Today we are going to talk about specific obstacles that the beginner faces in Meditation practice. There are many obstacles to Meditation, and in the previous lectures we pointed out some of the most fundamental ones:

1. Not knowing what the Consciousness is, and not knowing how to work with it.  We all have ideas about Consciousness, but we need to know experientially in the moment what it is and how to use it. Refer to previous lecture to build upon this: Meditation Essentials 02: Consciousness
2. Lack of energy.  Usually, we do not have energy, because we have wasted energy, we have squandered it; we have invested it into harmful action.  We need to learn how to save, accumulate, and transform energy in order to nourish our Consciousness daily. That is why gave this lecture: Meditation Essentials 03: Energy
3. Committing actions that impede Meditation.  We tend to act in ways that contradict our spiritual goals.  We need to set up the prerequisites for good practice; we need good ethics; we need to know how actions lead to consequences that if we behave in certain ways, certain consequences always result, and our ignorance of that is a big obstacle for us. That is why gave this lecture: Meditation Essentials 04: Action and Consequence

In today’s lecture we are going beyond those preliminary obstacles. Now we are going to talk about obstacles the arise when we are practicing: either doing our preliminary exercises or in the actual practice of Meditation.

We previously explained that the state of Meditation is a precise state of Consciousness that we access when we learn how to harness concentration and imagination at the same time, together. To do that requires training, so most beginners start with developing concentration first.

Preliminary Training of Concentration

In the first six lectures of this course we have encouraged you to practice daily:

1. Self-observation
2. Concentration

Self-observation is mindfulness of one’s actions.  It means to always be aware of yourself, to be present, to be in the moment, to be aware of your body, to be aware of your heart, to be aware of your mind, and to be cognizant of what you are doing at all times.  That is the first exercise and that exercise establishes the very beginning of Meditation.  If you are not doing that, you will never learn to meditate.

The second exercise is to develop your concentration daily by doing preliminary concentration practices.  An easy practice for this is the observation of the sensations of the breath.  If you have been following this course you would have been doing these exercises now for twelve or fourteen weeks.

Now we are going to go into a new phase of work, where we are going to leave behind the preliminary exercises and go into something that is perhaps more difficult but also incredibly important: visualization.

Deeper Training of Concentration

Concentration, serenity, is a state of Consciousness, it is an action of Consciousness, and it utilizes energy.  Do you see those factors there?

1. Consciousness
2. energy
3. action

We need to be very aware of that trinity. That power of three creates, and it will create in accordance to the action.

We are learning to concentrate our Consciousness by using energy in a right way; the result is serenity. The result of using those three in harmony is that steadily we begin to advance through the nine stages of serenity that we explained previously.  That happens because of a cause and effect process; it does not happen by beliefs, theories, or as a gift from the gods.

The Nine Stages of Meditative Serenity

Serenity is a result of how you put your Consciousness and energy into action. That is all that determines your progress through the stages of concentration. This means that if you are not experiencing a change in your concentration, it is simply because you are not yet producing the cause that creates the result you want.

The Defining Characteristics of Concentration

In this tradition we learn that concentration as a state of Consciousness has two important features that we need to be able to identify in our practical experience, specifically in Meditation practice.  Those two distinguishing features are:

1. Vivid intensity, intense mental clarity
2. Stability, one-pointedness

Stability, one-pointedness, is the ability to remain focused on something without wavering.

Vivid intensity is visual, imagery, that is something perceived; it is not imaginary, this is not just metaphorical. This means that real concentration is a form of visual perception. Thus, to develop real concentration, one must use visual imagery. This underscores the fact that most practices that people call “Meditation” are actually just preliminary training exercises for relaxation or the very beginning of concentration. Real concentration utilizes the full power of the Consciousness, whose very nature and function is the perception of imagery.

The words “clarity” and “vivid” indicate the ability to perceive something without any obscurity.  If I ask you to remember what you had for breakfast, an image pops up in your memory and you can perceive that, even if its only for an instant. How clear is that image? How vivid is it? Can you sustain it without being distracted? The qualities of that recollection are a reflection of your concentration ability. If that image is dim, fleeting, and hard to perceive, then you have work to do.

All of us have the ability to perceive non-physical imagery; we call it imagination or visualization. You can also call it clairvoyance; it is the samething.  This is simply the ability to perceive images without the physical senses.  That is a power of Consciousness.  It is developed by establishing strong concentration and serenity.  When your psyche is very calm, this ability to perceive without the physical senses is enhanced, it is much more vibrant.  When you have a lot of energy available to that conscious perception, the imagery is even more intense.  So if you do not have good concentration or energy, visualization seems impossible.  For most people who try to learn to meditate, they cannot do this on day one so they give up; they think: “It is impossible, I cannot do it.”  Anyone can do it. Visualization and concentration are natural abilities of the Consciousness, but you have to restore the environment within which they can function properly.  That means we first must clear away the initial obstacles that we mentioned previously. We also must work with Consciousness, conserve energy, put it into right action, and improve our ethics.  It is through that process that concentration and visualization are able to flower and develop properly.

In our exercises, these are the qualities we need to be looking for, as we develop concentration:

1. Vivid intensity, intense mental clarity
2. Stability, one-pointedness

As a beginner, you will not have these qualities yet. So, do not expect to have them, but understand that if you practice Meditation in the right way you will develop them.

You will also note that when you are observing the sensations of your breath or some other physical phenomenon, you cannot develop visualization.  That is why in this phase of developing concentration it is better to drop those kinds of practices.  It is more effective to use practices that harness the power of the Consciousness to imagine.  So, as an example, we will observe an image and then we will close our eyes and visualize it.

A Visual Object of Concentration

Look at this picture, then close your eyes and imagine it.

Evaluate your mental clarity and one-pointedness.  Can you perceive the image in your visualization?  If you can, how long can you hold it before you become distracted, before it fades to black, or before something else appears?  How long can you hold this image in your imagination clearly, vividly, and stabilized?  That is a measure of your power of concentration and visualization.

If you have developed this ability in yourself, you can hold this image for as long as you want, clearly and vividly.  The Consciousness has that power naturally and spontaneously; it is not something supernatural.

Why is this important? This skill is what opens the door to real Meditation.

We explained in the earlier lectures that our goal is Prajna (profound wisdom).  We need insight into our suffering; we need to understand why we suffer; we need to understand why things are the way they are.  The causes are deep in our psyche and they are very difficult to perceive in our current psychological state, but if we harness the powers of the Consciousness to concentrate and visualize we can access a state of perception called Samadhi.  Samadhi is the doorway to Prajna, wisdom.

Samadhi means ecstasy, and refers to a state of Consciousness when it is liberated from all conditioning factors, such as the physical body, pride, fear, lust.  In Samadhi, the Consciousness perceives perfectly, clearly, without filters, and it sees what is real; it sees the truth.  If you have that power, you can then observe what is causing you to suffer, and instead of responding to it with aversion, fear, regret, remorse, pain, resentment, pride, etc. you can observe it as it is, and you can see why it is what it is, and you can comprehend your karma, and you can understand how to respond, how to change it.  That is a tremendous power.  That is the power that allows an animal like one of us to become a human being, to become a God, to become a master.  It is that power to see the truth and to respond consciously and appropriately.  This ability to be able to visualize something and see it clearly without reaction is the foundation that introduces us into the next level of practice, which is the level we need.  So it is a very important skill to have.

There are many objects you can use for concentration, but to develop this ability to analyze reality, we need the power of visualization, and that is why for real practice, for real preparation we need to abandon concentrating on physical things and learn to develop the ability to visualize and sustain an image.  It is harder, but the result is orders of magnitude more powerful than the ability to observe your breath.  Once you have this ability, you will then be able to meditate on anything and acquire information about it; that is really why we want to learn to meditate: to retrieve knowledge for ourselves, not having to rely on anything but our own abilities.

The Early Stages of Developing Concentration

When we begin developing concentration, we pass through these stages.

Stages of Tight Focus

1. Settle the psyche. Achieved through “hearing.”
2. Settling continually. Achieved through “reflection.”

As a beginner, we have a completely wild mind. We sit in our posture, we relax, we try to place our attention on the object of concentration, but we are constantly distracted; the mind and body refuse to cooperate. We are distracted by pain, discomfort, agitation, we want to leave, we want to get up, we want to drink some water, or whatever.

In stage one we encounter constant battles, while we settle the psyche, and that is illustrated by this monk, who is chasing the animals.  The animals represent that quality of mind that is always distracted, always seeking things, not settling down.  But with some willpower, with study, with learning about the teachings, we can advance to the second stage.  That is why this is called “achieved through hearing.”  Hearing means that we start to really listen to the instructions about how to concentrate, we reflect on it, and during the effort to meditate, as much as we get distracted, we keep reminding ourselves, “This is the way it is.”  Not to get frustrated, not to get discouraged, but to keep remembering the teachings, “I have to place my attention again, I have to place my attention again.”  So it is hearing in yourself the instruction.  Doing that repeatedly, making that effort every day to practice, ten or twenty minutes a day, little by little, as you work with your Consciousness all day long, and as you save energy all day long, and you act appropriately all day long, you start to move to stage two, which is settling continually.  That simply means that now when you practice your concentration exercise, your attention is remaining steady for a little bit longer.  The mind and the heart start to settle down a little bit.

Together these two are called “stages of tight focus,” or “forcible engagement.”  That means that it takes a lot of effort to continually return attention to the object of concentration.

The second phase is achieved through “reflection,” meaning that you are starting to reflect on that teaching more, you are starting to really digest it, you are starting to reflect on how you see how the concentration is starting to strengthen, the mind is starting to settle, and you are seeing a little benefit. You are starting to reflect on what you are learning.

These two stages of development are difficult, they are hard, there is no getting around that. That is just how it is.  Go into to it knowing that. Go into it prepared, and go into to it knowing that this is where you are going to face obstacles.  This is where you will be challenged, and most people quit; it is a sad fact.  Most people give up.  Anyone can learn to meditate, but you need to educate yourself about how to do it, and you need willpower to properly do it.  If you are able to understand the teachings and to recognize the obstacles, then you can apply the antidotes to them.

Faults That Prevent Serenity

Here are the main faults that people deal with in these initial phases.

1. Laziness
2. Forgetting the instructions
3. Not recognizing agitation and dullness
4. Not applying antidotes
5. Over-applying antidotes

If you can recognize these obstacles while you are practicing, you can overcome them.  These are the only obstacles you will face.  This is it; they are not that difficult.

We are actually really lucky: if you are able to learn Meditation and practice Meditation, and these are the only obstacles you have to deal with, you are very lucky.  Most people in the world right now do not have this opportunity.  There are people with very difficult, painful circumstances, who wish they could develop their spiritual lives, but they do not have access to the teachings, they live in a place that is not conducive to practice, they may live in places where there is war or they are being heavily persecuted and have no freedom.  So for those of us who are able to listen to these types of studies and put them into practice, we are extremely fortunate.  And if we quit, we are foolish.

Laziness

The tendency to avoid practice. Caused by:

1. Defeatism
2. Attachment to harmful actions
3. Lack of will

Antidote: Cultivate faith: contemplate advantages of serenity, and disadvantages of distraction

The first fault, and the most common, is laziness.  This is simply to avoid practicing Meditation, or doing spiritual practice in general.  We have all kinds of excuses for it, we justify it, but really laziness is just that.

The first cause of laziness is defeatism; that is when we tell ourselves, “I cannot do it, I am not capable, my mind is too crazy, my karma is too heavy, my circumstances are terrible. I do not have a spouse, a teacher, a school, spiritual friends, etc.”  We have lot of excuses, but none of them are true.  All of them are the ego fighting to preserve itself.

Our ego does not want to give up control over our energy and Consciousness, and it uses that type of thought process to disempower the Consciousness, to disempower the soul.  We as a soul, as a Consciousness, need to recognize laziness for what it is, especially defeatism; defeatism is poison. We should never allow defeatism in our thoughts, feelings or actions, even as a joke, even when we are talking with other people, such as saying, “I am not capable of meditating, I cannot do it.”  That is very negative and infectious.

The second cause of laziness is attachment to harmful actions. We may know a lot about the teachings, we may love spirituality and dharma, we may study everything, but we remain addicted to gossip, negative tv, alcohol, drugs, smoking, masturbation, or other types of actions that are directly contradictory to our spiritual goals.  In other words, we have an addiction or an attachment to actions that prevents us from practicing in a right way.

If we are having struggles with our Meditation, there is a cause; if we are having difficulties, if we are feeling sour about our practice, we are feeling like it is impossible, the cause is not the practice, the cause is not the teaching, the cause is our psyche, something in our mind. When someone feels negative towards their Meditation practice, it is because they are doing something wrong. When we feel that, we need to identify the cause.

Sometimes it is a lack of will, which is the third cause. To have a lack of will means that even though we may be interested in the teachings and value them, we do not have the zeal needed to actually put them into practice. We lack full comprehension of the reality. When you comprehend the reality, you immediately have great zeal, willpower. This is like someone who suddenly realizes they are in a house that is burning down: that recognition of the truth provokes immediate action.

All of these forms of laziness can be dealt with in the same way, but the first thing we have to do is to recognize them and immediately apply the right antidote.

In general, laziness is overcome by cultivating faith, which is multifaceted.  We do not mean faith as belief; we mean faith in its original meaning, which is confidence through experience.  Real faith is having knowledge through experience, confidence, because you have proven that the teachings work.  The way we cultivate faith in these teaching is we put them into practice and measure the results.  When you acquire results, then you know for yourself that it works; you have to reflect on that, become conscious of that and recognize: “I did this and that, and I got these results, and it does work.”  That builds faith. What happens when you build faith?  You build confidence.  When you build confidence, you build diligence; you are willing to work hard because you know it works.  This is how you overcome laziness; it is simple.

The other thing about overcoming laziness is to contemplate the advantages of serenity or concentration. When you notice that you are unwilling to practice Meditation, you need to sit down and really talk to yourself, talk to your mind, and layout the case, say: “Okay, you do not want to meditate? Let us contemplate what will happen if we do not meditate anymore.  What will be the result if I avoid practicing?”  Use your imagination, and follow the logical, realistic cause and effect of what will happen. Then compare that to the opposite; show your mind: “Okay, now if I actually do practice, what will be the result, what are the advantages of being serious about the path?” Really show your mind the two sides. Teach yourself about it.  That is another way to overcome laziness, it is not complicated, it is not difficult, and it is a simple antidote to apply, but it is important.  Whenever you feel resistance to meditating, deal with it immediately, do not let it rot, because it will get worse.

Forgetting the Instructions

Distraction. Lose the object of concentration.

Antidote: mindfulness

The next obstacle is to forget the instruction.  This is referring to while you are practicing.  During Meditation, if your attention wanders away from the object of concentration and you never return to it, you have forgotten the instructions. Thus, you are wasting your time. When you are distracted, you are not accomplishing anything. Some people just keep practicing in that way: they sit to meditate, but become distracted, and never overcome that state of distraction. Obviously, eventually they give up, which make sense – why would you keep trying to meditate if you are not getting anywhere?

The antidote is to be mindful.  Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of what you are doing.

• Do one thing at a time, with concentration
• Be fully aware of what you are doing
• Make mindfulness continual, from moment to moment
• Do not let yourself be distracted

When you are driving your car, just drive your car: shut off the radio, shut off the phone. Just drive, pay attention to what you are doing and what is happening around you. There is a lot going on in front of you that you need to watch.  Not only is it safer to drive that way — you are saving and protecting your own life and the lives of others — but you are also developing your Meditation skills.  When you are at work, just do your job, do not be distracted; when you are washing dishes, just wash the dishes with full awareness of what you are doing from moment to moment.  When you have done washing and you step away to cross the room, watch yourself as you do it.  Concentrate; place your attention on what you are doing, and watch from moment to moment, never letting attention go.  That is all mindfulness is. If you are doing that all day long, you will get through these first levels of meditative stability very rapidly.  So mindfulness is the antidote; self-observation is the antidote to forgetting the instruction.

Excitement / Agitation

Unquiet state of mind.

1. Attracted to pleasurable objects, memories, thoughts, feelings, sensations
2. Causes psyche to be scattered, seeking outward with a sense of craving
3. Result: impedes stabilization of psyche and development of concentration

Antidotes: Introspection. Reflect on impermanence, and faults of distractions

Excitement, agitation, is when the mind is not still; thoughts keep coming, you keep thinking of other things, memories, day dreams, imaginary conversations, worries, anxieties, thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, thinking about what you have to do next week, thinking about the conversation you had the week before, etc. That constant flow of distractions is what we call excitement or agitation. Simply stated, it is an unquiet state of mind.

To understand the agitation, you need to see what it is, how it functions.  The agitated state of mind is a type of craving, a type of attachment; it is always seeking pleasurable objects, memories, thoughts, feelings, and sensations.  It is the mind seeking its desires. That is represented by the monkey on these images.  The monkey illustrates that agitated, distracted aspect of our psyche that is always jumping from here to there, branch to branch, chasing fruit, chasing tasty things.  The problem is that when we let the mind do that, the result is this unquiet state of mind, and it impedes our ability to concentrate.

The antidote is very simple: we need introspection, to turn our attention inward, to not let the distractions take us away, but instead keep returning inward.  That is, become aware of yourself, become conscious of yourself.

We can apply this all day long; not just during Meditation practice, but at all times.  The wild mind always seeks sensation, distraction, so continually bring it back to be aware here and now.

In addition, reflect on the nature of the distractions that afflict you.  Observe your mind as though it was not yours, as though you are a scientist studying some strange creature. Consider the faults of that distracted state. Consider the impermanence of those distractions, desires, etc.

The mind is always craving: “That new show is coming, I cannot wait.  It is about to come on TV, I am so excited, I cannot wait.” The state of mind is craving that experience; it is an agitated state of mind. Observe that agitation, and reflect on it: “That show is going come out and I will watch it, and then it will be over. So what? What will I gain from that? A few moments of being distracted from my suffering? A few moments of being identified with a bunch of actors? I will not gain from that, I will lose time and energy. Why get so agitated about it?  Why lose awareness of myself and waste so much energy and thinking about that and fantasizing about that, talking about that?  It is not important.”

As another example, we crave to possess something, we want to buy something, we want to own something, or we want to get to know a certain person. Again, reflect on impermanence: “If I get that object or I get that person, then what?  I am not going to be fundamentally different.  If I get that car or I get that new computer, so what?  I am still going to be the same person; I will just have this new thing.  I will be in the same condition psychologically as I was before I got it.  Not only that, then I will have this new possession that I will be afraid to lose, so I am still going to suffer, and then one day I will lose it, because everything is impermanent.  So I am suffering not having it, I am suffering having it, and I am suffering losing it. I am suffering through the whole process!  Why bother with all that? Why not just cut the attachment now, and avoid losing so much time and energy?”

This cycle that we are constantly repeating occurs because of the attachments of the psyche, and those attachments, cravings for sensations, want to repeat.  The object itself is not relevant. When we get what we desire, we still are not satisfied; our desire always wants more. The object we craved is set aside as we crave something else. The objects do not cause the problem, it is our psychological attitude that creates the unsteady mind.  It does not matter one way or the other spiritually if you are rich or poor, if you have nice clothes or you do not; you can have them, but it does not matter.  What matters is your psychological relationship to them, to things. If your mind is unsteady, distracted, then reflect on impermanence, reflect on the inevitability of death. Observe how much of time and energy is spent focused on possessions and external circumstances, neither of which are reliable or lasting.

We are always worried about what our friends think about us, what society thinks, how much money we have, how far we have advanced in our career.  We never stop to think that at any moment we will die, and none of that will matter at all, not at all.  We will leave all of that behind.  Why bother being so worried about all of that, when death is inevitable?

Social status and possessions will not help us with our death. But if we change our state of being, we will experience death in a completely different way, not afraid, but approach it cognizantly and be able to use it to our advantage.  That is a possibility, but not while the mind is unquiet.  We need abilities to be able to face death consciously; excitement and agitation is a severe obstacle towards that.  We need to recognize when the mind is in that state, and learn to deal with it in our practice in our Meditation.

Laxity / Dullness

Lack of clarity.

Antidotes: Expand your awareness by recalling something that affects you like cold water on your face: visualize a bright light or sun, or reflect on something truly astonishing, such as a personal experience with divinity, the compassion of the great masters, etc.

Dullness, laxity, means a lack of clarity.

Firstly, this relates to when you are trying to visualize an image and you cannot see it. This occurs because the Consciousness is weak, it is not trained, it does not have any energy and because we have a lot of bad habits.

Lack of clarity for us seems normal because that is what we experience all the time, but it is not normal.

Sometimes you will experience lack of clarity, you will be trying to visualize but you feel like you are just trudging through mud. You cannot perceive the image; the mind is not agitated, but you just cannot visualize; you feel like a cloud is on you.

Strangely, some people think that state is Meditation; they feel that since the mind is “quiet” they are “meditating.” It is not Meditation, it is a state of dullness.

The antidote is to expand your awareness by recalling something that affects you like cold water on your face.  Imagine a bright sun of extremely bright light. That will stimulate your Consciousness. Visualize or reflect on some astonishing fact, such as a spiritual experience you had or some truth about spirituality that really astonishes you, such as the great compassion of the gods.  You can also bring to mind the overwhelming suffering in the world: visualize all those who suffer, and expand your visualization over the whole world, while you imagine that you are irradiating a terrific light of love to all of those in pain. Do this sincerely, with all of your willpower, and you will dispel dullness.

Using Antidotes

As useful as these antidotes are, they can be overused or even ignored. That is why obstacles four and five are:

• Not applying antidotes
• Over-applying antidotes

Everyone knows we should eat healthy food, but many people continue to eat food that is not healthy. Similarly, in our Meditation practice we slip into bad habits or stick with useless practices just because we are familiar with them. Also, using or not using antidotes can also become mechanical or misunderstood. The way to avoid all of this is to continually revise our practice, to look at it objectively, like a scientist would, impartially, without pride or attachment. In this way we can discover where we can improve. The spiritual diary is a great tool in this regard: by recording what you are doing, you create a record that helps you keep an impartial eye on yourself.

Exercises

1. Throughout the day, develop self-observation.
2. Each day, for at least 10-20 minutes, develop meditative concentration through visualization of the image.
3. Continue your spiritual diary.

Continue developing self-observation all day, and expand your mindfulness to lengthen the amount of time that you are aware of yourself.  In other words, become aware of the continuity of awareness.  When you are doing laundry and you are aware of what you are doing, also note that you need to continue being aware from moment to moment. It is one thing to become aware in the moment, and it is something else to continue being aware.

So, develop continuity of awareness.

Then, each day do this meditative concentration practice.  Instead of the practice we did previously observing the sensations of the breath, now you will first take a “mental photo” of this image:

Then, close your eyes and visualize it.

When you first look at the image, just be aware of the image; there is no need to analyze it mentally, there is no need to investigate it, measure it, to look into who it is, what it represents, all the symbolism – forget all that intellectual information.  Just take a mental photograph and then close your eyes and picture that image in your mind. That is all we are doing with this practice: revive the memory of what we saw. That takes no effort or analysis. So, do not speculate, analyze, and discard beliefs, names, and symbolism. Just take a mental photo and then close your eyes and project that image in your mind.  Then, take ten, fifteen, twenty minutes and visualize that picture.

If the image scares you or bothers you in some way, pick some other deity or sacred image, but it is better if it is something that you do not already have mental associations about.

Regarding the visualization, do not strain.  We already have the ability to visualize; you can prove it right now.  What does a monkey look like?  Do you see that picture pop up in your head?  What is a banana?  You can see the picture in your mind, right?  It just pops up effortlessly.  That is all you need to do in this exercise. Do not strain to visualize.  Do not roll your eyes around, or squeeze your face, or squeeze your brain. You do not need any tension or effort. Just recall the memory and let the image pop up on its own, spontaneously. If it goes away, relax and recall the image again; do not force it, do not exert it, do not demand it, relax. Relax and recall the image again and again.  It will appear on its own, effortlessly, and if it does not, it is because concentration is weak or you are agitated.  If your Consciousness does not have the energy or strength to hold the image steady, back off a bit, relax, and try again, and keep doing that.  Little by little, with persistence and relaxation, one day you will suddenly realize that that image is staying there effortlessly, and it is beautiful.  That is the way it should be developing.  It will just appear there and be effortless in the same way that you dream.  We are utilizing the exact same ability: when you dream, you do not make effort, you just close your eyes, you relax, and then images just happen.  We want to use that same exact approach when we develop this power.  Relax completely, call up the image; if does not appear, be patient; just keep recalling that image in a very relaxed way.

The third exercise is to continue with the spiritual diary.

Questions & Answers

Audience: Can you remind us what the purpose is of retaining that image?

Instructor: Imagine that you have the ability at the end of the long hard day to sit down in your Meditation posture, close your eyes and visualize something that happened to you that day that was confusing or painful or difficult, and that scene appears in your mind effortlessly, and you are able to observe exactly what happened, and as you observe it, some new information appears in the screen of your mind: a memory from your childhood, some other vision that seems familiar, but you are not sure why, and then in your heart you feel an understanding; you start to understand things that you never understood before.  That is a simple outline of what we call psychoanalytical Meditation, which is the very purpose of Meditation. The power of visualizing leads us to understanding.

To be able to do that, you need these powers that we explained today.  You need the ability for your concentration to have a vivid intensity and one-pointedness.  If you do not, you will call up that image of what happened to you today and your mind will immediately start saying: “Well, I did not deserve that.  I was right and they were wrong.  And they are to blame: they did this, and did that.” And your mind will just go on and on and on,justifying itself, and you will never get anywhere.

What we want is comprehension, we want wisdom, and we want understanding.  And to have that, you need a mind that is stable, settled; you need attention that can be placed without distraction, it needs the ability to maintain itself no matter what.  When you are observing that event that happened, let’s say it is a trauma, let’s say something terrible happened, do you now have the ability to observe that without reacting emotionally?  Probably not.  But when you develop this ability, you will.  You will be able to visualize and imagine things that are painful, disturbing and difficult, but not be distracted by your emotional reactions, by anything, but be able to see the reality of it, the truth of it, and that is what we need in order to cut through the illusions – the illusions of our mind, the illusions of our heart, the illusions that prevent us from seeing the truth.  That is why this is important.  We are training our Consciousness to have the ability to have insight into reality.  What can be more important than that?

Audience:  I am wondering if we can use a more simple image?

Instructor: The image we are using is sophisticated for a reason: your Consciousness has the ability to project incredibly sophisticated detail. Here is easy example of that: your memory.  You do not make any effort to store memories.  Remember how you got here: you can remember a lot of detailed information, right?  Where you walked, where you drove, how you did everything you did before you came here, but you made no effort to store all of that data, and it takes no effort to recollect it.  So, the image we are visualizing in this exercise is very simple compared to all of that complex data we can recall from our day.  This image is just a flat field of visual information that you store in your memory by looking at it for a moment. But in your memories of the day, you have not only the visual date, but information from all the other senses. Yet, it is all there in your memory, effortlessly.

So really, this visualization exercise is easy: take a look at it for a moment and you have taken a picture of it already, like a snapshot with a camera; you take the picture, you close your eyes, and the image is there in your memory.  The problem is that our mind interferes. The psyche interferes because it is agitated; it is unquiet, it wants distractions, and the main thing is – it does not want to do what you want it to do.  We do not have pliancy yet. We do not have willpower established over the mind and body. The mind that we have is a spoiled, wild animal: it wants to do its own thing, it does not want to bow to our will; if it did, it would be quiet when we want it to be quiet; it would be focused when we want it to be focused; but it does not want that.  It is fighting against us all the time, because we made it that way. It does not have to be that way.  With training that unsettled psyche becomes this white elephant, a willing support and helpful aid in the path.

You see in the beginning, the elephant is out of control and running around – that is that crazy mind that only wants to do its own thing, but when you go to the process of this training, that mind becomes calm, serene, settled.  And then it becomes the loyal friend of your Consciousness.  Then it will do what you tell it, and it is effortless. In that stage, really in most of these upper stages, visualizing type of image is very easy – you just pick a picture, close your eyes, it is there effortlessly, because you already have the ability.  Just remember any memory that you have: that memory is permanently engraved in your psyche; certain things that you saw, certain things that happened you can never forget, and you made no effort to record that memory, right?

So, I recommend making the effort to try to learn to use your memory and visualization in this way.  It is worth it.

This information was originally published on gnosticteachings.org. You can find more lecture transcripts by visiting them online.

This is a transcription of an audio lecture, modified in rticle format:

To understand today’s topic, which is energy, we need to remember that in the previous lecture we talked extensively about Consciousness.

Consciousness is that which gives us being. Every living thing has Consciousness in its level. We have the Consciousness of humanoids, but our mind, our psyche, is almost indistinguishable from the level of the animal kingdom, because we are still ruled by instinct and desire. The only difference between us and animals is that we can reason. We have logic, intellect. We have the humanoid body, but psychologically we are not very different from the other creatures that live on this planet, specifically from the animal kingdom.

We have not moved much beyond the animal level. Just observe the world around us; observe our behavior. This world is being consumed, destroyed, by our instinctual, animalistic behaviors: instinctual possessiveness, endless violence, theft, fighting over territory, fighting over sex, the instinctual domination of one group over another… The mindless destruction and poisoning of our own food, air, and water. The decimation of all species not our own. In our instinctual drive for security and survival, we are killing ourselves and killing our planet. This is crude, base, animal behavior. It is not the behavior of elevated beings. We would all like to have an elevated level of being, and we all think of ourselves as elevated and evolved, but the reality is — when we are honest and look at the facts of the situation on our planet right now — we have to face the fact that our level of Consciousness is very low.

Our interests as a humanity are power, sex, money, materialism, and sensations. We want to get as much, accumulate as much, stand out as much as we can before we die. We are convinced that we live once, and during that time we want to dominate others, to be recognized, and enjoy ourselves as much as we can and go out in a blaze of glory, no matter what it costs. This is our modern ethic. Obviously, we are completely mislead and misguided.

If we use the power of logic that we have, the power of reasoning, and we use it with our Consciousness unfiltered, our intellect can become an incredibly powerful tool. Some examples that you can look to of how powerful it can be are people like Buddha Shakyamuni, Jesus, Moses, Padmasambhava, and Milarepa. There are many examples of great enlightened humanoids that went far beyond the animal level.

Our goal in learning Meditation, learning about our state of being, is to become elevated, to escape the animal level and become something more than “intellectual animals.” This is really the purpose of being alive: to become something more. To do so requires that we first recognize what we are now.

As you know, any action requires energy. In this very instant, you are consuming a great deal of energy through how you are paying attention. Where you place your attention expends energy. There is a change that happens, not only in the one who is expending energy, but where the energy is spent. Modern science has already stated (even though humanity does not understand it) when you observe something, you change it. This is known in physics. It is proven, and yet we the common people of the planet do not understand it at all. We think that we are in a psychological “cone of silence,” a place of psychological isolation in which we can do whatever we want and our actions in thought and emotion do not affect us or anyone else. We mistakenly believe that we can think whatever we want, feel whatever we want, look at and observe anything that we want, fantasize whatever we want, and there are no consequences from those actions. We are wrong. The use of attention is a use of energy. The use of attention is an action, and all action has consequence.

Why? Because energy and matter are just two forms of the same thing. This is also known in science. Einstein explained it well, but once again, no one understands this fact. (We might intellectually understand it, but we do not comprehend it consciously: this is revealed in our actions. Our actions prove that we do not comprehend this fact at all.)

The Tree of Life is a map of energy, matter, and Consciousness.

Levels of Consciousness and The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life represents levels and levels of energy and matter, of every conceivable modality, from the most dense (depicted at the bottom) to the most subtle (at the top). The very top levels of the Tree of Life represent the most subtle energies and forms of matter in existence and in non-existence (in a state of potentiality).

The unmanifested potentiality is what is called the Absolute, Brahma, the Ain Soph in Hebrew , Shunyata in Sanskrit. That is unmanifested and uncreated light. It is something that longs to be, and will be, according to causes and conditions. When it unfolds itself, when that light bursts forth from that potential state, it descends as a ray through creation, unfolding all existing things, from vast universes down to subatomic levels. Those manifested forms are represented by this structure of ten sephiroth (“jewels”). The Tree of Life symbolizes how from the most simple, elevated levels all the way down to the most dense and complex, that ray is condensing and materializing deeper and deeper all the way down to the inferior or hell levels of nature.

All of that is inside of us; we are just a mirror of that, a reflection of it. That is why the Greek oracle said,

“Know yourself and you will know the universe and its gods.”

All of that is within us, reflected in us.

We humanoids have the capacity to become far more than a mere humanoid. We can become a God, or in Christian terms an angel, or in Buddhist terms a Buddha, or a master, whatever you want to call it. It is a being that has leapt out of the humanoid state and become something more. To do that takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of energy. It cannot be done through wishing. It cannot be done through theories or beliefs. It is done through conscious actions.

Moreover, we can also become archetypal demons if we descend into lower consciousness. Those types of humans are becoming more and more common on our planet, and are pulling the world deeper into decay and degeneration.

What determines what we will become? Our actions.

Who or what produces actions? Consciousness.

How do we produce action and consequences? Through attention influencing matter and energy.

To become elevated, improvement can only happen by action of Consciousness through matter and energy. Nothing else can do it. Only our Consciousness can do it, not the body, not the mind, not our thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and not our external behaviors, but our internal ones are what create that state. It is what raises us and lowers us through those different realms in nature.

If you consider that for a moment, and you look at the Tree of Life as levels of density, think about physics, basic physics, and ask yourself this: is it easier to go up or down? If you are on a mountain, is it easier to go up the mountain or down the mountain? If you are in a rushing river, is it easier to go with the flow of the river, or against it? Spiritually, the exact same principal applies. It does not matter if you believe you will go upstream against the current: that belief changes nothing. You have to swim hard.

The flow of energy, of forces in nature in our level, is flowing downwards. Look at our society, where is it going? Everyone wants to believe that we are moving towards a golden age, but if you observe the facts, you can easily see that we are not. Just look at the facts and set your beliefs aside. Set aside your hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and look at the reality, and you will see a stark, terrifying truth. Humanity is not ascending. We are not getting better, but getting worse. Statistically, it is proven. Look at what the official institutions are saying: the United Nations has said there is more slavery right now than there ever has been in history. Clean water and clean air are becoming more scarce on the planet. The food is in decay. The forest are vanishing. The animals are dying. The oceans are dying. The whole planet is in decay. Our minds are in decay. There are no exceptions to that. Beliefs cannot change these facts, only action can.

If we want to rise out of the current that is rushing towards destruction, and be different, to really have a fundamental change in our experience of being, it is not easy. The whole of the world is against it. The world wants us to become degenerated like everyone else. The world wants us to love degeneration and embrace it, and to celebrate anger and lust, to indulge in fear through television and movies and all of that. Culture wants us to be hypnotized by our traumas, to love them, to suffer with them. Society does not want us to change. Seldom in our media, in our entertainment, and all the things that we love and worship and pursue now do we find anyone representing the virtues of the soul. You rarely see television shows about being patient, about how to really love other people, how to be generous, how to be chaste, how to be altruistic. That is all we watch and take in and consume everyday. How can a golden age emerge if no one is learning what makes a golden age? A golden age is defined by the character of the people: kindness, generosity, patience, humility, love, purity, simplicity. Instead, we are only learning more and more clever ways of killing each other, outwitting each other, humiliating each other, defeating each other, and being sarcastic and cruel. That is what we learn from television, movies, the internet.

To go against that current, not only the one that is outside of us, but the one that is inside of us, will take incredible energy. Yet, we do not have much energy. We are tired all of the time. We are unhappy. We suffer. Yet, we know that somehow there must be an answer. That is why we seek spirituality. Some part of us has a longing to change, and senses that there must be a way, and there is. There is a way, there is hope, and it is within us, not outside. It is the Consciousness itself. It is the key that can change everything for us.

Alert Novelty & Alert Perception

In the previous lecture, we explained that Consciousness is a state of being, it is perception, and it is an alert, cognitive state. It is beingness, in this moment.

Our being in this moment has qualities. It has powers. It has energy. We are here and now and present, that is Consciousness, simply that. Yet, that is not all it can be.

Remember that the Tree of Life shows the external part of nature and also the internal part. It maps for us all the infinite potential of the Consciousness.

Right now as we are listening to this subject and contemplating this subject we are in our physical bodies. This is represented on the tree by the sephirah Malkuth, which in Hebrew means “kingdom.” It is the lowest of the ten sephiroth, the tenth sphere from the top to the bottom. And yet, as we are contemplating this and listening to the lecture, are we conscious of the body? Are we really aware of being in the physical body? As we listen are we aware of our ears and how they function? As we look are we aware of our eyes physically and how they are functioning? As we sit or stand are we aware of heat and temperature and all the other qualities that the body perceives through the senses? Those bits of data are constantly striking the Consciousness through perception. Are we aware of all that?

Moreover, are we aware of how the words that I am saying strike the mind and cause reactions, associative thoughts? (“That” reminds me of “this.”) All of those psychological actions — are we aware of those, too? Can we be aware of all of that at the same time from moment to moment without losing track of it?

If you are you doing it now because I am pointing it out, good, because this is what we should be doing all of the time. To awaken Consciousness one must constantly be here and now using the Consciousness to its fullest capacity, and pushing it out, expanding it, training it, teaching it, and growing it, which takes energy. You will find in just a few minutes from now you will become distracted and will not be keeping the flow of what I am talking about and you will catch yourself and say: “I was distracted, what is he talking about now? What is happening now? Let me catch up.” This is because of lack of attention and lack of energy. These two are what need to change in us: lack of attention and lack of energy. We need energy, but we need attention too.

We have already discussed attention. So, what is energy?

The Tree of Life shows us all of the energies that are in existence and in non-existence (potential).

I already mentioned that we have a physical body, which is represented by the sephirah Malkuth. You see that is only a fraction of what is shown on this image. There is much more.

Importance of Energy

The word energy comes from Greek energia, which means “activity, action, operation.” Originally the term was used in philosophy to refer to a sense of reality. Nowadays we only use this term energy when we are talking about charging up our cell phone, or the fuel for our car or house, or the energy demands that all the nations speak of. We rarely think of energy as something personal, especially in relation to psychology or spirituality, but really this is the most important form of energy or aspect of being, how it relates to our state of being.

Many students who learn about Meditation go to temples and monasteries. They go to school in groups. They learn to sit in a certain posture. They do certain types of exercises and they consider themselves “meditators.” Yet, they do not get anywhere. They may meditate for ten, twenty, or thirty years and they can look like experts and talk like experts, but in their inner experience simply sit in that motionless posture for one, two or even three hours and do not get anywhere; they do not change fundamentally, profoundly. They may have very good concentration. They may be able to steady their psyche and be serene, but they do not get anywhere from that. In short, they are wasting their time. What they are doing is not real Meditation. They are just sitting still. Sitting still does not grow your soul. It does not expand your perception of reality. That is what energy is for. Energy nourishes the Consciousness and then expands it. Meditation is not just sitting still. Real Meditation is perception and understanding of reality, not just physically, but in all the levels of the Tree of Life.

Most of the people that learn Meditation in this era, especially in the west, they may learn how to sit, how to concentrate, and they may talk the talk, but they do not learn how to conserve and use energy. They learn concentration, and that is all. You cannot develop the Consciousness if you are not conserving and working with energy. They are like those who buy a very nice car but do not know how to put gas in it. The car sits in the driveway, and everyday they go to sit in their nice car, and they love their nice car, and everyone comes to look at it, and they all admire the nice car, but they cannot drive it because it has no fuel. They cannot go anywhere. You see, they stay in the same place. This is sad, but it is extremely common. Many of the Meditation “experts” are like that. They are experts at concentration, but they know nothing about real Meditation because they have insufficient fuel to escape their level. And worse, they convince themselves that “it is only a matter of time” for them to reach liberation, while ignoring that liberation has nothing to do with time.

It is very easy to go down the mountain, but it is very difficult to go up the mountain. It takes energy. If you have no energy, what will happen? Eventually, you will roll down the hill.

Previously we talked about degrees of Consciousness or state of Consciousness. This is really important to remember in relation with energy. Consciousness is either on or off. This means someone is either awake or asleep. We are not talking about the physical body being asleep, we are talking about your perception, your Consciousness. Most of the people on this planet, in this moment, have their physical body active but their Consciousness asleep. They look like they are active and aware, but psychologically they are dreaming. They are not aware of themselves at all. They are in a dream state, even though their physical body is moving around. They are asleep, and all of us are, too.

To be awake takes energy. To be awake is to be here and now. To be awake you need to be here and now, intelligently, and actively observing.

To know that you are sitting in a chair is not the same thing as observing it. This is the difference. To know that you are sitting in a café ordering coffee is not the same as observing yourself doing it. To know that you are feeling angry is not the same as to be observing the anger. These are two different things.

In other words, to be asleep is to be passive and mechanical, going with the flow, and you know where the flow will take you if you step back and really observe the reality of your inner landscape and our outer landscape. If you go with the flow you will gain nothing from life but pain. You will die with none of your questions answered and with your purpose obscured.

To be awake takes effort, it takes energy, and it takes remembering to do it. That is why on the image of the stages of meditative concentration, we see a monk on a path and on the bottom we see a raging fire (down in the corner). This represents how much energy and effort it takes to begin training for Meditation. It takes an incredible amount of energy to begin. As you start to learn, as your Consciousness gets stronger, little by little that flame gets smaller and smaller until being awake and aware becomes natural, effortless. The natural ability of the Consciousness is to be present, here and now. The natural ability of Consciousness is to perceive and understand. It does not do that now in us because we have hypnotized it for a long time, we have deprived it of energy, we have hypnotized it with all of our fears, our desires, with our traumas and our longings, and our pains and our sufferings, and all of our psychological bad habits. We have put it to sleep.

To awaken the Consciousness requires enormous energy. Therefore, since we do not have much energy, we should be careful how we use it.

If we want our Meditation to be effective, fruitful, and result in perceiving and understanding the truth, then we need to have a lot of energy available to the Consciousness.

We can only perceive through our senses if there is energy for them to use. All of our senses consume and transform energy, whether we are discussing physical senses or spiritual senses. When you get really tired —depleted of energy— your ability to perceive and understand declines. Have you ever driven a car when you are sleepy? Does it not get more difficult and harder to see? You start to fall asleep. You are trying to put all of your energy into your eyeballs so you can see the road, but the eyes stop working. You are falling asleep because all of your energy is reaching zero. You are depleted. The same thing happens with your Consciousness. Due to our current habits, we deplete our energy constantly. We do not know how to save energy, so it is time for us to learn. The more energy we can save, the more we can dedicate towards beneficial actions.

Types of Energy

Let us talk about some basic types of energy so we can put this all into perspective.

• Cosmic (Logoic)
• Spiritual (Atmic)
• Conscious (Buddhic)
• Willpower (Causal)
• Intellectual (Mental)
• Emotional (Astral)
• Vital (Ethereal)
• Mechanical (Physical)

Let us look at these on the Tree of Life.

First, there is the ultimate source of everything: the absolute. The energy of the level is related with the gunas, a primordial quality of movement.

Next, the first trinity, called the Logos:

• Kether
• Chokmah
• Binah

In Buddhism they call this the Trikaya, which has three primary parts: Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. Christians call them Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Next, a second trinity of energies:

• Chesed: our Innermost Being, Atman, Spirit. Energy of spirit
• Geburah: Buddhi, the Divine Soul, the Valkyrie, divine Consciousness, energy of Consciousness
• Tiphereth: Manas, the Human Soul, the warrior, willpower, human Consciousness, energy of will

Next, a third trinity:

1. Netzach: intellect, thought, Mental body, mental energy
2. Hod: emotion, Astral body, emotional energy
3. Yesod: vital energy, vital body

And lastly, the “container” that holds it all: Malkuth, the physical body, in the realm of mechanical energy.

All of these energies are flowing in us right now. They are not outside of us. They are not in some distant place. They are not above the ceiling or above your head. They are here and now and in you.

Here we are in our physical bodies, but we are barely aware of being in the physical body. Probably in our lifetime we have rarely been aware of how our eyeballs perceive, how our ears hear, how our hands work, how our tongue functions. We are barely aware of our body. We just take it for granted. We just use it and go along with its impulses, with no awareness at all of how miraculous the body is.

Yet, really, the body is impermanent. It is just a shell. It is not our identity. It is a temporary housing that is being utilized by the energies that are activating it. Firstly, the vitality, Yesod. The physical body is able to be active because of the energy that powers it. The main one is the vitality because if you take it away the physical body is dead. It dies. What about the emotional aspect? We all experience that but we are not aware of it. When we dream we are traveling, experiencing, acting in this level of Hod. The emotional body which some call the Astral body. That is not a physical dimension. It is not a physical energy. It is emotional energy. When you dream you are in that realm of nature. You may be dreaming and unaware of yourself. Maybe every once in a while you are aware you are dreaming: “Here I am and I am dreaming. This cannot be real”. It is real, it is just not physical. Likewise, successively in more subtle levels, there is a world of thought, a world of will, a world of Buddhi, a world of Atman, and a world of Spirit. These are more and more subtle aspects of our psychology.

State of Meditation

In the state of Meditation you can experience any of the worlds. Not only states of Consciousness that you experience here and now, but also states of Consciousness that you experience out of your physical body. Someone who knows how to access the state of Meditation is learning how to separate the Consciousness from the physical senses. In other words when we really learn how to meditate we put our body in a position of rest. We make it still. We relax it. We leave it alone. We extract attention from the senses. In other words we let go of thinking, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching- all of that, we extract the energy from the senses. If you learn to do that effectively your physical body will essentially sleep. The same way we do when we take a nap, we rest and recharge it like a battery. When we meditate or learn about the state of Meditation; are we just focused on physicality or are we leaving it behind? Are we conditioned by physical sensations? By energetic sensations? By emotional sensations? By thought? By will?

Many people who try to learn Meditation observe the breath. And because that is all they know how to do, they get fixated on the physical sensations of breathing. They stay there and that is all they get out of their practice not realizing that the observation of the breath is only a preliminary exercise. It is not Meditation. It is a concentration practice. It is not Meditation. To really meditate one must abandon all physicality. One must abandon all vital energy, all emotion, all thought, all will, all Consciousness, and all spirit. Going higher and higher and higher and higher. Any living thing can do this. There is nothing abnormal or unnatural about it. All you are doing is stripping away the conditioning filters on the Consciousness itself until you can reach as high as you can on that graphic. The state of Meditation is accelerated or reached rapidly when we start stripping off the filters that condition the Consciousness. All of these are energetic.

I realize that many people who study spirituality become really identified with these different levels. They are fascinated by them. There are people who call themselves “energy workers”. They are fascinated by the vital body (Yesod). They are wasting their time. There are people who are fascinated and hypnotized by the notion of astral projection (Hod). They get very identified with that and they are wasting their time. They get fascinated or identified with angels, demons, and other beings, extraterrestrial, and all of these other types of stuff, and they are wasting their time. These levels of nature are part of us, but they are not our true nature.

Some people are fascinated by chakras, yet being fascinated by the chakras is the same as a plumber who is fascinated with pipefittings. That is all they are. There is nothing special about chakras. They are just points of connection between these different aspects of ourselves. They just move energy from one place to another. Big deal. Do not be fascinated by them. They are useful and we need them to properly function. They are not spirituality in and among themselves. We have many chakras through out us. Chakras are not physical. They are multi-dimensional. They are conduits or transformers of energy that move energy from one level to another. Most people talk about the seven chakras, but there are many more than that. There are too many to count. A chakra is simply a place where currents meet. If you study our esoteric anatomy you will find thousands and thousands of conduits of energy. If you look at Chinese Acupuncture or Tibetan Acupuncture and how they map the meridians through the body it is overwhelming how many conduits of energy there are in the body. In Sanskrit they are called nadis. There are so many nadis, and anywhere a nadi crosses another one there is a chakra. In the same way we have senses in our physical body, our internal bodies also have sense, and those senses are related to the chakras. There are senses like intuition. There are senses like profound memory and the ability to perceive things that are not physical. None of these are abnormal. They are part of a naturally functioning being. In our case we are so conditioned that these do not function. In essence between each of these spheres the chakras pass energy. That is all they do, they pass energy. What matters is how they do it. How they do it is up to us.

For example, the heart chakra is very important. This is an energetic center related to our physical heart. It is in that region of our body. It is a very beautiful transformer of energy, but when you are angry and you are lustful, that center is just processing the energy that you are giving it. You see, the chakra itself is just a transformer. The chakras do not awaken you, they just transform energy. If your heart is saturated with depression, anger, despair, or fear, your heart chakra is irradiating that quality of energy. That is all it is doing. It is passing that energy from your emotional body through your vital body and into your physical body. Your state of being is projected through the chakras. Yet, we are unaware of that, even though we may love “the chakras.”

Here is what we need to learn: everything we do transforms energy, so let us learn how to do it consciously so that our Consciousness will awaken and expand.

As you can see from the physical (Malkuth) to the vital (Yesod), things get very subtle quite fast. From the vital to the emotional (Hod) they get more subtle. From emotional to thought (Netzach) even more subtle. From thought to will (Tiphereth), even more subtle. From will to Consciousness (Geburah) even more subtle. Step by step, that is in us, but can we perceive these levels in this moment? Moreover can we work with them here and now? Can we harness these forces right now and use them? Can we change them?

When you are really serious about working in your spiritual life, these are your tools. Which of them can you access? Which of them can you use? Which of them are you aware of? Most people do not have a clue about any of this. Yet, this is the basis of spiritual life, and the basis of Meditation.

All of this is inside of us, and we are using it all in accordance to our state of being.

When we are angry, when we are in despair, and when we are depressed, what does each state of being do with these energies?

Every state of being transforms of energy. Our state of Consciousness directs our matter and energy to act, thereby creating consequences. So: when we are having negative thoughts and negative emotions, when we are feeling envious, when we want to satisfy the envy by getting the thing that we desire, how is that affecting our level of being? How is that affecting our spiritual state? How is that affecting other people? That is a transformation of energy, and yet we are scarcely aware of it. We wonder why we are in the state that we are in, yet it is because we are a transformer of energy on every level. We are the result of our transformations.

Physically, we are breathing, drinking, and eating matter in order to extract its energy. You take food and your body destroys it. It extracts the energy out of it to sustain itself for a few more hours. That is all you get out of it. A few more hours then you have to eat again. You drink water your body destroys it, takes what it can from it and expels the remainder. It keeps you alive for a few more hours. When you breathe your body destroys those elements. It takes what it needs and you can live for another breath. Do you realize that your senses are also doing the same thing? Everything that you can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think and feel; you are doing the same process: you are ingesting impressions.

Just as the body becomes what it has consumed, our Consciousness becomes what it has ingested. If we feed the Consciousness garbage, then we will remain at a low level of being. If we want to raise our level of being, we need to ingest better impressions. Moreover, we need to save energy.

How? By choosing how and when to use energy. Instead of doing things mechanically, we do things consciously. In this way, we are choosing when to expend energy and how much, rather than just expending everything randomly, instinctively.

By taking conscious control over our use of energy, we can then take conscious control of our experience of living.

Instead of letting anger waste our energy through angry thoughts, emotions and actions, we can restrain those impulses and redirect that energy towards beneficial action.

Similar, we must learn to do this with every area of our life.

Most significantly, we look for places where we waste the most energy, and change.

What are your bad habits? Not just physical habits of the body (Malkuth). What about your bad habits sexually? What about emotionally? Mentally?

Listen to your conscience: it will guide you to find those activities that you should change. Let us start here and now with what we can directly perceive from moment to moment: ourselves.

The Five Centers

When we observe ourselves, we need to observe our three brains, also called our five centers. These are much more important than chakras.

The five centers are:

• intellect
• emotion
• motor
• instinct
• sex

These centers are transformers of energy. They are machines that receive and transform the energy we give them.

Our intellectual center is related to our physical brain. The brain is also just a machine, a transformer of energy. It is not our identity. I know that scientists think that they will take our brain and freeze them so that we will be able to live forever. They are totally mistaken. It is like thinking you are going to freeze someone’s car and save the driver. The brain is not the driver. The brain is the steering wheel. The brain is only taking the energies and influences that are coming from the psyche. The psyche is not physical, but internal, whether those influences are of a superior or an inferior aspect. The thoughts that flow through your brain, through your intellectual center are coming from your Mental body (Netzach).

The emotional center, related to the heart, is also just a transformer of energy. All it can do is register what is happening in the Astral body (Hod, the emotional body) and it displays it physically here for us to experience that. When you feel emotional impulses you are feeling that machine that is just displaying the information that is coming from somewhere else, from your psyche.

Observe how a person utilizes these five centers. The people who are intensely intellectual tend to develop very strong mental problems. They deplete the energy of the intellect. They abuse it and they go crazy. People who abuse the emotional center become emotionally traumatized and emotionally exhausted. They deplete it. They break it. It is like if you have a racecar and you are constantly overusing the engine, eventually you will burn it out. It is the same case with these centers. Prostitutes that abuse the instinctual and sexual centers age very rapidly. Their whole organism decays very fast because they abuse that energy.

All of us are guilty of abusing these centers because we are unaware of them and certainly do not understand them.

Moreover, because of our bad habits they steal energy from each other. For example, if your job is intellectually demanding, and you are constantly analyzing data, then when your brain gets tired, you do not rest, instead you drink coffee or ingest some other energy source, or your intellect will steal energy from the other centers, especially from the physical body. That is why the intellectual types tend to be very weak physically and very inexperienced emotionally. They can only understand the other intellectuals. So if an intellectual type of person marries an emotional type of person, they will constantly fight because they do not understand each other.

The goal when you are learning to access Meditation is:

• Learn about these centers and how they use energy
• Balance the centers
• Conserve & save energy

Now that rule applies to everything that we have explained including the chakras, all of the bodies, and all of the subtleties of the energies. This includes:

• the body of will
• the Mental body
• the Astral body
• the vital body
• the physical body

All of that is passing through these five centers right now in you. So start here and now.

Do you want to know about your Astral body? Start observing and managing your emotional center in your physical life. If you want to experience astral projections, start here and now, being awake and aware here and now, conserving emotional energy. If you want to know about your Astral body, lucid dreaming, out of body experiences, which is being awake in the dream state, then you need to save emotional energy now in your physical life.

The reason you do not remember your dreams is because your emotional center is depleted. Dream recall, cognizant dreaming, astral projection are all fueled by emotional energy. If you want those experiences, save your emotional energy. Find where you waste it, and stop. We waste it on bad television, getting identified with emotions, getting identified with music, getting identified with gossip, with other peoples lives, etc.; anything that pulls your emotions out. Also when you get angry and upset, you get mad and whatever emotions that identify you or hypnotize you, that is where you waste it, so save it.

If you want to comprehend scripture and if you want to understand difficult things in your life and understand what I am talking about in this lecture, then save intellectual energy. Do not waste it on fruitless reading or studying concepts that are a waste of time. Use it on knowledge that is beneficial for you and others.

In general, we want to learn to start saving these energies and put them to good use in a beneficial way.

At the same time, we need to learn how the Consciousness works. Obviously, we need to learn to be here and now, to be present. Not just in class, not when we meditate once in a while, but all the time. Being present takes energy — a lot of energy. Part of learning to be present is learning to observe the relationship between the observer and what is observed. There is a profound relationship between your state of being and what you are experiencing, and what you are perceiving. There is a profound relationship between the two. This directly affects the quality of energy in your life. As you start to become aware of observing yourself you need to keep in mind the observer, which is the Consciousness and what is observed. By what is observed I mean all phenomena and not just physical things. Anything that you can observe start to be aware of the relationship.

Here is why this is important. Wherever we direct attention we expend energy. If we want to expand our perception then we need to expend our energy wisely and get a return on it, something back from it. We would want that expenditure to benefit us and others. When you are observing something, the Consciousness inside of you is perceiving. This is obvious. What is not obvious to us is that act of observation changes that phenomena and it changes us, too. We think that we can watch that action movie with all of that violence and it would not affect us. We are dead wrong. Everything that we see changes us.

Humanity is at the level of Consciousness that it is because of how it is hypnotized by phenomena. We are always complaining about the state of the world, not realizing that all of us suffer the exact same problem: we do not see ourselves. We do not see that our state of being was made by ourselves. Our parents did not make us this way. Our spouse did not make us this way. Our friends did not make us this way. We made ourselves the way that we are.

Observe how you are always seeking what you do not have. Always envying what others have that we do not have; always jealous, always craving, always desiring, and always complaining. All of that experience is creating your suffering. It is creating this level of experience. It is this relationship between the observer and the observed. We are unaware of the filters between the observer and the observed.

We get into an argument with our spouse or with a friend and we feel completely justified that we are right. We are not seeing the filter of the anger, the filter of our pride, the filter of our fear. We are not seeing the other person for who they are. We are not seeing why they said what they said or felt what they felt. We are only seeing our anger and what our anger wants us to see. It is a simple example. We are constantly engaged in that same flawed phenomena.

So to begin a spiritual life, to really change, we have to work with energy in a new way. That starts with observing ourselves.

That self-observation has to be a constant effort from moment to moment. This is not a part-time job. If you want to climb a mountain or swim upstream you need a lot of energy to do it. What are you willing to sacrifice? It really comes down to that. What are you willing to sacrifice?

The Three Factors

The three factors that are always in motion are:

• Birth
• Death
• Sacrifice

If we want to give birth to a new spiritual life, to a new level of being, then something has to die. If we want to raise ourselves out of the animal level and become something new, then something has to die. With every death there is birth. When you eat your meal, that food dies and what is born out of it is nourishment. That food is sacrificed. We do not generally think of it that way but it is that way. When we drink water the energies and substances in that glass are sacrificed. They die to give us life. So birth, death, and sacrifice are happening in every transformation of energy on every level. If we want a new spiritual life, if we want to learn to access the state of Meditation, if we want to rise up out of the animal level, if we want to escape suffering, then we have to give up bad habits. We have to sacrifice our anger, our pride, our desires, our lust, and the cravings. All of those things that keep us hypnotized. To become something new we have to stop being what you are. It is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of action. It starts with observing oneself, to learn about oneself. We want to gather facts about oneself, not the beliefs or theories about oneself. You have to start observing the way things really are. We have to be honest.

The second part is to learn to save energy in every way possible, but specifically with these five centers.

When you get these habits and cravings that you have like intellectual habits or emotional habits, or motor habits would be physical things that we do, or motor skills are things that the body learns.

There are also instinctual habits that are ingrained in us, and of course, sexual habits are related to how we use our sexual energy. Can we give up inferior behaviors in order to replace with superior ones? How far are we willing to go? How much are we willing to give in order to be awakened? Can you live by the first training, ethics, which requires Chastity, the avoidance of the orgasm? By sacrificing the pleasure of the orgasm, that desire can die, and in its place can be born Chastity, purity, awakening. That is why all religions require sexual purity: it is because the sexual energy and matter, when retained and transformed, radically transforms the Consciousness.

If we want to be born in a new level, to raise your level of experience up into spiritual worlds, it requires incredible sacrifice. That is why when we study the history of all of the prophets and saints we can see how much they gave, how much they were willing to give up, how much to renounce, and how much to die. That is the question we have to ask ourselves.

If we do not want to change, then this teaching is not for us. If we are willing and really want to know divinity personally, if we want to talk face to face with divine beings, if we want to escape the limited narrow band of life that society is offering us, we have to give up what is chained to it. We need to save energy in every way that we can.

Saving energy is not enough, however: we also need to know how to use it.

Firstly, each type of energy has its own qualities and powers.

The physical energy, which is mechanical energy, can only change physicality. No matter how much energy you expend physically, you cannot change the superior levels with physical energy. So all of those people going to Yoga class thinking that they are going to become masters by doing poses are deeply mistaken. Moving your physical body around does not awaken your Consciousness. Only working with Consciousness awakens Consciousness.

If you want to change your emotional quality or astral quality, you cannot do it by manipulating physical matter. You have to manipulate astral matter to change the Astral body.

If you want to change the way of thinking, modifying the physical body does not master that. It is obvious is it not? It does not matter whether you sit or stand, your thinking will be the same until you change your thinking at the level of thought.

This means that if you want good quality spiritual energy, then you need to consume good quality spiritual nourishment. If you want to have a good quality emotional life, then you need to feed your emotional center with good quality energy. It is simple. Just like the health of your physical body. The health of your heart and your mind are affected by what you feed them.

Accumulating Energy

There are lots of spiritual practices that help us accumulate energy. These are the most profound.

Sexual purity is the most important. That is the most important energy that we have. The way we use it affects us more than any other energy in our lifetime. Sexual energy has more potency, more power and more reach than any other energy your physical body can access. The way that you use it has more effect on you than anything else that you do. That is why all religions start their beginner students by learning to restrain the sexual energy by avoiding the orgasm. This is called Chastity, brahmacharya, coitus interruptus, karezza, etc. When the orgasm is avoided, the sexual energy can be transmuted to nourish the Consciousness, thereby saturating it with very high quality energy, the result of which is very rapid change.

Next would be the use of sounds, sacred words, mantras and prayers.

There are also breathing exercises like pranayama. Ritually blessed food like the Eucharist or Tsok.

Then there are different movement exercises like Yantras, Runes, Rites for Rejuvenation, and yoga type practices.

All of these are ways of accumulating energy. A lot of people do all this stuff because they like it, but they do not know what its for. Accumulating energy has no point if we are not working with the Consciousness. All of these exercises exist to feed the Consciousness. To strengthen it. So when yogis are learning pranayamas, when the monks are learning to chant, those exercises are designed to charge the Consciousness with energy to strengthen it so that they can do their spiritual work.

We also learn these types of techniques. In each of these classes we give exercises that you can do until the next lecture. This is to help you understand what we discussed. There are two this week.

Exercises

1. Every day, develop your Self-observation from moment to moment. Observe the energy it takes to pay attention. At the end of each day, reflect on how conscious you were that day.

2. Every day, do this preliminary Meditation exercise. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Carefully relax all three brains (body, heart, intellect) and become perfectly still. Then imagine that the energy of the Sun enters through your solar plexus, making it vibrate and rotate from left to right, like the needles of a clock when we look at it from the front. Chant aloud or mentally the extended sound “U” (as in “you”). No matter what distracts you, return to concentrating on the visualization. Do this for 30-60 minutes every day.

Questions and Answers

Student: With the self-observation I am trying to grasp what exactly I am supposed to do. If I am angry am I supposed to be in the moment saying, I know I am angry?

Instructor: Self-observation is the gathering of facts. That is all it is. It is to be an observer. When you become aware you are angry, you observe it. You observe it in the five centers. Watch it to see what it is doing. You will see the anger producing thoughts. It is stimulating your thinking to go in a certain direction. It is stimulating your emotions to feel certain ways. It is stimulating the body to act. You get impulses to behave in certain ways. It is also changing your perceptions. When you are angry, you see everything through your anger. The self-observation is simply that process of becoming a separate observer from your thoughts, emotions, and impulses. This is where you start to become aware that your body is not who you are. Your thoughts are not who you are. Your feelings are not who you are. Your impulses are not who you are. Who are you? That has to be something that is experienced repeatedly, again and again where you start to feel that sense of separation. It is an internal sense of separation.

Student: Can you talk to us a little bit about judgment?

Instructor: Self-observation is the first part of a profound work that has three phases.

Self-observation is phase one. It is where you acquire information. I talked in the beginning about how desperate our situation is, but I barely scratched the surface. The truth is we are teetering on the brink, not only as a world, or a planet, or a civilization, but as individuals. None of us have any idea of when we are going to die. We can compare our situation to being in a war. Where we are under threat. Truthfully we are, spiritually speaking we are under a grave threat. If we are in a time of war we know that at any instant the enemy can act and can take us off the map. Our sense of awareness would be completely different from what we have now. Look at the way we live now. We live now sort of floating from thing to thing. “Oh today I will go to work. Tonight I will go and watch a game at a friends’ house, or we will go and do this.” It is sort of drifting. If we as a country were in a war, none of us would behave that way. We would be very much aware of how precious each moment is and the potential for threats to be around any corner. Spiritually we are in that state, however we are not aware of it. If we become aware of it then we would know that we would need a very intense, constant vigilance, but the enemy in this way is not outside of us it is inside of us. The enemy is the ego. It is our desires. It is our bad habits. It is the tendency to slip into a dream state. To be hypnotized and be on autopilot. It is all of our jealousy, envy, fear, gluttony and greed and all of that stuff that we carry around with us. That is the enemy. Not only that, we can die at any given moment without even knowing.

The first step is to behave as though we do not know where the enemy is and where the enemy will strike, but we know we are under threat. It is to have that level of vigilance, watching oneself. With that we start to gather information. We are basically looking for spies. You need proof. You need evidence. You need to gather a lot of evidence. That is what self-observation is about. It is about learning how your mind functions, how your heart functions, and how your body functions; and looking for evidence of who is manipulating your behaviors. When that anger comes up and you start to observe it; you are gathering information. That is phase one.

Phase two is when you evaluate the information. This is done separately, not during self-observation. There is a Meditation practice that we will learn that you sift through that information, but you do not do it with your intellect. You do not do it with your emotion. You do not do it with your physical senses. You do not do it by speculation. You do it with your Consciousness. This is a very different process. You have to access a state of Meditation where you review all of the data you have accumulated that day. It is like watching a movie, but you are observing it objectively as though it is somebody else. Once that information is observed objectively you actually start to learn new things. Your Consciousness gathers information and understanding. You start to understand that anger. When you start to understand that anger consciously, you weaken the ego and it loses its power over you. Eventually you can see it for what it is and it cannot manipulate you anymore. In essence you have liberated yourself from it. That is when the third phase can happen which is execution. When the anger can be destroyed.

Those are the three phases.

Phase 1: Gathering information about the spies.

Phase 2: Judging the spies.

Phase 3: executing the spies.

Today, we are talking about the first phase —gathering information — and in that phase you cannot judge because you do not know all of the facts.

So: do not judge! Only observe.

Student: So we stick to the facts?

Instructor: The first two lectures we emphasized constantly: Facts, Facts, Facts. No guesswork, no theories, no speculation, and no beliefs. You are not saying “maybe this or maybe that.” No! That is poison. You want to strictly avoid guessing, speculating, theorizing.

In the first phase, self-observation, you are only gathering facts. For example: “I came home, my kids said this. I got mad. I had this kind of thought. I had this kind of emotion. My body felt like this. I got stressed. I felt tense. I started acting out.” Those are facts. That is what you take to your Meditation. Then later you meditate on those facts and you replay that event. You observe the scene as though you are a police officer that comes to the house to gather all of the information about what happened there. Once all of the facts have been gathered then you take it to the judge. Then the judge examines the facts, and the defect is sent to the execution.

This information was originally published on gnosticteachings.org. You can find more lecture transcripts by visiting them online.