Beginning Here and Now: Introductory

Lectures
Transformation of Life
Category: Beginning Here and Now
Written by Gnostic Instructor

"Life has an objective. A superior world is the objective of life. Thus, the Gnostic
teachings teach us how to live in a superior world, how to live in a solar and
immortal humanity; if one would not accept a superior world, transformation would
then not have a purpose, this is obvious." - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the
Dialectic
This is a transcription of a lecture you can download for free: Beginning Here and Now:
Transformation of Life (33.86 MB)
The science of Gnosis is a very particular form of knowledge that guides us in the process of
transforming our life. This is the very purpose of the gnostic teachings.
The reason behind all of the activity of the many spiritual messengers who have come to
humanity has been to give us practical guidance so that we can transform our lives. It is not
been so that we can merely believe, play games with our intellect, or to merely theorize. But
instead, all the great religions have been given to us as a gift in order to help us overcome
suffering, to give us practical tools that we can use to find the truth, experience it, and to find
what real happiness is. This is why we study gnosis.
If we study a religion or this gnostic teaching and lose sight of this essential foundation, then we
are on a mistaken path. If we merely intellectualize, debate, simply believe but do not practice,
then we are on a mistaken path.
This fact becomes easy for us to see when we analyze how existence functions, and we can
only know that through our own experience.
Look at life as it is. We see that life is really a series of transformations. Life proceeds and
develops by means of transformation.
Everything is in continual change. Nothing is exempt from this. There is nothing in existence that
is stagnant or static or motionless. Day to day existence requires change. There is no way
around this. This is basic physics.

What we fail to remember, what we fail to grasp, is that we ourselves are undergoing continual
change, continual transformation, but in what way? How are we continually changing? This is
what escapes our perception. This is because we still lack the capacity to perceive directly,
consciously, how we are changing. And this is because our consciousness is asleep.

Awaken
Therefore, we arrive at the reason why all of the great messengers emphasized the need to
awaken. Repeatedly in the gospels of Jesus we see phrases like Wake up, awaken, sleep not.
We see this throughout the teachings of any great messenger. What needs to awaken in us is
our consciousness. This is what we fundamentally ignore.
When the consciousness begins to awaken by means of our will through practical effort that we
make from moment to moment, we put ourselves in a position to begin to learn about how we
ourselves are transforming from moment to moment. That activity of self-observation or
watchfulness initiates a process of transformation, but it cannot fully develop that transformation
on its own. In other words, to be watchful of oneself is a beginning, but is not everything.
In esoteric psychology, we learn different tools in order to study ourselves. Self-observation and
self-remembering are among the basic tools that we use in order to begin to understand gnosis.
And as I mentioned, it is the beginning, but not everything. After we have self-observation
developed, there are more skills we need to develop. But first, we need to be capable of
observing ourselves.
So for us to begin to comprehend what gnosis is, we have to begin observing ourselves,
remembering ourselves, watching our mind continually, and this is a place to start. If you have
not already studied self-observation, then you should do so. Study what that means, but most of
all, begin practicing it, and never stop practicing it. This is an effort, an activity, that we have to
continually renew until we perfect it. This does not come in a matter of hours or even a matter of
weeks.
Learn Self-observation: Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, Self-knowledge, Upright
Mindfulness
This sense of inner watchfulness begins to show us the depth and complexity of our psyche, the
many contradictions that we have within us. It can be an overwhelming realization to see how
deep we really are. It can be an overwhelming realization to see how strong the ego is in us.
When we practice self-observation, it can feel exhausting because our consciousness is weak.
We have not exercised our consciousness, and thus it does not have the strength to be
continually active. This is why we need to continually revive it, to keep activating the
consciousness so that it will become strong.
We have many exercises and practices that we use in order to aid the consciousness in its

process of awakening. Meditation is the most important one. But there are additional practices
like pranayama, sexual transmutation, the use of mantras, and various tools like rejuvenation
exercises and runic practices. All of these aid in giving strength to the consciousness so that we
can make it more and more active. This is the basis of our foundation. We do not do all these
practices to get spiritual experiences or to impress others or to look like a very dedicated
spiritual person. We do these practices to strengthen our consciousness, so that we can
observe ourselves, so that we can learn about ourselves, so that we can change.
When we take a look at our psychology, gnosis teaches us that we have three brains.

We study those three brains, especially in self-observation, to learn how they function and how
they misfunction according to our use of them.
And we learn about the different bodies of the soul.

We learn about not only how the physical body works, but also how it is enlivened and given its
life by the vital body. And how the vital body in turn is influenced by the astral and mental bodies.
We learn how all of these vehicles interrelate with our three brains and all of that understanding
is aided by learning kabbalah in order to see the structure and understand how they relate
and all of these things are important and essential and we need them, but without the foundation
of self-transformation, it is all a waste of time. Many study Kabbalah and Alchemy, but they do
not change. Thus, they are wasting their time.

In our day today existence in our moment-to-moment life, what we seek is to change, to
transform our lives and in turn to help make this a better world. This is why we have gnosis. This
is why these beautiful teachings have been granted to us in spite of our faults and our defects
and our crimes. Therefore, we are with a heavy responsibility to utilize gnosis in the right way
and to actualize it, to realize it in our own hearts and minds.
To do that we need to keep this foundation in mind CHANGE and not become distracted by
all the many subtleties and the difficulties of the knowledge, or the distractions of material
existence. Our comforts and securities in the world, our social life, our families, friends,
possessions all of these pass away. Schools, gnostic schools, spiritual movements, religions
all die. Our physical body will die. Material existence itself will pass away. But our consciousness
will persist. What counts is what we have done with our consciousness. How much we have
developed it, awakened it and strengthened it and made it shine? This is why it is so important
for us to constantly and continually be watchful of ourselves. To see that the way we are using
our energy is feeding the development of consciousness.
Understanding all of that, we arrive at an important aspect of this teaching.

The Human Machine

We can observe our organism or our existence in this material world and see that really this
body of ours is similar to a factory or machine with three levels.
On the ground level of this factory we take in food and water in order to feed our machine, to
give it fuel and energy, to give it health, and we eat and we drink everyday in order to produce a
transformation. When we take in the raw elements of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and water,
our physical body through its incredible intelligence transforms all of those forms of matter
into energy and other forms of matter, which sustain our physical vehicle and give us health, all
in accordance to how well we eat and drink. Of course, nowadays people have become
habituated over decades to eating garbage, to ingesting a lot of chemicals and synthetic foods,
which contain no real vitality. Because of that, the vitality of our physical bodies is in decline.
Nonetheless, if we are vigilant and willing to renounce all of those synthetic and fake forms of
food, we can still take in the material for our physical well being and our mental well being.
On the second level of this factory, of this machine, we take in air. We breathe. The air that we
absorb sustains our existence. In fact, this second level is even more important than the first
level. We can live without food for a period of time, we can even go without water for a period of
time, but we cannot go without air for very long at all. And of course, now in these times we have
also become habituated to inhaling and transforming very impure air, such that now people
prefer the polluted air in cities, in bars, in clubs, and when they smell fresh air they feel weird.
Or we become habituated to smoking, which fills the lungs with an incredible amount of toxic
material, poisoning the organism and the mind.
When we study the gnostic tradition, the practical teachings, we are informed about these first

two levels, that in relation with food and water we should try to eat the purest we can and eat it
consciously, attentively, and we refer to the traditions amongst very serious practitioners who
would not hold conversations while eating, who would pray while eating, in order to fully
consciously transform their food, and we learn mantras for that. Likewise, in relation with air, we
learn how to watch our breath, to pay attention to our process of breathing. We learn practices
like Anapana which is very ancient traditional form of concentration based on the observation of
the breath, and we learn pranayama where we harness the vital forces that are in the
atmosphere in order to consciously absorb those energies through our energetic channels and
through the lungs. In all of these methods, the goal is to strengthen the consciousness, to give it
pure energy so that our consciousness will have a very robust presence and be able to observe
and watch with great attentiveness. That is why we learn all of these things. It is not simply to
imitate others or to have some kind of ecstatic experiences or very pleasant experiences. It is to
strengthen our consciousness so we can learn and change.
On the third level of this factory, we find the most important transformation of all: the
transformation of impressions.

"In the same manner that the digestive apparatus has a stomach in order to
assimilate the food, in the same manner that the respiratory system has lungs to
assimilate oxygen, so too must a mental stomach be created by the mechanical
human being. Please do not misunderstand or misinterpret this statement. This is
not a bodily cellular stomach. We have to transform impressions before digesting
them. The creation of such a mental stomach is granted and facilitated by the
Gnostic teachings, consequently making the intellectual animal something different."
Many become bewildered when they hear about transformation of impressions. We call all of the
sensory data that comes in through our five senses impressions. All of that data needs to be
transformed consciously, and this is a very challenging concept for us to grasp. It seems subtle.
It seems elusive. It is here that we can get stuck or confused in the theory or philosophy,
especially when we hear what Samael Aur Weor pointed out repeatedly in his books, that life
does not exist except in how we perceive it.
Life is not how we think it is. In fact, we only see our impressions of life, we do not see life as it
is. When we observe nature, we see a tree or plant. We do not see that tree or plant as it
actually exists. What we see is our impression of it. We do not really look at the plant. Instead,
we only see the interpretation of that plant, which is in our mind. This is a very important reality
for us to perceive directly for ourselves, to experience.
If we really reflect on our experience of life, we will find that we have experienced it but never
took it seriously. As an example, you may have seen a person, not known them, but seen them
around, may be at work or at school or in the neighborhood, and that image or maybe sound that
you receive from that person, you interpret in your mind. Maybe you do not like them. Maybe
something about them offends you, or scares you, or disgusts you. How did you interpret that

image or those sounds? Later, you may hear something else about that person that contradicts
your impression. Maybe they are actually a really good person. Maybe you meet them and
discover they are actually really a good person and you discover that your impression was
wrong. This very simple example of what is happening in us continually. The concepts in our
minds do not accurately reflect the reality. Yet, we think that what we think is accurate.
Everything that we receive through our five senses is received and transformed. But
unfortunately, not only do we not receive the sensory data with awareness, we also do not
transform those impressions with awareness, consciously. We simply receive them mechanically
and react mechanically, receive them mechanically and react mechanically, continuously. And
we do not even know why we react the way we do. Reactions just emerge as if spontaneously
from within us. We do not see the perception of the senses for what they are, we do not see the
impressions come in, we do not see them transform, and we do not see the reaction that is
produced until it is already manifested. That is why we end up making so many fundamental
mistakes.
In The Revolution of the Dialectic, Samael Aun Weor explains this by means of an example. If we
imagine a lake, a very calm, serene, smooth lake, and we throw a rock into that lake, the rock
represents the data coming from the exterior world. When the rock strikes the surface of the
water, that is the impression striking our senses. And the waves are the reactions of the mind.
If you have ever tried to meditate, you have seen for yourself that the mind is turbulent. The mind
is churning with waves that come from every direction, without any consistency and
predictability, and seemingly without anything that you can do about it. So, many people try to
meditate but give up when they face this obstacle.
The solution is to learn to transform impressions consciously. When we do that, when we are
attentive and observing our experience from moment to moment, impressions arrive to our
senses, we receive them consciously, transform them in the moment consciously. Then the
reaction that is produced in the mind is controlled, managed. Then the mind becomes calm
naturally, on its own. Then when we meditate, the mind is quiet. It is very simple, in theory, but
challenging to do in daily life precisely because we become identified with impressions that
come from the outside world and from the inside world.
When we awaken in the morning, we begin to go through our list of things that we have to do,
things that we are worried about, thus our anxiety level begins to rise, and this produces
reactions in the mind. Our thoughts and our feelings produce impressions. And then when we
encounter our spouse or our roommates or our neighbors or we go to work or we go to school
and then we need to face all the challenges of the day, we become irritated, excited, happy,
afraid, etc. We pass through all the variety of events and states that occur to us during the day.
We forget ourselves. We become identified. We become mechanical. And we go from event to
event without any self-awareness whatsoever, merely reacting and reacting and reacting. Then
at the end of the day we are exhausted, the mind full of impressions of the day, full of conflicts,
worries and doubts.

If however we awaken in the morning and we meditate, we set the stage for a different way of
experiencing our life. By meditation I mean we calm the mind, we still the mind. We activate the
consciousness to observe, to be serene, and when we go about our business we continue our
meditation all day, watchful and observant within this body, and absorbing all the impressions of
life with great attentiveness. In this way, even if someone curses at us, yells at us, says
something obscene, we can receive that impression and not be disturbed.
It may sound impossible, but if you make the effort you can have that experience, to see how if
you do not place value on the words of a person then those words will have no impact on you.
The reason you become affected by what people say is because you put a value on their words.
The reason you really want the new iPhone is because you put a value on it in your mind. But if
you were to see that device for what it is, merely a device and something impermanent,
something truly inconsequential in the big picture, then that longing, that desire will not disturb
you. In fact it might vanish altogether. The same is true for anything in life. The impressions of
life agitate, excite, disturb or entrance us because of precisely of the value that we place on
them. If we extract that value, if we take it back, then those impressions remain what they truly
were in the beginning: insubstantial. This is why all the religions have said and repeated that life
is an illusion that life is maya, the illusion or the illusory display of the gods. This is not something
that we can simply accept intellectually or believe in as a believer. We have to experience it.
The illusion of our mind is created in our mind, not outside. We create that. We create our own
illusion because of the value we place in our impressions. Because of the false value we place
there.
Our experience of life is determined by how we transform impressions. If you want to boil it all
down to one thing, that is it. If we are a negative person, a morbid person, for some might call a
pessimist or a critic or sarcastic, it is our own fault, because of how we transform the
impressions of life. We choose this, to experience life that way. Thus we have to ask ourselves
sincerely, how can I change if I am already choosing to be this way? It is astonishing to
discover students of religions or gnosis, who are well educated, who really understand
intellectually their teaching, but who are easily angered, who can become enraged or offended,
or who are very negative, always attacking others, blaming others, always critical, always
complaining, or constantly afraid, feeling threatened, or constantly dissatisfied What this
indicates is that although that person may have an intellectual grasp, they do not have practical
experience of how to transform their life. If they did, they will not become angry.

"When one thinks differently and positively about people, it is a sign that one is
changing." - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
Many of the greatest masters are illiterate, are not intellectual, and do not have everything
memorized. They are great masters precisely because they know how to transform from moment
to moment, to have a receptive mind, to not be attached to anything, even a belief, or a school or
a religion.

The power to transform life is in the transformation of impressions.

We do not realize how important and how powerful this level of factory is, even though we live
within its clutches from moment to moment.
As I said, we can live without food or water for a time. We can go without air for few seconds,
may be for some people a few minutes. But we cannot go without impressions, even for an
instant. This is because the consciousness is a natural transformer of impressions. That is its
function. If the consciousness has no impressions to receive, then the consciousness cannot be.
If the consciousness is here, then it perceives. Whatever that consciousness may manifest, its
simple manifestation causes the arousal of impressions. Even if someone does not have physical
body, even if you are in the astral plane or the causal plane, you have to transform impressions.
In fact, if you had experiences out of the body then you have undoubtedly experienced that what
will kick you out of that experience is a transformation of an impression. Students who study
astral projection, dream yoga, inevitably have this experience, that as soon as they awaken
consciousness in the astral world, they become so excited that they pop right back out into the
physical body. This is because they did not transform the impression of arriving in the astral
plane. They became identified, excited or afraid, and that transformation has the consequence
of shocking the emotional center. So, transformation of impressions affects every dimension not
just physical one. And when we say that it is based on how the data arrives to the senses, it is
not merely the physical senses, it is all the senses, all twelve. The senses of each body receive
information, and that information has to be transformed consciously.

Impressions are Food for the Consciousness

In our daily life we constantly seek impressions, and we do not even realize that we do it. Why
else do we pick the TV shows that we do? Why do we pick the friends that we pick? Why do we
choose the books that we choose to read or the magazines or video games or going to certain
places? It is because we like the impressions we get from being with those places, the people or
things. They provide food for some psychological elements in us. So now we have to start asking
ourselves, What am I feeding when I go to that website or magazine stand or book store or visit
those friends? What am I feeding with these impressions? The answers will probably disturb us
much of the time. If we are really sincere and are really observing ourselves, we can start to see
that just as humanity is addicted to pornography, violence, cruelty, we too are addicted to them
by taking them in as impressions. People think that it is the physical actions that are bad, yet the
psychological actions also have consequences.
It is interesting to reflect on how humanity justifies these behaviors. People justify the violence in
movies, in televisions, in video games and say, It is a catharsis for the mind, for instinct, which
has instinctive violence. So when we express or utilize that violence through watching TV or
movies or video games, then we express that energy so that it does not have to come out
physically. This is how people justify it. What they fail to realize is that the impressions have
more impact on us than the physical acts do. Official science is unwilling to admit that what you

do in your mind has a dramatic impact on the quality of your psyche. When you watch a violent
tv show, your body reacts as if you are doing the physical acts: your brain makes chemicals in
response to what you see. So, the psychological action is not free of cause and effect: karma.
People ignore the power of impressions and justify. We justify our addiction to certain kinds of
impressions. Some students even come to gnosis, and study these teachings and even practice,
and remain addicted to impressions and refuse to change those addictions. Some are addicted
to impressions of intellectualism, of constantly reading or studying or comparing different
teachings. Some become addicted to the impression of being an instructor or of trying to
impress people. Of trying to make people admire them or be envied by others. Some remain
addicted to pornography and justify it by saying they are using pornography to learn about lust.
Some remain addicted to video games with the same excuse that they use video games to train
the consciousness to kill the ego. Some remain addicted to the impressions of romance, but
change their romantic ideal to be gnostic, spiritual. Yet, the addiction to romantic impressions
remains the same. Some remain addicted to the impressions of gossip, and justify themselves,
why they need the gossip, or hear about gossip.
All of us have addictions to impressions, and what we do not realize is: in the same way we
become what we physically eat, we also become what we psychologically eat.
We prefer to deceive ourselves with this notion that the mind is a separate entity, and we can put
into it whatever we want with no consequences whatsoever. We love this notion, because it gives
us an excuse to think about, to fantasize about, to indulge in anything that we desire. But let me
tell you, this is a lie.
The impressions that we take in become part of us. They become part of our soul, our psyche.
If you want to know why humanity is on the brink of destruction, it is because of this. It is
because humanity is addicted to negative impressions, and has become so habituated to
negative impressions that we lose all moral values. We lose all sense of what is truly right and
wrong because the consciousness goes deeper and deeper to sleep, and becomes more and
more trapped in lies.
This is how we see in different parts of the world the spread of terrible crimes, such as crimes
against children that are unmentionable but are happening now precisely because of the poisons
put into the minds of men and women that they take in of their own will. Poisons like
pornography, like violence.
We are so addicted to enjoying impressions in our mind that we have become habituated to
crime. We celebrate crime. I do not mean crime just in the sense of stealing material
possessions from one another. I mean crimes against nature, crimes against the cosmos,
crimes against the soul. Did you know that sarcasm is a form of violence? When we are
sarcastic, we are making an act of violence in the mental world. When we joke and throw
stinging comments at each other, just playing, we actually create harm. But we celebrate this,

we enjoy it. We enjoy the impression of being cruel to each other, and we laugh it off like it does
not mean anything, when in fact we are injuring each other, and this is a minor thing in
comparison with all the other things that we do.
We learn how to behave through impressions. When we watch murder shows, crime shows,
gossip shows, we are learning how to behave. We become accustomed to the behaviors we see.
Whether we are aware of it or not, our mind is becoming conditioned to imitate those behaviors,
to be more open to them. Have you noticed the thought, I want to kill him! A truly awakened,
spiritual person would not have such a thought. Only demons think that way.

Select Impressions
The key to change is to place a watcher at the gate of the mind, a guardian, a warrior who will
not miss anything but who will continually watch for impressions, and will act as a guide for the
consciousness to make good choices. In other words, we need to select impressions. This is
what a serious gnostic student does. The serious gnostic student selects impressions in the
same way that we select the best vegetables at the market, or we select the best meat or the best
water. We do not go and look for dirt, for poison, for filthiness to put in the body, thus we must
also be selective of what we put in the mind and heart. Instead of selecting garbage, the serious
gnostic student will select good impressions, healthy impressions.
Most of all we have to learn how to transform every impression that enters into us, because we
cannot control everything that is outside of us. We cannot control others, or the world. Some of
us try and become very frustrated; some of us want to control everyone in our lives, to control
our spouse, to control our boss, to control everything outside in order to avoid certain kinds of
impressions that we do not want. This is not the way to liberation. The right way is to control
oneself. Control your consciousness.
When our consciousness is receptive, awake, active and watching and in complete control of
our three brains, whatever impressions arises and passes through our senses, passes through
that lake of our example and does not leave a ripple. It is almost magical. An impression can
come right through us and we remain attentive and serene, even if that impression was one of
violence, horror, crime. Thus we can comprehend on this basis how it is that Jesus was upon the
cross, tortured, and being killed, and yet remained serene, and prayed for his persecutors. This
is because of his mastery of the transformation of the impressions. Likewise, examples of the
Buddha or of Krishna, facing a great enemy or a great challenge and of remaining serene with
an attitude of love.
One of the great postulates that Samael Aun Weor gave to us can help us with this.

One must learn to receive the unpleasant manifestations of others with gratitude.
That is a very interesting idea. One could debate it and philosophize about it for hours, but that is
useless. What is effective is to use it. Learn to consciously receive any impressions from our

neighbor with gratitude.

If our friend, our spouse, our parent, becomes upset, becomes angry, normally those
impressions strike our mind and produce big waves and we get angry right back. We match
each other. We raise the level on each other. One gets mad, the other gets more mad, and it just
gets worse. This is how we commonly react. We may not be the type of person that expresses
the anger outside. We might express that anger in a passive way. Nonetheless, we react,
whether internally or externally.
If instead we can learn to use this postulate, and we receive those impressions from our friend or
our spouse who is so angry with us and consciously we receive that and realize, I need to be
grateful for this, I need to comprehend why I am receiving this impression, maybe it is my
karma, maybe I truly made a mistake, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I need to listen and
understand the point made by you, my friend, my spouse, who I claim to love.
Really this is the most interesting thing. We claim to love and appreciate our friends, and to love
and value our spouse, but when they come to us with a complaint, we do not want to hear it. We
consider ourselves to be little angels who have fluttered down on to the planet, to grace everyone
else with our presence. It is one of the many lies we tell ourselves that we are good. Instead we
should be grateful for that opportunity to see ourselves through the eyes of another person,
because let me tell you: no one sees us the way we see ourselves. This is why a spouse, or an
honest friend is so valuable. We should be so grateful that they are willing to put up with us. In
those instants of conflict, of difficulty, of adversity is the best time to learn what we need to
change to make life better, not only for ourselves but for the ones we claim to love.
What we fail to realize in those moments is that we are making someone suffer, yet we get angry
and defend and justify our causing them suffering. We do not want to hear that we were
mistaken, that we were rude or crude or violent or thoughtless or selfish. We do not want to hear
anything of that because we believe we are saints. This is the problem. But if we can learn to
receive those impressions gratefully, serenely, then there is an enormous chance to redirect our
life, to become a better person, to be a better husband or wife. This is what it means to receive
with gratitude unpleasant manifestations, and this applies to everything in life. If someone at work
is giving us a hard time or yelling at us, or someone in our school or group or class, these are
opportunities for to change. If someone does not like us or is always rude to us or is sarcastic to
us, be grateful for that. This is the greatest joy of a serious gnostic student. It is to discover their
own mistakes. That is why we study gnosis. To learn how to change.
By means of that grateful reception, the conscious reception of those impressions, we have the
chance to change ourselves, to become better people, and in this this way we can impact our
world. If we can change as individuals, then our society can change as well. If we stop
consuming the impressions of violence, if we stop consuming the impressions of pornography,
then those industries will have no customers and they will die. But unfortunately, those industries
are the largest in the world, precisely because people think they can consume those products
psychologically, without any adverse effect. That is why our world is falling into decay.

For the serious gnostic student, the person who sincerely wants to change their life, the
transformation of impressions is the key. It is important for us to learn to transmute our sexual
energy because without this the consciousness cannot grow. This is the very basis of the entire
teaching. To enter into transmutation. Without that one cannot have anything because throws
away the very essence of the soul, of Christ. But upon that foundation of transmutation we then
need to work with the consciousness actively and diligently and here is the reason why. We
begin to conserve and manage enormous amounts of energy. If we are not transforming
impressions consciously then that energy will be misused by the ego. This is why Samael Aun
Weor emphasized in The Major Mysteries:

"Many vain and stubborn people who join Gnosis usually believe that this is just
another school amongst many others. Yet, such wretched people are lamentably
mistaken, because Gnosis is the doctrine which gestates angels or devils; yes, this
is the outstanding reality of these studies. Therefore, those who dedicate themselves
to the development of powers but do not strive for sanctification, eventually transform
themselves into demons."
There is no other outcome. There is no middle way there. This is precisely because we harness
so much energy. But who is using it is what we need to know. Who is using our energy, who is
transforming impressions in us?
When we go through life mechanically and we receive the impressions of the life mechanically,
automatically, just going along, who is receiving those impressions and transforming those
impressions in combination with the energy we have been saving? Ego. The ego, lust, anger,
envy, pride. Then we do not get better, we get worse. We get worse. We fortify the ego when
that happens. You see in every moment something is being created. Life is not static. Everything
is continually changing, everything. Our mind, our heart, our soul, our body are continually
changing in every instant. When we remain asleep we are devolving. In The Revolution of the
Dialectic, Samael Aun Weor states:

"One is devolving if the digestion of impressions does not exist."

It is unequivocal. There is no option. There is no alternative. In order to transcend suffering, in
order to awaken the consciousness and ascend into superior levels of being, we must
consciously transform impressions as much as we can, continually.
Having said that, we also have to understand the level that we are in. Transformation of
impressions is not something that you will master in a few days, nor in a few years. In fact, the
only one who can perfectly transform impressions, immediately, in the moment they arrive, is a
fully awakened master. Before that level, we make mistakes. There are mis-transformations that
happen precisely because the ego is still alive. Those mistakes may not always be physical, they
may be internal. Nonetheless, we need to make the effort until we reach that level.

The transformation of impressions is the way we transform our life. The way we consciously
harness the energy that explodes in the moment when impressions arrive into us and meet the
psyche. There are great forces in a process of combustion inside our factory, and when we
apply our conscious will onto that we can extract those forces in order to learn, in order to grow.
When we have the challenge which we all face of seeing a person who stimulates our lust, right
there we know we need to transform the impression and not just indulge in that impression and
feed the lust. We consciously have to take that situation and turn it around.
To merely observe ourselves is only the beginning. To even know that we need to transform that
impression, we need to have been observing ourselves, otherwise we would automatically
transform that impression into lust and we would create a new I in the mind and trap ourselves
more in suffering and mechanicity. So mere self-observation is the first part. To be aware of
ourselves and see the impression of lust. But you cannot stop there nor can you simply pray for
God to save you, to take away the impression. There is no knowledge gained there, there is no
wisdom earned, there is no consciousness awakened when you do that. What you have to do in
those instants is to perceive why the lust is harmful. To perceive how your consciousness is on
the edge of that cliff, on the edge of falling into that abyss of desire. And you need to feel that
terror. A feeling the consciousness about to be swallowed by yet another desire. And we have to
turn that around. There are many ways to do this but none of them come through avoidance of
the impression or suppression of the impression. Instead we have to remain indifferent. Neither
indulging in it or running from it.
There are some groups who teach to indulge in desire, to enjoy it, to indulge it, and in that way
they claim that they harness the forces and come closer to God. But that is a lie. That is black
magic or black tantra. There are other groups who teach to avoid that impression, to run away
from it, to call upon God to save you and to run as fast as you can away from that fire. This is
mere suppression or avoidance. It goes nowhere, because that desire remains alive in the mind.
We have no understanding of that desire and thus we have no knowledge of it and thus we
remain trapped in it.
The way to transform any impression is to be in the middle, neither craving, nor avoiding, neither
indulging, nor repressing, but being there conscious and comprehending. When a lustful image
comes into mind and we see the person who stimulated it, our concern should not be about that
person at all. To really transform that impression, be concerned with the psychological reaction,
the impression and its impact on the mind. Observe how we are taking that image in. When we
observe that image arriving into the mind, by consciously receiving that, we can apply the forces
of the teachings, of the knowledge, of our comprehension, our understanding. As an example,
you can see that person, let us say you are a man, and you see a woman and you feel lust. An
immediate way to dispel that lust is to remember your mother or your sister or your Divine
Mother, best of all, and to realize you need to have that same attitude of respect and modesty
towards every woman. The same attitude you have towards your own mother, your own sister,
you Divine Mother, you should have that to other women. To not look at them lustfully but to treat
them like a sister. Like someone who is pure and deserves respect. That has a lot of power. This

is the way that we use our three brains in a positive way. To consciously think those things. To
consciously feel the love we have for our Divine Mother or our physical mother or our sister and
in turn to consciously transform the event. This can never happen mechanically. It can never
happen automatically. Do not develop the concept that you can sort of figure out how these
things work and you will do these things automatically from now on. It does not work like that.
Gnosis is not mechanical. Awakening of consciousness is not mechanical. It is not automatic.
Just because intellectually you may have figured something out, does not mean that you are
doing it consciously. It takes constant, constant effort, consciously. And we can apply similar
technique to any impression that arises. Whether that impression is positive according to us or
negative according to us. We have to transform all impressions.

A Practical Exercise
At the end of every day, take a few minutes, sit in a very comfortable place, close your eyes, be
still, and look back on your day. Reflect on those moments when you felt a change in your mood,
or your attitude. When something shifted for you. And reflect on those moments and look for
what impression caused that change. That may be a change towards a negative state or even to
an identified state that you would call positive, such as when you became really excited. In
general, look for anything that leads us to be identified. We need to look for that. Reflect on the
impression that caused that change. Then we need to start analyzing what was happening in our
mind, in our three brains, reflecting on this. When this certain event happened, what did I think?
What did I feel? What did I see? What did I hear? The best guide to this practice is your
intuition, listen to your heart. Your heart will lead you directly to the thing that you need to work
on, if you listen to your intuition. Most of the time though, we do not really want to find the
problem, and so instead we listen to the mind and we are trying to remember what did that guy
say in the lecture? About this or about that? What is the opposite of what so and so said to me?
How do I use the second jewel of the yellow dragon and the battle of the opposites? What is the
opposite of him saying this or that? And we get caught in this intellectual debate. This is not the
way to resolve a conflict. We resolve it intuitively.
In those moments of reflection you should also pray and ask for the help of your Divine Mother.
It is through her intercession and her assistance that we can successfully terminate the egos that
cause the problem.
We need to do this type of activity everyday. Every day, reflect on the things that changed our
mood or attitude, things that affected us, where we became identified. And we need to discover
what that transformation that we make and how can we fix it.

"In order to be able to transform our impressions, we need to reconstruct the scene
just as it happened, to find out what hurt us the most. If there is no digestion of
impressions, then nourishment from them will not be attained. If there is no
nourishment, the essential bodies of the Being will languish. [...] Good impressions
should also be transformed. If during the day one has had three impressions which

have affected his psychological mood, then they must be studied and transformed at
night by utilizing an orderly procedure. Each I is connected with others; they are
associated. The Is conjoin together in order to form the same scene." - Samael Aun
Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
The System for the Transformation of the Impressions of the Day
1. Absolute relaxation.
2. Reach the state of meditation.
3. Relive the scene just as it occurred.
4. Seek within oneself the I which caused the problem.
5. By observing serenely, one places the ego in the defendants chair and one then
proceeds with the judgment.
6. Ask the Divine Mother Kundalini for the disintegration of the I - problem.
I suggest that you also take it another step. When you reflect upon the mistake that you may
have made, the bad transformation that you made, also pray to your Divine Mother to show you
how you should have behaved. Ask for the guidance of God to show you what would have been
the right thing to do. And in that way you can arrive at the synthesis, a conscious
comprehension, real understanding.
This topic of the transformation of impressions has a lot of details and it takes a lot of study and
practice to get it. You can learn a lot by studying The Revolution of the Dialectic, in which
Samael Aun Weor explains this repeatedly in different ways.

Questions and Answers

Audience: Quoted from Major Mysteries by Samael Aun Weor, when you study gnosis you
either become and angel or a demon. Meaning if we do not transform our impressions, we do
not you know die, if we do not kill our egos with the help of our divine Mother, then anything that
we do, such as the vocalizations, transmutation, the other exercise, it will convert into demons,
powerful demons. Correct?
Instructor: That is right. Unfortunately, because of our pride, thinking that we know everything
once we have studied a couple of books, and because of our ignorance, we fail to put into
activity the consciousness right away. What happens is that people will study this teaching or
other spiritual teachings and do all the practices, meditate, even transmute the sexual energy, but
because they do not work on the ego in the right way, in the serious way, they awaken
negatively. Even during the sixties and seventies when Samael Aun Weor was teaching in Latin
America, he commented about this specifically, and said unfortunately many students were
coming out of Latin America awakening negatively. Many of his students, because of this. So
what about now? It is a big problem. It is a problem of pride. Many think that because they have

studied some books or because they have studied under such and such a person, or belong to a
certain school, that they are on the express train to self-realization. And thus, they believe they
will just naturally awaken consciousness in the right way and thus they do not really study, they
do not get into the details, especially of their own minds. There are many who talk about the ego
and meditation, and talk about transformation, but are deeply asleep. There are some who are
even awakening consciousness but in the wrong way, in the negative way. For us who are
students, who are asleep, who are sincerely trying to make an effort, we cannot differentiate
between all these different types of people. This is part of the reason why Samael Aun Weor
said do not follow anyone, except your own inner being. So yes the danger is there, but that
danger exists in any religious tradition. It does not matter. Do not be scared away from gnosis
just because of that statement. It is true of any religion.
Question: May be you can talk more about the idea of not reveling in an impression but not
avoiding it either. Immediately after you mentioned this, you [01:19:57] stopping these
impressions. This is a tricky situation because someone can misinterpret this techniques and
allow impressions to happen and to consume them, thinking they are observing them. But when
you apply techniques for terminating the impression you may be fleeing and suppressing the
impressions.
Answer: Well it is a very good question, is a long question. It is a good one. From what I
understood from the question is there is a great danger for a student to think that they are
transforming when they are still indulging or even repressing. And yes, that is absolutely true.
But there is no sure antidote except experience. We have to teach ourselves how to transform
impressions; there is no trick. There is nothing you can memorize in your intellect, as a sure
guide to transforming an impression. The only way to do it is to be consciously active
continually. Let me give you an example. Say for example that you get into a conversation with
someone, which took a turn for worse. And let us say you cannot get out of it. Being in a car or
in a bus or at work, may be you are with your boss and your boss starts talking about stuff that
you do not really want to talk about. Very negative things. What you are going to do? If it is your
boss then you have to be attentive, because if you space out you can get fired. The answer is to
be conscious, to be respectful, to listen but to not indulge. The mind becomes conflicted about
this because the mind wants a concrete A or B. Do I do this or do I do that? But let me tell you,
transformation of impressions is not the domain of the mind. Transformation of impressions is
the domain of the consciousness, who can use the mind but is not dependent on the mind. And
this is something that you can only see from your own experience. And you will see it.
Life is very challenging in these times. Our karma is very heavy. All of us are facing situations
that are challenging and painful and difficult. Each of us has to learn for ourselves. How do we
act, how do we behave, how do we transform this for the greater good? You can only learn that
at the feet of your inner master, who will teach you if you listen.
What I said about going by the guidance of your intuition in meditation applies to the
transformation of the impressions. I was just giving you examples, very crude ones. But in the

moment of transforming impressions you have to look into your intuition as to how to do it. Do not
get stuck in the mind. The mind which compares, that wants definitions or concrete do this, do
not do that. If you get stuck in the mind, trying to remember what scripture says, or what is the
moral code for this or that, then you can no longer receive the impression consciously. What
happens is then you just start thinking, comparing, analyzing, getting scared, getting afraid,
getting worried, no longer transforming consciously, then you are taking all that energy into your
fear, into your worry, into your frustration, right?
Be conscious. Be aware.
Audience: How do you both not allow an impression to enter your mind but at the same time not
to run away from it? How is it possible? []
Answer: Let me answer that by means of an analogy. When I talked about selecting impressions
in the same way that we select food in the market, we have to do the same thing in life. Many
cases where we wrongly transform impressions, we put ourselves there because we are
ignorant. That is the first thing. Do not put yourself in a position of having to take in bad things.
For example, do not eat garbage. Simple. But we do it with impressions. We choose to take them
in. That is the first thing. Stop choosing to take in garbage. That is the main thing. So, do not go
where you will receive bad impressions.
Secondly, if we find ourselves in a situation where we feel the danger of becoming identified,
first thing you have to do is relax. Because if you become tense or anxious or afraid, you will
repress or run away. The transformation of impressions is based in being very relaxed and very
attentive.
The next thing is how do you take that in, or avoid taking that in, or not suppress, or all these
other aspects of it. Do not worry so much about it, relax and pay attention. Listen to your
intuition, listen to your heart. Do not get so rigid. We have to relax and listen and pay attention
and whatever impressions come, transform them consciously, not with the mind. It is not an easy
thing to explain. Our language does not transmit how to use consciousness. Our language is too
crude for that. If for example somebody is saying something offensive, and you have no choice
but to be there. You will know that you are indulging in it, in the same way that you know that you
are eating food. You chew it, you chew on it. If an impression comes in and you chew on it,
meaning you are repeating it over and over in your mind, you are replaying it, you are analyzing
it, and you are saying Oh I cannot believe they said that. You are indulging. If on the other
hand, you simply let that impression go right by, and you keep paying attention, it passes right
through you. It leaves no waves. You will still remember that it happened. But you wont be
digesting it, you wont be chewing on it continually in your mind. Same thing happens with a
lustful image. Nowadays you cannot avoid them. They are everywhere. Bill boards, magazines,
TV everywhere, covered with images of lust. You will know that you are indulging it when you
repeat that image in your mind. When you recall it, when you use it as a basis for comparison,
for memory, for fantasy. That is indulging. If that images passes through and leaves no wake, it
is gone. On the other hand if that image comes up and you push it away and you push it away,

you are repressing. You see this is a very delicate thing, that no one can teach you, but you
have to teach yourself. To be conscious, to be awake, to be serene and relaxed, then you will get
it. Mind wont.
Audience: What is more dangerous. Indulging in impressions or suppressing them?
Instructor: They are equally dangerous. Both result in the same thing. Whether you indulge or
repress an ego is created, an ego is strengthened.
Audience: That is like certain members of clergy who perform some unspeakable acts? How do
they say one thing, perform a service or ritual and privately doing all sorts of really negative
things. I think it is because they are repressing so much that the energy comes out in really bad
ways.
Instructor: Yes that is a good example.
Audience: I was wondering if it is not a matter of focus as well. If you turn your focus away from
constantly being attacked by things and turn your focus on to the fact that the people around you
are lacking understanding. As what may come across as an ugly behavior is still a lack of
understanding in a way. And I think it can make one feel little bit less aggressed and again
internally focused on what you need to keep warding off and more sends out a sense of
compassion that you just keep feeding and what is going around you, no matter how ugly it
looks, it is constantly like a lack of understanding that in some ways can be a protective force
where you know it keeps you less vulnerable to suppressing, thinking negative and more like
bring focus out like there are others where you understand things that they do not understand.
Answer: You made a very good point. That is the reason we emphasize Bodhichitta. One part of
Bodhichitta is compassion.
The problem is that we do get so self-centered and so defensive in ourselves and we are always
looking at other people as aggressive or as a threat to us. Compassion is definitely a component
that needs to be present for the awakening of the consciousness. But compassion alone is not
sufficient. What is necessary is full Bodhichitta. And by that it means not only compassion for
other people but comprehension of emptiness. It is through that combination that Bodhichitta
provides protective armor around the consciousness. We have given several lectures that explain
its importance, and it is too much to go into now. Let me address one more thing about that
though.
There is a common danger in students who learn some gnosis and learn some transformation of
impressions and how to be attentive. That student can start to develop a gnostic personality,
certain internal attitudes or behaviors that we believe are gnostic, and that we feel are gnostic,
but those are really just personality, ways of acting, but are not part of the consciousness. The
result is we start to behave in mechanical ways, while thinking that we are conscious. The
danger there is that then we think we are transforming impressions, but we are not. We are
being mechanical, but in a way that appears to us to be genuine. But it is really superficial. It is

something that is hard to explain, but it is a danger that we face as we are developing true
conscious transformation of impressions. The clue to it is to discover this: when you are trying to
be present and transform impressions, if you feel any sense of I, you have a mistaken view.

"We need to cease being what we are in order to become what we are not. One has
to become missing to oneself. The outcome of all of this is the advent of someone
who is not oneself." - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
This addresses what you brought up about compassion for other people. If you feel any sense of
self, then your transformation will be flawed. The perfect transformation of impression occurs
when one is empty of oneself. When the personality is not in the way. And what is there is pure
consciousness which has no I. There is individuality but beyond what we think of individuality.
And this is why in the revolution of the dialectic Samael Aun Weor emphasized this that one
cannot have a sense of self esteem and transform impressions. So for a student who has been
working with this for a while, comes a clue to move past stages where we become stagnant , to
start watching, is there a sense of I here?, Is it about me being a gnostic, about me being so
called serious? If it is, we are wrong, we are on a mistaken way. We need to correct that. We
need to empty ourselves of any sense of self. To be pure perception. To merely be conscious,
no I. And that is experiential. The mind cannot do that. Only when the consciousness has
become strong, we have given it lot of force and strength we can experience that , we can taste
that and it is beautiful. And it is in that taste when there is no false personality there, when we
can really transform impressions that otherwise would be indigestible to us, and then we can
transform things that could be shocking or horrible, but we can come through that with serenity
and love.
Question: Gnostically speaking, what is the meaning of compassion. Is it related with selfesteem?
Answer: Self-esteem is self-love, which is egotistical. Real compassion has no self. Real
compassion is the force of Christ related with the sephirah Chokmah, within which there is no I,
no ego, there is only love, wisdom. For us to experience what true love is, our self cannot be in
the way.
We often give the example that we can taste a glimmer, a very slight flavor of that form of love,
when we are a parent, because a parent can experience, not always, but from time to time can
taste that pure love that just wants to give, to protect the child. Not all parents experience it, and
certainly most parents do not experience it very much. But as a parent you can taste that flavor.
Real compassion is like that. It is a form of love that has no desire for self, but only wants what is
good for others.
As we explained, the full development of compassion is only possible in Bodhichitta, and that is a
Sanskrit word which refers to a fully developed awakened consciousness. Bodhichitta is the
ethereal human being (Yesod) who has fully developed the love of Christ as selfless, pure love.
Anyone can reach that, but we have to be willing to renounce our self-interest.

"When impressions are transformed, everything becomes new." - Samael Aun

Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
Psychology Consciousness