What can we say here about the three foods? I have explained how we nourish ourselves with the first food (for the physical body). We have spoken also about breathing, the second food, which is more important than that which goes to the stomach. And I have told you there is a third food called “impressions.” Nobody can live without impressions, not even for a minute. You are hearing me here. I am scratching myself and a series of impressions come to your minds. You see a human figure dressed with the sacred clothing of the Grail Knights Order. This comes through impressions; all these are impressions to you.
Disgracefully, the human being is negative. What would you say, for example, now that we are in this room, if we open the door to some robbers, so they can come in? Would it seem correct to you that I should open the door so that these people may enter? What would happen? Nevertheless, we do not exercise such caution with impressions. We open the door to all the negative impressions in the world.
These penetrate our psyche and create disasters. They transform themselves into psychological aggregates and develop a negative emotional center within us and at last, fill us with mud. Is this correct? Is it correct for a person who is full of negative impressions emanating from his negative emotional center to have his place among us, that we might open our doors to all the negative impressions of this person?
If we do not know how to select impressions, how will we be able to close the doors of our mind to them? We must learn to open and close the doors of our psyche to impressions. Open the doors for noble impressions, close them to negative and absurd impressions, because negative impressions cause damage, they develop the negative emotional center within us and harm us.
Watch what one does while forming part of a crowd. I assure you that none of you, for example, would dare to go out on the street and throw stones around. Is this not so? However, in a group, it might be that one of you does. A great public manifestation arises, it is excited against the government. The crowd throws stones and you also end up throwing stones, even when you later say to yourself, “Why did I throw them? Why did I do this?”
I remember only four years ago when the school teachers were having many strikes, protests, and manifestations. We saw unusual things there. Here in the heart of the Federal District some ten or fifteen years ago, we saw very decent professors, very worthy, very cultured people who, in a crowd, grabbed stones and threw them at windows, people, and at whoever they could. Those school teachers would never have done this alone, but they did all this while in a group. In a group the human being behaves in a distinct way, he does things he would never do alone. Why is this so? It is because of the negative impressions they have opened their doors to. Then these impressions negatively influence us and we end up doing what we would never have done alone. Because of this, it is necessary that we learn to be cultured citizens.
When one opens one’s doors to negative impressions, not only does one alter the order of the emotional center, which is in the heart, one also alters it so that it becomes negative. For example, if one opens one’s doors to the negative emotion of a person who comes to us full of anger because someone caused him some damage, then one becomes identified with that person’s anger and ends up taking part in the matter.
Let us suppose that one opens one’s doors to the negative impressions of a drunk who is at a party and one accepts a drink from this drunk. Then later we have another, then two, three, and four and finally one also ends up as a drunk. Let us suppose that one opens one’s doors to the negative impressions of a person of normal sex. One ends up fornicating in all kinds of ways. Let us suppose that we open our doors to the negative impressions of a drug addict; we also end up smoking marijuana, with seeds and everything. The conclusion that we arrive at is failure.
This is how human beings infect one another with negative impressions. The drunk infects the drunk, the great assassins infect others, drug addicts infect other drug addicts and then finally, drug addicts multiply themselves, assassins multiply themselves, robbers multiply themselves. Why? Because we always commit the error of opening our doors to negative impressions and this is not the correct way of behaving.
Let us select emotions. If someone brings us positive emotions of light, harmony, beauty, wisdom, love, poetry, and perfection, let us open the doors of our heart. To the beings that bring us negative emotions of hate, violence, jealousy, drugs, alcohol, fornication, andadultery, we must not open the doors of our heart. Let us close them. Close the doors to negative impressions. When one reflects on all of this one can perfectly modify oneself, make something better of one’s life.
We see the representation of a friend who has always helped us, he is kind, charitable, marvelous. Suddenly, someone excited, full of negative impressions, comes to us with a problem. We open the doors to those negative impressions, he is murmuring, he is saying that our friend is a robber, a bandit, a bank robber, and forty thousand other things. All those negative impressions enter our mind. Such an altered representation converts itself into a real demon which obstructs work on oneself. Through all of this and many other things, you can see that this necessity of cleaning the temple of the mind is very difficult, but not impossible.
We need to have a clear mind, a clean temple, without filth, without abominations of any kind. But we must know how to live, it is necessary to know how to live. In practical life disgracefully, people do not know how to live. We blame all of our sufferings and all our sorrows on others, and we are the only ones who truly are to blame.
Let us look at the case of somebody who steals a large amount of money from us. Let us suppose that one of you has fifty-thousand dollars put away in some furniture, in some box in your house, and some relative of yours robs you of those fifty-thousand dollars. Of course you would suffer horribly. Is that not so? To lose money this way is not very agreeable, it would cause us much pain. You would cry, you would go to the police, you would file a law suit against him, or maybe you would not proceed in this way because of his being a relative, but the suffering would not be silenced at all. But why suffer like that for fifty-thousand dollars? Because it cost you so much work, that is why you suffer. If you did not have “I’s” of attachment to things, to money, you would lose those fifty-thousand dollars and you would be laughing, you would not suffer.
Let us suppose that a man suddenly finds his wife with another man, a difficult case, even more so if he finds her in the midst ofadultery. There is no doubt that, confused by the pain, he takes out a gun and shoots the other man on the spot. Why does he do that? He would justify this before the authorities, saying that he found her in the act of adultery so, of course, he was right to do that. That is madness, complete madness, because if this man did not have the “I” of jealousy inside him, if this man did not have the “I” of attachment nor that of jealousy, there would not be anyone who would suffer; he would simply turn his back and leave. He would go and live out the rest of his life beyond what happened to him, realizing that each man is for himself. He feels free of this because she reproved him, she relieved him. If he does not have any jealousy, then there is no pain.
Many times someone suffers because he sees a friend who has a nice house and a beautiful wife. This is called envy, is it not? But if he does not have the “I” of envy, why would he suffer? On the contrary, he would be happy to see his friend doing so well. It is in this way that we must understand that others cannot cause us pain; we ourselves are the cause of our pain. This is the crude reality of life. Disintegrating the ego terminates pain.
The roots of pain are in the ego, and when the ego is terminated, all that remains in us is beauty. That beauty transforms itself into that which is called love and happiness. When the mind reaches these heights it is calm, in silence, it is no longer a mind that projects itself, it is no longer a mind that reacts just because of anything. It receives the messages that come from above, from the superior parts of the Being, it is a mind full of plenitude.
I repeat, not only should psychological aggregates be eliminated, but it is clear that mental representations must also be eliminated, negative ones as well as positive ones. We need to clean the inside of our minds of all rubbish. We need the golden flame to blaze with serene light within the limits of the temple. When the mind is calm, when the mind is in silence, then something new happens.
We say this path is very nice but what do we do with our preoccupations? What do we do with the sufferings which others cause us? It is impossible to acquire a calm mind, a mind in silence, when we live in an absurd world full of problems and difficulties. Upon disintegrating the inhuman aggregates we carry within, problems and difficulties conclude.
What we need at this present time is to stop our mental laziness and work very hard on ourselves.
These are my words. If anybody has something more to ask about this subject, they may do so with the utmost liberty.
Question: Master, can you explain the difference between a quiet mind and a mind that has been forced to be quiet?
Samael Aun Weor: Well, naturally we must distinguish between a mind that is quiet and a quieted mind, between a mind that is in silence and a mind that has been silenced. In the name of truth, we must emphatically state that the stillness and silence of the mind comes when the ego and the representations of understanding have died. When the mind is at rest, in silence, it becomes receptive, it is left in the hands of the Being and only the Being can do this.
Q: Master, can you give us a practical example?
Samael Aun Weor: Common sense gives the most practical examples. Although many say that it is the most common of senses, I would say it is the least common. Of course, if a thief comes here and you open the doors he will enter, and you will have committed an absurd act; but if a brother comes and knocks on that door steadily and rhythmically you will open the door for him with pleasure. Also if any “John Smith” comes with a few negative emotions, excited because he found a person of the opposite sex for his lust, for hisfornication, and he starts talking about pornography and I, very content, open the doors for him, I am opening the doors to a negative emotion. If a drug addict comes over smoking marijuana and he tells me it is very good, and that he, using marijuana, has had such and such perceptions, that he has even achieved receiving messages from beyond, from God knows what, and in his excitement he tells me to try a bit and I have some, I am an imbecile. Is that not so? I have opened the doors to a negative emotion. This is clear, there is no necessity to complicate things.
Q: Master, does this mean that one does evil when one talks about a person, be it good or bad, taking into account that those who criticize do not transform these impressions?
Samael Aun Weor: Yes, one does not have any reason to occupy oneself with others for their doing good or evil: each one is for himself. So it would be better to respect one another’s lives and to not open our doors to negative emotions, for that is absurd.
Q: Master, instead of having negative or positive representations, what must we have in order to be able to act?
Samael Aun Weor: For now, there is no other remedy but to work. To work from now on you must dedicate yourself to work on yourself. The day you have eliminated all your psychological aggregates, the day you have eliminated all the representations in the mind then, on that day, things will change. On that day you will open your heart. You will receive the sparks of light that come from the higher aspects of your own Being. You will be an integral person. Begin the work now!
Q: Venerable Master, when one is at work and achieves having perceptions without identifying oneself with them, is this a product of self-observation?
Samael Aun Weor: The sense of self-observation develops as one uses it. You obviously need to use it because an organ that is not used becomes atrophied. As one observes oneself cautiously, that marvelous sense of psychological self-observation enters into activity. But one has to be, we could say, on mystical watch, searching, self-observing one’s own errors. As one observes oneself, the sense of psychological self-observation develops.
Q: Then we must definitely make practices for awakening faculties being in the state we are in, without dying?
Samael Aun Weor: The most important thing is the psychological exploration of oneself, to discover oneself. In all self-discovery there also exists self-revelation. When one admits that one has a particular individual psychology, one begins to observe one’s own errors. When one discovers one has an error, one must try to comprehend it profoundly in all levels of the mind. When one has comprehended the error, then one can reduce it to cosmic dust with help from the igneous serpent of our magical powers. I am referring to DeviKundalini Shakti, which unfolds and develops in the spinal column. “First search for the Kingdom of God and everything else will be added unto to you.”
Q: Can a mental representation create a psychological aggregate?
Samael Aun Weor: Let us not confuse the terms. Mental representations are one thing and psychological aggregates are another. Mental representations exist from instant to instant, from moment to moment. You yourself, here at this moment, are full of mental representations. But mental representations can be altered, they can convert themselves into perverse demons, but they are representations. No representation could create a new aggregate, representations are of one mind and aggregates are of another.
Q: Venerable Master, then that demon which results from the representation… The method which is needed to eliminate it, is it the same one used to eliminate our psychological “I’s”?
Samael Aun Weor: It is obviously so. If one appeals to the igneous serpent of our magical powers so that she will eliminate specific representations, we can receive her help right away, and those representations will be reduced to cosmic dust. The mind must be clear, free. It must be a Temple without dusty stables, where only the flame of Prajna, so to speak, the flame of the Being, blazes.
Q: So Master, then representations are the product of “I’s”?
Samael Aun Weor: No, sir, I said that we must not confuse the terms; representations are one thing and psychological aggregates are another. As in the world of the senses, objects are fundamental because objects are really located in the world of the senses; like this, there is also the world of the mind. Representations within the mind are commonly trouble, whether they are positive or negative.
Q: Then what happens if the representations that come to us when we are trying to meditate are of characters very sacred to us?
Samael Aun Weor: When one is in Meditation, mental representations commonly come, but if the subject is analyzed then one discovers that such representations are stuck in one’s mind, that they have always been there. We need to liberate ourselves. The mind must become clean so that, instead of representations, messages come to us. Messages from beyond are one thing and bad mental forms that come to the mind are another, they are representations.
These representations are one thing and messages another. Messages come, I repeat, through the higher parts of the Being and arrive to the higher mind, in the crystallized mind. They have a new taste. They are not of time. They are beyond time. We have to open ourselves to the new. Representations do not ever have a new taste, they are of time.
Q: Master, when a representation comes within the field of the mind and the person does not identify with it, but instead studies it, how can one understand this? What results are obtained?
Samael Aun Weor: Well, it always happens to be that it is a representation. During sleep, usually there are representations of a subjective, incoherent, vague, and imprecise type. If the person does not identify with such representations, only studies them and knows what such representations are, usually he finds they are related to many errors of the past. But we must distinguish clearly between representations and psychological aggregates. In the mind, one can have representations of lust from all his friends. These are representations that must be eliminated sooner or later. Aggregates are another thing, they personify our defects. Representations are simply mental forms. The representation of a stone, the representation of a man, and the representation of an animal are simply forms. We must have a free mind, the temple of the mind must be clean, it must be pure.
Q: Venerable Master, can the same work taught in relationship to the transformation of impressions be carried out in eliminating representations?
Samael Aun Weor: It is good to try and comprehend a representation before eliminating it in a similar form, as it is done with psychological aggregates. When one comprehends that a representation is nothing more than a form in the mind, thus, one must eliminate it, but you must comprehend it to later eliminate it, and you eliminate it with the force of the igneous serpent of our magical powers.
Q: Master, when there is a transformation of impressions are there still representations in the mind?
Samael Aun Weor: One can digest determined impressions, but one cannot expect those representations one has already stored in the mind to cease to exist. One must manage to comprehend them and to eliminate them.
Q: Until what point is an experience in the inner worlds a mental representation?
Samael Aun Weor: As long as the ego subsists, one is not fit for investigations in psychological space. No one could know the inner worlds of planet Earth if before he does not know his own inner worlds. Nobody could know the inner worlds of the solar system if before, he does not know his own inner worlds. None of us could know the inner worlds of the galaxy in which we live if before we do not know our own particular individual inner worlds. One cannot be fit for psychological investigation inside the psychological space in which we live as long as we have not disintegrated the ego and have not finished with the representations which emanate from the rustic world of sensation.
Q: Is it possible to leave the body with only 3% Consciousness ?
Samael Aun Weor: I have clearly stated that with only 3% Consciousness no one can become a competent investigator of what happens in our psychological space. Before anything else, people need to increase their percentage of Consciousness so that they can become truly ideal investigators of psychological space. Thus, we need to constantly psychologically explore ourselves on a daily basis until we discover our errors and reduce them to cosmic dust. Only then is it possible to acquire self-Consciousness. We need to put so many of our theories aside, so much vagueness, so many incoherencies that do not serve for anything, to be able to convert ourselves into awakened individuals.
In the name of truth we have to say that the world of the mind is a deposit for all mental forms past, present, and future. The world of the natural or universal mind must be studied in depth, profoundly, if we want to understand something about the ego and mental representations. It has clearly not occurred to many brothers and sisters what the difference is between ego and representations.
