Transmutation - Gnostic Teachings

For us to become something new, we need to unzip the sequence that makes who we are, and reconnect it in a superior way. But how are you going to disarrange everything about yourself, and rearrange it? Especially when you are the one trying to do it. Not easy! But this is what to "transmute" really means. It means “to thoroughly change.” Gnosis is a science of transmutation. Yes, it begins with sexual energy, that is the root energy that makes the full and complete transmutation possible, but we do not seek to only transmute sexual energy. We want to transmute all of our matter, all of our Consciousness, our psyche, our soul: everything. We want to thoroughly change: to transmute.

 

Interestingly, the result of that transmutation is a mutant. A mutant is someone who is different, who is changed. This word “mutant” has a negative connotation nowadays, but in reality every existing creature is a mutation, a mutant. What we want is a conscious mutation, a change for the better. We want a change towards something beneficial and positive, something useful, something that will bring harmony and peace, not discord and violence. We want a change that will bring about goodness, equality, harmony, love. For that type of change, we need to thoroughly change the causes of discord, the causes of suffering, and those causes are within us, in our matter, our energy, and our Consciousness.

A genuine transmutation requires that the causes or the origins of problems and pain, suffering, are changed thoroughly, so that new effects can emerge. That change is not easy. If you consider how anything in nature changes, fundamentally changes, its a process of birth, growth, decline, death, rebirth, growth, decline and death. This is how evolution advances, through small mutations over time. If you have ever studied biology or evolution, you can see that this is how species grow. They grow because of the pressures put on them by their environment. They change, and adapt, and hopefully improve. We need the same thing. Unfortunately, we are not responding properly to the pressures that are upon us. In response to the psychological, material, social, and physical pressures that are on us now, we are not mutating ourselves properly. If we were, we would be transcending the problems. We would be adapting and overcoming them so that they would not be problems anymore. Instead, we see that the problems are deepening, that we are not changing fast enough, and in the right way. We need to know how to do it, how to transmute.

Samael Aun Weor said:

“No one can Self-realize without transmutation.” - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

In this context, he was not talking about sexual transmutation, he was talking about transmutation of the psyche, the mind, the heart, and the body: to change thoroughly.

Stated in another way, you can transmute your sexual energy, but if you do not transmute your mind, you will not self-realize.

three-pillarsWhen we study the Tree of Life, our primary interest is how it applies to us here and now. The Tree of Life maps all of the levels of existence. But those levels of existence are meaningless if we cannot access them. Studying and memorizing scriptures and teachings mean nothing if we cannot experience what they point towards. We need to examine this Tree of Life in relation with ourselves, and understand that these ten sephiroth relate to levels of being within us. Here on this graphic we see not only our physical state but our psychological state, so on this image while we see a physical body to remind us that this relates to us here and now, really all these spheres or levels show our levels of psychology. Symbolized here are two divisions, two sides. The superior part is related to the heavens or superior aspects of being. The inferior part that hangs below is called Klipoth or hell, and this aspect relates to the inferior or inverted aspect of our psyche. Everything on this map is composed of elements: air, fire, water and earth. All of this is suspended in or supported by the Akash.

So in this context, if we use our imagination and we look at how this applies to us here and now, everything about us is encoded, in elements. Here physically, we can sense those physical aspects: our physical body is an encoded series of elements, which is reflected in our DNA. But as well, our entire psychological make up is encoded in us. Sadly, we only hazily perceive it. We hazily perceive it as thoughts and feelings, and certain types of sensations physically. But we do not perceive or comprehend that all of the thoughts, feelings, and impulses are driven by matter and energy that is not physical. This is a real problem that we have.

Really, open up your imagination, and analyze yourself: look at how you have a physical body here and now. This body is composed of a trinity of elements: matter, energy, and consciousness. The Consciousness here is not awake, it is very asleep, but there is some degree of Consciousness or perception. Thoughts, feelings, and other impulses are more subtle that physical matter, but still we can perceive that they have some level of manifestation. We can verify that they are there, somehow. They also have matter, energy, and consciousness, but not in the physical dimension. Those thoughts that you sense, and the feelings that you sense, are modifications of Consciousness that have matter and energy associated with them, but not physically. What we experience physically is their reflection, like light being bounced through a mirror. We have the mirror of our mind, which reflects the contents of our thoughts and feelings, but where are the thoughts? Where are the feelings? They are not in the brain, because you can experience thoughts and feelings when you are out of your body. So where are they? This is the problem we have: we do not know.

The problem is compounded because we need to change. Rapidly. Otherwise, we are threatened with grave problems, even worse problems then we have now. We need to transmute all of these psychological elements, very quickly. How, if we cannot see them? If we cannot sense them, how can we change them? How can you work in the dark? How can a blind person create a piece of art if he cannot even see what he is doing? This is our fundamental challenge. Psychologically, spiritually, we are blind. How then can we create a perfect soul, if we cannot see what we are doing? How can we transmute ourselves into something better, if we cannot even see who we really are?

For this, we need help. We need to understand how these elements work, in all of the levels of nature. So to remind you, these are the five elements.

Space

Air

Fire

Water

Earth

All things are composed by these elements; understanding that, we need to look at how those elements manifest in us. We need to analyze our psychology, to see it for what it is.

Let me remind you of the previous lecture: these elements do not refer to the literal physical aspects, they are psychological.

Expansiveness

Mobility

Temperature

Fluidity

Solidity

In order to transmute yourself, you need to know what you are working with, you need to see yourself, you need to see how your mind and heart functions, how all of the sensations you experience flow. You need to see what parts of your psyche are expansive, what is the relative mobility of your thinking and feeling, what about its temperature? Its fluidity and solidity? In this way, you can analyze the elements that are involved. You can understand how to manage the elements in your experiences, psychologically.

As we explained in the previous lecture, we get help with that process through what we call ordeals, psychological challenges that are given by our own Innermost, through our psychological trainer, who presents us with scenarios designed to bring out those parts of ourselves that we need to work on. If we are not prepared to see it, we will respond poorly, the way that we have been doing previously, and we will make our situation worse. If we are not psychologically trained to watch ourselves and look for the patterns in our psychology, we will not see what is really happening to us, and we will make mistakes.

When you enter into this type of work and the process of starting to transmute yourself, you are given challenges, opportunities to see yourself as you are, and those opportunities will come every day. If you are really attentive, you will find that those opportunities are continually arising, all the time. We do not call them opportunities physically, we call them adversities, problems, suffering. We have all of our complaints.

We have an old psychological habit that is a very serious obstacle in this type of study, this type of work. That is the habit of self-esteem. Its an old habit that thinks we deserve things that we do not deserve, and that wants things to be ideal, the way that we want it, and we get very frustrated and upset when things do not go the way that we want or expect. I am curious: what percentage of people listening to the lecture today are very disappointed they did not win the lottery last night? I would like to find that out, but I do not think anyone would tell me.

We all have this self-esteem, and it is in direct conflict with the Innermost, with the Being, because this “self” of self-esteem is the ego. The Being wants the ego dead. Dead. Dissolved. Transmuted...

But we do not want to transmute it. We want things the way we want them, and when we do not get things the way we want them, what do we do? We complain. We complain in our mind, and we complain with our mouth. Many of us complain all the time. That is a sign, a very significant sign, that we are not transmuting. Another word for transmutation is transformation. We use that in a very important phrase in this teaching: the transformation of impressions. Someone who is transforming impressions has serenity, acceptance. In other words, they have no complaints.

So if we have a lot of complaints, we need to analyze the desires that are complaining: the complaining pride, the lust, the envy, the greed, the gluttony, the fear, the avarice, the laziness, all of those egos. And we need to analyze them in relation with the elements: space, air, fire, water and earth, to understand how they are made, how they work, how they function. In this work, we need to learn to not just go with the flow of our psychological river, but to fight it. The psychological river of our mind is flowing into hell. It is not taking us to God. To reach God, divinity, purity, you have to fight against everything that comes up in yourself that is impure, that is selfish. That fight is not easy.