this personality is real, and by giving it whatever it wants. We have lost touch with the consciousness, the soul, that which is our true nature, Atman, Chesod, Buddha, the Spirit. Instead, we worship this personality that we have made in this life.
The personality that we have made in this life worships money, loves status, to be successful, to be admired. And, you see, the way this works is that this physical body that runs around and does all of its activities everyday, does it through the personality. But the personality is just a puppet, just like the physical body is just a vehicle. It is a tool that something else uses. Every night, you go to sleep and your tool rests and recuperates its self. And that which was operating the tool goes out. But what is that that goes out? During the day when the physical body is active, something is moving it, causing it to be active, to go to work, to go make money, to go to school, to study, to go talk to people, to go and get whatever it is that we are trying to get, to aquire things. Right? This is basically our goal everyday, is to aquire things, to get things. But what and why? Do we question that? Do we really look into our motivations and what is stimulating us to act the way that we do?
You see, the personality is this mask on the body. It is the filter that we use, that speaks the way we speak, that uses the facial expressions we use, that uses the words we use, that dresses the way we dress. None of it is really real. It is all imitated. It is all learned.
People now-a-days are very much attatched to how they present themselves, to their appearance, to how they dress, to how they talk, to how they walk. But every culture is different. And in every country, there are many cultures. Yet every one of them is merely imitating. Among different age groups and different cities, in different types of arenas in life, we find all different forms of personality. For example, if you want to be successful in business, in New York City or Chicago, you have to dress a certain waym you have to talk a certain way, you have to own certain things. You have to look a particular way, otherwise, you will never be accepted. You will be shut out. Right? And, in order for you to learn those things, you go to school, you study, and you learn to imitate, you learn to dress the right way, to talk the right way, to know the right lingo. If you want to be a truck driver, you can not where a suit and tie and talk like you came from Yale or Harvard. If you want to be a police officer, you have to learn the culture, the personality of the police, the words, the language, the way they do things. That is all personality. If you want to be a school teacher, it is the same. If you want to be a rockstar, it is the same. You have to learn the culture. You have to look the part. You have to act like a rockstar. Right? In other words, you have to conform, to fit in. This is all personality.
The Impermance of Personality
What is most interesting, and uncomfortable, is when you look at the development of your personality, over time, especially if you are an older person. If you look carefully at it, you will see that as you have moved from circumstance to circumstance in your life, you have altered your personality, in order to accomodate those circumstances. And it is necessary to do so.
For example, when you go to elementary school, your personality functions in a given way. And you talk a certain way, and you relate to others with elementary school concepts and terms, and feelings, and things that you talk about and things that you do not talk about. Then, when you go to middle school, it is different. When you go to high school, it is different. When you go to college, it is different. When you start a job, it is different. When you go from one job to another job, the culture changes, your personality changes. When you aquire new friends, you begin to use different words, a different language. If you go from one part of the country to another part of the country, you may find that you change how you speak, how you dress, how you carry your self. Why? Personality.
Personality is not a fixed permanent thing. It is born alongside the body, and it dies alongside the body. The personality that you have is not real. This person with such-and-such a name, with such-and-such experiences, and morals and thoughts and ideas, is fake. It is fake. It is not real.
So all of the time and energy that we spend trying to dress ourselves a certain way, trying to speak a certain way, trying to show ourselves a certain way, is a waste of time. In certain cases it in necessary. For us to have a decent life, to work, to raise a family, to feed ourselves and take care of ourselves, we have to be decent citizens. We have to be upright decent people. It does not mean that we should throw all of that out. We need a personality. It is necessary. But the personality should be passive and under the service of the Spirit, the consciousness, our true identity, not in the service of the ego.
It is our ego who wants to be famous, who wants to be rich, who wants to be recognized and admired. It is our ego who wants to be envied, who wants others to respect us. It is our envy that wants to have what our neighbor has, or what that super-star has. It is our greed that wants security, that wants money. It is our gluttony that wants to have all of the food, when we want it, how we want it. And incidentally, these tastes for things is all personality too.
Many of us have this concept, this idea, that we can only eat certain kinds of food. And we are only happy if we eat those kinds of food. And we tell ourselves, "Well, I am just like this. I only eat these kinds of things. At these times of day, in these places, and that is it." That is all personality, because in your last existence, you were eating totally different things and acting the same way.
We need to see those things about ourselves. We need to see how this personality is a tool that can be used either by the ego or by the Spirit. But when the personality is fat, when the personality is very strong, the ego uses it easily. That is how the personality gets that way. It is because of the ego. In order for the Spirit to work through us, the personality has to be passive. It has to become transparent, clear. This is how God, the Spirit, can work through us.
So then, there are different forms of personality that we need to understand. In each body, we create a personality. So through your successive previous existences, you have had many personalities. And depending on what happened to your body in your last existence, your personalities could still be around.
If your last existence, your body was buried, or that physical form is still in some type of shape, the personality you had, depending on how strong it was, how fat it was, could still be there, hanging around the body. This is what people call, "ghosts." It is related to the personality. It is related to the vital body. It is that name, that history, those memories, that way of talking, that way of dressing, that way of behaving. It is personality. It is a mask. It is not anything but energy, like silk. That is why the ghosts are semi-transparent, insubstantial, because the personality is that. It is nothing. It is like cobwebs.
So, all of these personalities that we have made, that we always think is our real self, is not our real self. The ego is also not our real self. The ego is just a collection of conflicting desires, aggregates, samskaras, many type of desires related to many types of things, that we made, through our personality, through our body, that in turn control the personality and control the body in order to feed themselves.
From existence to existence, our pride, which always wants to feel admired and have others to respect us, has been proud because we were Hindu. And then it was proud because we were Native-American. And then it was proud because we were black. And then it was proud because we were white. And it is proud because we were Christian, or a Jew, or now, a Gnostic... even worse, a Gnostic.
You see, we carry all of this baggage, these many egos, these many "I's," who fight over each other and seek to dominate, to have control over the personality. Because through the personality, they can enter into the physical world and get what they want. So through our day-to-day life, all of these thoughts and feelings that we have, this continual stream of activity in the mind, that is all of our egos: "Oh! Why is this person mad at me? And what can I do? And I need to conquer this other business and compete with them and knock them out. I am going to do better than them, and I am going to make more money than they are. I am going to drive them out of business." Greed, fear, pride, anger, envy, using our personality and our body. Meanwhile, our consciousness is asleep. We have no awareness, no cognizance, no watchfulness of what is happening in us psychologically. We go on auto-pilot. We just from activity to activity believing that we are spiritual, believing that we are awake, when we are asleep. We believe that we are good Buddhists, or Gnostics, or whatever we call ourselves, when in fact we are asleep.
When we sleep at night, our consciousness goes out, the body rests. Most of us have no awareness of this time. And if we have any awareness, it is very vague. We awake in the morning and think, "I dreamed about a giant frog wearing a tutu, and there were some brownies there." Right? We have no real idea of what happened for those eight or ten hours. Why? Because we sleep all day long. Because consciously we are not here and now, in our body, controlling the personality, and managing our mind. Instead, our consciousness is doing what it does at night. It is being controlled by desires, by fear, by greed, by the longing for love, by the craving for sex, by the desire for comfort, for recognition, because we are that way all day long, we are that way at night. In other words, we have no cognizance, no consciousness, no awareness. We are not awake.
If awaken consciousness now, not tomorrow, now, and become aware of ourselves now, and watch our mind now, and continue with that effort, day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment, suddenly we also start to become aware of ourselves in dreams. Then we begin to see how the personality is always being manipulated by our desires, how our personality is being manipulated by others, by people around us to get what they want from us. Little by little, we start to control it. But, make no mistake, you can not strengthen your personality to control your personality. This is a mistake that many people fall into. They think, "I am going to be a good Gnostic. I am going to be awake from now on. I am going to meditate six hours everyday." And they try so much to put this effort, but it is an effort of personality not consciousness.
You see, the effort to be is simply the effort to remember one's self. It is does not take a huge exertion to remember one's self. It simply takes awareness. This is why Samael Aun Weor told us it does not take exertion. If you are exerting your self, then you are doing it wrong. And then the students say, "But I thought that we are supposed to make super-efforts." So it sounds contradictory. It is not. It is a matter of perspective, inner attentiveness, that emerges from inside, related with the pineal gland, as the lecture last week emphasized.
This inner attentiveness sees the mask. It is aware of the mask, the personality. But most of all, it lets the personality deflate, and it allows the consciousness to manifest, not desire. In other words, instead of going around all of the time, trying to feed our desires, trying to act like a big-shot, trying to impress everybody, we learn to just be. We learn to be authentic. Do you know what that means? "To be authentic." It means to be what your being is, to be natural, to be one's self.
It is not easy, in this time, because everyone wants us to be something that we are not. And we want to be something that we are not. We look at our body, and we feel, "Aw! My body is not good enough. I wish my body was like, 'A' and 'B' and 'C.' "Oh! My education is not good enough." Right? This is all personality. But with cognizance, with rememberance of God, one looks inside and says, "This body is impermanent. This personality is impermanent. What is real is Spirit, Atman, that Self who is eternal, who is forever, who is God. Why should I worry if someone thinks I do not dress well. As long as I am dressed decently, it is enough. Why should I worry, if someone thinks that my car is cheap, or has a scratch. Why should I worry if my speech sounds uneducated. Why should I worry if my skin is darker than my neighbor or lighter than my neighbor, when I have God, my Innermost, when my Divine Mother is there, who has loved me when I was black, when I was white, when I was Mexican, when I was Indian? Why should I worry when the world judges me because of my religion, because of my hair color, because I have a bad haircut?" All of that deflates the control of personality: self-rememberance, self-cognizance.
Of course, we have explained many times that this is the first step to aquire real Gnosis. Self-observation and self-remembering; a deep and continual observance of one's own psychology. But that is only the beginning. There are some groups that claim that is everything. That simply through awareness, one can reach God. Not a single scripture agrees with that, not one.
The Soul, Ego and Personality
There are many groups in this time, famous people, who make this proclamation, "Just by being aware of yourself, it is enough." I am sorry, but it is a lie. If it were that simple, we would all be angels already. We would be done, because that is easy. It may sound hard when you are asleep, but self-cognizance and self-obeservation and self-remembering simply takes self-awareness. Aven the black magicians can do it, even the demons are aware of themselves. That does not take you to God. What takes you to God is spiritual birth, to create the soul, the chariot, that Krishna rides in, the soul represented by those brothers of the Mahabarata, the Pandava Brothers, which the lecturer mentioned last week. The soul, which is the solar bodies, the vehicles of gold, the Merkabah, the [Sahu] amongst the Egyptians, this vessel, this vehicle through which our solar personality emerges.
You see, as we are now we have a Lunar personality. It is called Lunar because it is a gift of the Divine Mother, the Moon. In ancient religions, theologies from around the world we see two fundamental symbols: the Sun and Moon. The Sun is Suria, Apollo, Ra, the Sun God, Christ. But the one who gives us birth, who initiates our process of development, who puts us on the Lunar path, is the Divine Mother, Soma, the Moon, that Natural unfoldment of mechanical nature.
To transcend the Lunar path and enter the Solar path requires spiritual birth, a terrible revolution, psychologically and spiritually in one's self. One has to rebel against one's own mind, to become a Lord of everything within one's self, to be in command of one's own nature. That process is one in which everything within which is Lunar goes through a great transformation. It all must die, and out of that death is a new birth, a Solar birth, in which the Lord emerges. The Lord is our Innermost. It is our Spirit, but clothed with a new vessel, the Solar bodies. That vessel is a Solar personality.
Samael Aun Weor accomplished this. So did many other great Masters. A process within which the Lunar mask is dissolved and what is used instead is a Solar personality. You hear the word, "Solar." It has, the word "soul" in it, but also "Sol" for Sun. The Solar personality is Christic. It is Divine. Nonetheless, it is a personality, but immortal. The Lunar one is impermanent. We make a new one with every existence. A Solar personality is forever. It is permanent. We need that. We need to create a Solar personality.
When looked at from this angle, we can see, if we look at the Tree of Life, we see these bottom four Sephiroth or spheres, which represent our Lunar psychology. The bottom-most sphere represents our physical body, which is Malkuth in Hebrew. The next one up is Yesod, which represents our vital body or body of energy. And these two are really one. They can not be separated. Above this we have Hod or the astral body, emotional body, which is where we have our feelings and emotions, and our dreams. And then next we have Netzach, the mental body, the intellect, the mind, which is also where we dream.
These are where we classically relate our ego. We talk about our ego in relation with them because, really, ego is from here down. Ego, self, "I," the false "I," desire, samskaras, aggregates, many names for these demons that inhabit our mind. The Lunar personality is what works in conjunction with these aspects of our psyche.
From day to day, moment to moment, if we observe ourselves, we see thoughts. This is Netzach, how the mental body works throught the personality and the physical body. Hod, emotion, the emotional body, but Lunar, which works through our personality and body as feelings, as longings, urges in the heart. The vital body and the physical body are very clear, energy and action, physically. When observe our three brains, intellect, emotion, and body in action, we need to see what are the impulses that manipulating my mind, my heart, my body. Not here in the classroom. It is good to do it here in the classroom and when you are listening to lectures, but you need to remember this when you are at your job, when you are at school, when you are with your spouse or your family. That is when you have to watch. It is not enough to just believe in Gnosis or to accept the teaching as a nice theory. This will not get you anywhere. You have to live it. To live it means to be awake, to be aware your self in your day-to-day life and to watch your mind and to control it, to change those old mechanical ways of behaving.
Lunar means mechanical. The Lunar processes of nature are mechanical processes. They just happen automatically, birth and death. Can we change that? Can anyone here change birth and death? No. Can you change that you need to eat and drink and sleep and breath? No. These are mechanical processes. Likewise, your ego is mechanical, but you can change that. Why? Because you created it. Simple. You did not create Earth, the atmosphere, the Moon and the Sun. God did. But you made your pride. You made your lust. You made your envy. You made your fear. God can not fix that for you. You have to fix it. And if you can not, nature will fix it for you, but it is very unpleasant.
How does nature purge a disease? Through pain. If your body becomes diseased, if it receives an infection, like a cancer, how does the body care for it? How does the body purge it? Through pain, through suffering, and eventually through death. The same is true psychologically. Our psyche is infected with a disease that we call pride, fear, envy, greed, lust, jealousy. We are sick. This humanity is dying. The evidence is everywhere. Do not live in fantasy land. Look around you. This humanity is sick, and nature is beginning to cleanse the disease. But the way the disease is ultimately cleansed is through death. Physically, yeah, we will die. But there is also what is called, "the second death." Many religions call it hell, avitchi, averno, Gehenna, many names, the infernos. This is simply a process whereby, because the soul did not do the work to redeem its self, out of compassion God placed laws in nature that will cleanse the ego out.
So, if we do not take advantage of this human existence and instead we just create more and more ego, more and more pain and suffering and karma, eventually the Divine says, "This human soul is lazy, is not doing his part. Purge him, out of compassion. Purge him." So that soul is placed in hell. So that those forces and pressures, that suffering, can purge that mind of disease. And that process takes time, and it is painful. But eventually, of course, that soul is cleansed and returns back to try again but having gained nothing.
The alternative is to do it ourselves, to take responsibility for our actions, to work daily, not just on the weekend, not just once a week, not just to go to church or temple for a festivals and holidays, but to take responsiblity for ourselves now, and to learn, "How does my personality control my human machine? How are the egos in me manipulating my personality? Through shame about my body or pride about my body? Through envy for the wealth or the education or the love that I see others have? Through fear, through jealousy? What manipulates my personality?" And then we have to apply the antidotes.
Remembrance of the Divine
The most important one: remember your Divine Mother, remember your Innermost. Not just as a thought, not just to think, "Oh yeah! I have to God within. Okay." That does not really dispel the presence of an ego, especially if it is a strong emotional affliction. To self-remember is to become cognizant, to become conscious, to be watchful. This is not a passive action. It is very active.
You see, what happens here is a flip, a reversal. Most of the time, our personality is very active. In some people it is easy to see. People who are very socially outgoing, you can see their personality because they talk, they engage others, they are very active socially. It is easy to see that. It is an active personality. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with that. We all have different personalities according to our karma, and according to our astrological influences, and our circumstantial influences. This is good. But that personality should be activated by consciousness, to be socially engaged consciouslly, to be aware of what one says and why, to be aware of the feelings of others, to be concerned for them, to love them. And then we have other types of personalities that are more reserved. These are harder to see, because they hide.
In reality, there are four main types, related with the elements: fiery, watery or aqueous, airy or gaseous, and earth or petrous. These four types of personalities are related with the astrological signs, the twelve signs. Those twelve signs, three in each of the four groups. And each of us has a certain astrological influence and thus we have a certain type of flavor to our personality. Do not assume that yours is the best. Because, through the process of your development as a human soul, you have probably been all of them. In this life, you happen to be a Pisces or a Gemini or a Virgo, but in your last life you were not. And in the one before that you were something else. But in each case, you were proud of it. Right? The effort then becomes to be aware of that, to not take it for granted, to not merely imitate and act mechanical but to act consciously.
Unfortunately, when we come into these studies, we bring with us our habits that we have always had. When we were children, we learned through imitation. We imitated our parents, our siblings, our friends, our neighbors. And the way we talk, the way we dress, the way we act, and our morals are all based on the imitation of others, things we were told, things we saw. This is normal. Yet, when you come to the Gnostic teachings, you have to stop. You can not learn Gnosis by imitating me, or any other Instructor. Yet if you go to Gnostic schools, or other types of religious institutions, you will find that that is exactly what happens. The students imitate the teacher. They even all start to dress the same. I have been to some schools and institutions where everybody dresses in a very relaxed way, flip-flops and sandals, you know, comfortable. And you go to another school down the street and they all wear suits and ties. Why? They are imitating each other. That is all. It is personality. It is not conscious. But unfortunately, those groups, those people, project their personality onto their religion. And they believe that the personality defines the religion.
I have even heard of Gnostic Instructors going to be congresses or meetings or Gnostics and being judged because of their clothes, being condemned and exiled because they did not wear a tie. What is that? That is not conscious value. That is personality. Because someone was not wearing dress shoes, everybody was whispering, "Oh... He has fallen from the path." This is true. It is hilarious, but it also sad. Right? But this is how we are. We judge from personality not from consciousness.
Every group, every religion is guilty of this. The Christians have their culture, ways of dressing, ways of behaving, and there are hundreds of thousands of groups Christians, and they all have their own approach. And they all believe that they are right. And the same is true amongst the Hindus, the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists. And they each take personality, the culture that they grew up with, the morals that they grew up with, the heritage that they grew up with and they project that as though that is the best. And we do it. We think that because we have a certain background, a certain upbringing, certain ideas, that that is the pinnacle of civilization. That we are on top. That we are the peak of all the human development through all of the centuries. Everything that everybody who has lived and died led up to this very moment, of you. Right? The ultimate human being, with the ultimate ideas about what life is and is not. And everyone of us thinks that. It is personality. That is just personality. It is an illusion. It has no reality. But unfortunately we bring that into our groups. We bring it into our religion. We bring it into our family. We need to evaluate it, to revise it. We need to question what we think is good and right and determine why we think that, why we feel it, why we believe it.
Many of us come to these groups with a set of morals, or ethics, certain behaviors we believe are good and certain ones that we think are bad, and some that are indifferent. Yet we fail to realize that our very moral concepts have changed over the course of our life, and have changed over the course of the generations, and many times do a complete inversion.
As an example, a few decades ago if you had spoken about homosexuality, about pornography, about masturbation, you would have been in danger of being beaten and cast in the street, not long ago. If you had spoken of it, people would have condemned you and could have beaten you and even killed you for it. Nowadays, we celebrate it. It is everywhere. You can not escape it.
Now, on television, movies, magazines, on the internet, everybody is celebrating these things. What kind of moral is that? Where are the eternal ethics in these qualities that we invert from one decade to another, and why is that happening, and who is behind it? It does not happen accidentally. And all of us have that, things that we think are a certain way, which when a few years ago we thought the opposite.
In our last life, we thought something else, and the one before that, something else. Where do we find the true eternal values when our personality is so contradictory and when our ego is constanly changing. We can not find real moral, real ethics, in humanity. Because the one that can give us that is inside, it is God. It is our Innermost, that Buddha who is inside.
At the feet of our real Master, our Innermost, we can learn real morals, real ethics, and the true upright way of behaving. We can not learn it outside. We can not learn it in a school, in a book, or from a teacher. The only teach who can show us that is our own inner Guru. So when we come to Gnostic schools, we go to religions, we go to university, remember that. The true ethics, the true morals are related with the consciousness.
A person who lives that way, who learns the ethic from within is very different from most people. Some good examples, Krishnamurti, an excellent example of a man who did not learn his ethical or moral point of view from anyone else but his own inner Master. He did not study anyone. He did not read anything. He listened inside. And what he expressed was a conscious moral ethic, beautifully. Samael Aun Weor is another, who did not accept the moral, ethical, or dogmatic projections of anyone around him. He did what he had to do. And many times, even his closest students would reject him for it, because they did not understand, because they were trying to imitate him rather than following their own inner Master. And this is the problem. As close as you may be to a great Master physically, if you are not close to your own Inner Master, you are wasting your time. It is your Innermost what you need to know, no one else.
Therefore, it is essential for us to learn to see our own mask. And by becoming conscious of it we can use it effectively. So then the personality that we have developed through out the course of our life is no longer utilized to feed our desire, to hide our fears. It is no longer a tool of our cravings and our aversions. It becomes a tool of Spirit that can be used to help others. This is the purpose of personality. It is to be a good human being, to contribute to society without self-interest. It becomes a vehicle of communication to help others, not one's self.
This is what was so beautifully represented in those ancient dramas, the Greek, and Egyptian, and Asian dramas. The actors were not there to be admired, like actors are nowadays. Those ancient actors were there to teach, to not be seen, to be invisible. And this is what this mask was designed to hide the human person and instead represent a cosmic truth. But now our personality is there to show off our pride, to get attention.
Our society tells us, "You have to have a strong personality." Right? There are some very famous people now-a-days who tell you, "If you want to be successful, you have to have a big ego." And they are right, if you want to be successful in the world. But if you want to have success in heaven, you have to have no ego, zero. When there is no ego, what is there? God. The solar personality, our true self. So, those ancient dramas can teach us a lot. Do you have any questions?
Questions and Answers
Audience: It seems like eariler what you were explaining was that the ego can take advantage in each successive existence [inaudible] just to justify what is being done in previous existences. My question is, how can we observe the fact that the ego is using all of these things to continue to do things that it has been doing in previous lives.
Instructor: The way that you learn about the function of your ego in relation with personality, especially in relation with previous existences, is to observe it here and now.
When you observe it here and now, you get first hand observation of the crime that is being committed. And that first hand observation gives a lot of evidence, as long as you are observing objectively, without self-interest, without condemning yourself but just observing. Then, at the end of each day, you meditate; you withdraw from everything around you and you go within and you begin to imagine what you observed. We call this, "retrospection," a process whereby you review the conscious data that you aquired that day. That process teaches you even more about how your ego is functioning. Right? And how it is using the personality. That observation, if the consciousness is active, will naturally lead you back to previous existences. It can lead you through memories of childhood that you have never remembered before. It can even lead you back into the womb, through conception, and back through the time between existences, in the "bardos" that they call that, those states of consciousness within which we did not have physical body, and then through death and back into that previous life. It depends. If you are focusing on a particular ego or particular psychological manifestation, you will tend to follow that thread. So it depends on where that thread leads. It is not complicated. And anyone can have that experience, if you make the effort, to meditate, to observe. Another question?
Audience: Yeah, we have a few questions back here. The first one is: why after having been purged in hell do we start again with a new ego?
Instructor: To clarify, the process of being purged in the infernal worlds is to cleanse one of ego, to remove it, to destroy it. Those fires have that ability. What remains is the pure Essence, the consciousness or embryo of soul, which can not be destroyed by the fires of hell.
What is interesting to note there is that the ego is lunar. It is created as a part of Lunar Nature. The consciousness is not. The consciousness is superior to that. So, the consciousness can not be destroyed by the Lunar fires, or the fires in mechanical Nature. Right? But the ego can. So when the ego is completely removed then that conscious element, which unfortunately is undeveloped still, reinitiates a new process in order to try again. But unfortunately tends to create the ego again. Another question?
Audience: Do black magicians create lunar bodies through black tantra, or do we already possess a Lunar Astral/Mental body?
Instructor: That is a good question. The process of the soul developing in the Lunar kingdoms of nature is the process by which the Lunar bodies are created. So the simple Essence enters into nature at the very beginning of its manifestation and evolves slowly over many thousands of years as it develops what we call protoplasmic bodies or Lunar bodies. And this is basically Lunar mind.
It takes a long time for that process to develop. The pinnacle of that is us, humanoid organisms with a soul who have a Lunar mind. Those are Lunar bodies, represented in the Tree of Life as those Sephiroth that I mentioned.
Black magicians or those who practice impure forms of tantra merely fortify those bodies. All that they do is strengthen them. They take the Lunar forces and they multiply them through desire, through lust, through pride, and they make those Lunar bodies more dense, stronger. The result is what is called a demon or a [sura], someone who has those Lunar vessels very dense and very strong; very strong pride, very strong anger, very strong lust, but awake. And they have powers, but they are not capable of ascending to Heaven until those things have been completely dissolved. Therefore, if they do not enter the path, the Solar path, then eventually, due to karma, they will also be digested by nature. But for them the process is much slower because they worked so hard to make those bodies so dense. And they have a lot of karma, so it takes a long time. Another question?
Audience: Do we gain a Solar personality through elimination of the Lunar personality, or do we have an inner Solar personality that is better expressed through the elimation of the Lunar personality?
Instructor: The exchange or the process of the difference of the Lunar and Solar personalities depends upon the path that we choose to take. Merely eliminating the ego does not create a Solar personality. As an example, we can cite the case of Paramahansa Yogananda, who was a very beautiful soul and gave very beautiful teachings. But unfortunately he did not receive the entire Kriya, so he did not receive the teachings of how to create the soul. He did not want that.
He did dissolve a percentage of his ego and also worked through some aspects related with his personality. But he did not create a Solar personality because he did not create the vessels of the soul. He did not accept that aspect of the teaching. On the other hand, we have Masters who, like Samael Aun Weor, who dissolved the ego completely, dissolved his personality completely and was able to manifest the Solar personality of his Innermost. This is the distinction.
The Solar personality belongs to God. It does not belong to the human soul. The human soul is an aspect of a Solar personality. You see, the real Solar personality is the Monad. It is Chesod or Atman, the real Self. That is a Solar personality, but that can only fully manifest once the Solar bodies are created, once that soul is fully developed. So there are grades and levels. Yes?
Audience: Is past life regression only useful as so far as getting information on deeper development? And once this has been achieved, there is no more need to regress?
Instructor: The term, "past life regression" implies a process of hypnosis or pscho-therapy, which in this tradition we reject 100%, because it is an unconscious mechanical tool. When we in this tradition investigate our past existences, we do it with a consciousness that is awake. In other words, there is no intermediary. There is no therapist or hypnotist who is there manipulating us. We do it ourselves my will. This is not hypnosis. It is not suggestion. It is not any kind of asleep consciousness. It has to be done awake. Otherwise, there is no value.
If you are attending the sessions of a medium or a spiritist or a hypnotist, you are attending a fantasy conference. You can not aquire conscious information about your soul unless you are conscious and awake of it. You can not that information from anyone else or any outside source. No person can come to you and say, "You were this and that in your past life." If anyone says that to you, they are a liar. And even if what they say is true, reject it, because you have not aquired Gnosis of it your self, so you have no way of knowing if it is a lie or not. You should only accept information about your inner identity that you have aquired from your own conscious experience.
We have to be extremely rigorous on this point because it is very easy to be decieved. Our pride loves to hear stories about our past lives. Many people love to hear that they were great angels and saints in their past lives, but none of us want to accept the truth, which is that we were all murderers, and rapists, and liars, and poor people, and people who just suffered. We do not want to hear that. We want to hear that we were Mary Magdalene or Napolean. Right? None of us want to hear the truth. The truth you can only aquire from your self, through conscious experience.
Past life information or learning about your past existences is extremely important, precisely because it is there that you created your egos, the strongest ones. We are creating egos now, so let us start here. We start today, now, to stop creating karma, to become aware of ourselves, not merely physically, but intellectually and emotionally, to stop creating suffering. That alone is not easy to do. For most people who enter into these studies, you really do not need to worry about your past existences, right now. Worry about your present one. Fix your present life. Fix your behaviors today. And then, once you get that under control, you start really learning how to be observant of your self, to learn about your self, to control your personality, little by little you can start to aquire information about the past because it is relevant to today.
We all have a huge backload or egotistical desires and influences that are submerged in our mind. So we might be able to gain control of our personality in our daily lives now and appear to be solid upstanding citizens. We do realize, just below the surface, our egos that we created before, that in an instant can emerge and take control of us and cause us to commit incredible errors, like murder, or rape, or theft. We all have it. All of us have committed crimes in the past, and those tendencies are still in the mind. And those tendencies will emerge in the instant the conditions are right and we are not paying attention. All of a sudden, someone who was yesterday an upstanding, beautiful, intelligent person, the next day is convicted killer, or has committed a great mistake against their spouse or their children or themselves.
All of us have that potential, so do not sit back and think that you are good. Reflect and learn. And you will find that there are things in your mind that you have never suspected. If you avoid it, it will just come out later. It is better to deal with it now. Another question?
Audience: Is it possible to stop creating karma?
Instructor: Is it possible to stop creating karma? Yes. It is possible, but extremely difficult. The reason is that there are three things that are eternal: space, Nirvana, and karma. Karma is simple cause and effect that modifies every particle in existence, even beyond the realm of the atom. Yet in order to enter into the Absolute, into the uncreated light, which is beyond manifestation, one has to first have zero debts and zero owed. In other words, we have to balance the three Gunas. This is only something that is possible for someone who has gone beyond the Gods. It is not easy. It is rarely accomplished but can be done. That is what it means to stop creating karma.
While we are here, physically, we are creating karma. We have cause and effect. Every action that we perform creates a result. That is karma. So, let us make those actions good and conscious. Let us make our actions in harmony with nature and with the Law. But most of all, in harmony with the will of our own Innermost. In that way, little by little we can pay our debts. We can raise the level of our Being until, as a matter of work and self-knowledge, we reach the stage at which we start working directly with the forces of the Gunas, but by that point I will not be able to help you because I am not there. Any other questions?
Audience: We talked about in this lecture how we change our personality as we go through our life in order to fit the various circumstances that we find ourselves in. But Samael Aun Weor, I believe, also mentioned that the personality is formed within the first seven years of our life. Is this correct?
Instructor: That is right.
Audience: We can see how we are changing our personality through time. But what did Samael mean when he talked about how it is formed in the first seven years?
Instructor: Well, it is similar to how your body is developed. Your body grows and develops through the first twenty-something years of your life. Right? The personality is similar. It develops in the first seven, but it does not ever stop developing. Just like you body is always changing and growing, your personality is the same. It is not a fixed rigid thing. It is energy.
So, your body also grows and develops until you are in your early twenties. Right? But you can change your body now, by applying different forces: your diet, what you eat and drink, what you breathe, your exercise, how you behave. All of that changes your body. The same is true of your personality. That is all. It is not merely something that is permanent and fixed. It is very maliable and flexible. Another question?
Audience: It is not really question but an observation. Maybe you would like to elaborate on it. You know, you were talking about how heavy the personality is now, especially in this day and age. And I have noticed that in a lot of movies, lately, where we are obsessed with Armageddon and the end of the world and how angels or demons or something is going to come down and save a few of us or save humanity. I do not if it totally relates to this lecture.
Instructor: Those movies and cultural phenomenon are happening for a reason. We do not often realize that much of what our culture processes emerges out of collective mind. And we gave a few lectures about collective mind and what that means. It is very related to personality because we develop our personality out of collective thinking. It is not individual thought.
So all of these cultural phenomenon, for example movies about Armageddon and aliens and extraterrestrials and doom coming out of the sky, they are there because they are reflecting a subtle consciousness that humanity has that something is going to change. And everybody feels it, but nobody is brave to investigate it consciously and directly, so we have a lot of theories.
For example, the whole 2012. There is a lot of hysteria, just like that happened in 1999. Right? It happens periodically. We get all hysterical because we have so much fear because we are asleep. We are not conscious what is happening. If you awaken your consciousness, you can learn directly about these things. And moreover you will not be afraid.
Audience: It almost seems like this suffering is so intense that you almost see this mass suicidal tendency.
Instructor: Yeah, definitely. And there are people who kill themselves because they do not want to be left behind or they do not want to pass through it. And they do not realize that they are just accelerating the process for themselves
Audience: Or fanatics that kill for their religion.
Instructor: No doubt. There is a lot of that. And again it all comes down to use being asleep. We are putting our faith in outside sources: movies, t.v., books, theories, dogmas. None of that can help. The only thing that can help us fundamentally is awakening inside. Was there another question back there?
Audience: In regards to Samael, he mentioned that he took off his Egyptian personality. Did he also eliminate that one?
Instructor: I am not sure about that. Signor?
Instructor: He did, of course.
Instructor: Yeah, the question is about Samael Aun Weor who, when he dissolved his Lunar personality, took on an ancient personality that he had from past existences which was Egyptian. And the question was whether he had eliminated that also. And it appears that he did. Another question?
Audience: You said that a lot of people's personality is where we have to conform the personality in many different areas in life: the Gnostic School, that conference where we had to wear a tie or else you could not go in. Well, I would want to go into the conference and, you know, if you do not conform to things then you make enemies it seems. Like if you do not laugh at the boss's jokes then you get in a fight. So sometimes you have your personality as a defense because other personalities are so strong. How do you manage the personalities that come in and interact with them in a good way?
Instructor: This is the great challenge for someone who is serious in the Gnostic studies, to learn to use the personality consciously.
The example that I gave was not an intentional thing. The person did not show up without a tie intentionally. It just happened to be that way. But, for example, like you state if you go to work and you are trying to be conscious and be authentic and you do not laugh at the boss's joke, you could get fired. Right? It is true. So why not laugh? But laugh consciously.
The interesting thing is that someone who is really conscious of themselves can use their personality for the benefit of other people. Right? To be conscious of one's personality does not mean that you immediately reject everything around you and you rebel. It means that you do things consciously and willfully, knowing what you are doing. As an example, you could be a person who has a very educated background and speak a certain way, but then for your job or for some other need you have to go into a jail and work with criminals, convicts. You could not go in there and talk like a Harvard or Wall Street business man. Right? You would have to go in there and speak the language of those people. You would have to do that consciously, to use your personality to effectively communicate and speak in a way that can be understood. That is something that you can do consciously, where you use the personality for the benefit of others. Does that make sense to you?
Audience: But if you are at a jail, then the language that you are going to use is probably going to be pretty crude, and you are going to want to keep away of the negative influences.
Instructor: Maybe, maybe not. It is something that you have to determine through conscious experience, listening to the guidance from within. There is no golden rule here except to be awake, to be aware of one's self. Samael Aun Weor made a statement in The Pistis Sophia, which is that in order to descend into the abyss and help the demons sometimes the initiate has to dim his light. And what that means is that you can not go and blind people. Right? You can not go in there projecting your self. You have to go in there at their level and speak to them at their level.
So, the example that I am giving is similar to that. If you are someone who is a Gnostic and who is developing your self consciously, it does not mean that you go around your daily life strutting around like a Gnostic. You have to blend in. We are not here to make ourselves look different. We are here to do our work and help humanity, and in most cases that means that you look like a normal person. You just are a normal person because you are.
Too often we see people who take on these studies and start to do that. They strut around like peacocks and proclaim Gnosis everywhere. This is not good. It is arrogant and often creates a lot of problems. Right? We need to be humble and be authentic and realize that we have a lot of defects, we have a lot of errors, but let us be honest about that. Right? Just be your self. Another question?
Audience: Are relationships between people used partly for the purpose of reflecting individual personality traits back to the projector, therefore creating a reaction and enabling awareness of egos?
Instructor: I am not sure that I understand the question. But in general with relation with people around us, families and friends, the Gnostic tradition and the Gnostic studies emphasize that these relationships are very important. Partly because they are karmic. We are born into our situation because we deserve it, because our karma has created it.
Secondly, we need it. If we have been born into a given situation, it is because the karma is there, and unless we comprehend that karma it will not go away. We need to be in the situation that we are in, in order to understand our selves.
So, some people think that as soon as they find spirituality that they have to run off to another country or avoid their family and friends or quit their job. It does not mean that at all. It means that you need to take advantage of those situations to learn about your self. How did you get there? Why? What do these situations bring up about you? What can they teach you about your self? And most of all, we need to learn how to love the people around us, but consciously, to serve them instead of seeking to be served because, usually, that is what we do. We usually expect things from our family and friends and our co-workers, and we do not usually look at what we can contribute, what we give. So Samael Aun Weor emphasized repeatedly that our interactions with others are the best places for us to learn about our selves, and it is true. Moreover, it is the best place to learn about sacrifice, to sacrifice our own ego, our own needs, and our personality so that others can benefit. I am not sure if I answered that question. Any other questions?
Audience: Can you tell the traits that are with the personalities, the earth, fire, wind, water?
Instuctor: Well, there are certain tendencies in the Astrological signs. And we had a course about that, and there is also a book about that. But I would suggest to you to not rely on an intellectual structure or diagram of the personality types. The reason is, yeah there are twelve signs, but there are many grades within those signs. So you may be a Libra, but there are inferior types of Libras, and there are average types of Libras, and there are superior types of Libras. I mean superior, average, and inferior in relation with consciousness. So that means that there are more than twelve types. Right? There are a lot more.
Moreover, the ego is there, and the ego modifies that according to karma but also the personality. You can line up or fill a room with fifty Libras, and they will all be different. Right? There will be certain tendencies that might be similar, but you can not really categorize it. So what I would suggest is: observe your self. First uncover your own tendencies, your own behaviors, your own personality type. Do not rely on a book. Do not rely on a structure but on your own information that you can gather. There are a lot of books that you can go buy about personality types, and they have all types of fancy diagrams. They will only confuse you, because then you will say, "Okay. This book said that I am A, B, and C, so now I am going to go look for A, B, and C." And you will not see what is really there because you will be looking for something else. Does that make sense? So instead, forget that whole thing and look at your self. There was a question here?
Audience: Yeah, I was just wondering if you could talk just a little about actual process of eliminating a defect. For instance, [inaudible] to get rid of that, you know? Is there a point through your meditation you just comprehend it like, "Oh! I get it now."
Instructor: Right. Comprehension comes in many forms. The very beginning of comprehension is exactly that feeling of, "Huh! Oh! I did not see that before. Oh, I get that." And often it is emtional, a feeling of regret or remorse, a feeling of, "Wow! I can not believe that I was doing that. I can not believe that I felt that or that I thought that." That is a form of comprehension.
The process of the elimation of an ego is a process of following you intuition. It begins by self-observance, by continually observing one's self. And gathering information. It is synthesized through meditation, when you review that information and you analyze it without judgement. You analyze that information. Then, as the analysis begins to lead you intuitively, you start to feel, "Wow! That way of behaving is wrong." And you may not be able to reason about it. Right? To say, "It is wrong because of A, B, and C." But you know that it is wrong in your heart. That is comprehension. Moreover, as you continue to observe yourself from day to day, you will see that pattern changing. And this is where you really have to be careful. The patterns of behavior begin to shift. One, because the ego is trying to hide. Two, because unconsciously you begin to modify your personality to hide that behavior. And three, because the consciousness, seeing that part needs to see more, so we need to awaken.
You see, we may say, "Okay, I need to observe my lust. And I see my lust in relation with a particular person." So then, because we know that, from then on we start to avoid that person. Right? During our daily lives, "Ah. I know that I have lust for that person, so I am not going to go over there. I am not going to go by that cubicle or down that street." So with that right there, our behavior has changed. Our personality has shifted. And the consciousness says, "Well, I do not see anything else in relation with that, so I am going to keep looking somewhere else." Right there comprehension stops. What needs to happen is that we continue to observe and investigate, until little by little when we observe ourselves that psychological element that we were looking for is gone. It does not mean that It is completely eliminated, but there has been a change. Sometimes it means that it is more submerged. Sometimes it means that it is eliminated. It is something that only you can know intuitively and consciously in yourself.
To know that a defect is completely eliminated is something that you can only discover through your Innermost. Only God can tell you that, nobody else. I have heard Instuctors say, "Oh yes. You have eliminated that ego." It is ridiculous. How can anyone know that? Only God can know that. Another question? Okay. Thank you
