5-6. Right Vocation and Effort
- Oregon Gnosis Guide
- 2 days ago
- 32 min read
Right Livelihood/Vocation
The word vocation relates to a person’s employment, trade or profession. It also relates to a strong feeling or calling for a particular career or occupation. All of us grew up knowing that we would have to work one day. For some of us this may have caused a lot of stress and anxiety, especially towards the end of high school. Growing up we may have experienced our parents working and trying to provide for us. We also may have experienced our parents suffering a great deal because they didn’t enjoy their job or went from one career to the next not knowing what type of vocation to pursue.
Did your parents enjoy their profession?
My parents struggled to make ends meet. They had jobs and sometimes would get laid off. They didn’t go to college or trade school, but they did their best to provide for their family. This type of situation was not uncommon in the area that I grew up in. Many of my friends had similar situations. Not many people enjoyed the jobs that were available in my area, there were not many to choose from and most of them may have not been what people were meant for.
While we go to school, we should be learning what we want to be, what type of profession we want to pursue, but most of us really don’t know. Most of the time school does not help us discover our purpose in life and when we reach the end of high school most of us are unsure with what we want to do. We listen to the opinions of others and not to our own intuition; we may have really wanted to pursue a certain type of career when we grew up but we changed it because we listened to other people. Our society teaches us that one of life’s primary goals is to work and make money. We are taught that we need to make money and most kids who are getting ready to graduate feel a great deal of stress because now they have to figure out how to provide for themselves. Our society teaches us that money is one of the most important things in life and don’t get me wrong, to earn a living is necessary but to become greedy is not.
How has greed helped humanity?
Obviously, there are many professions to choose from, but most of the motivating factors behind searching for a profession relate to money and this can lead one to choosing unwisely. Money is one of the obstacles that we all face in life. We need money in order to pay our bills and take care of our basic needs. Earning a living is a necessity, but most of us are stressed out with how we’re going to make ends meet and because of this we end up choosing jobs that may not be suitable for us. We may choose something that earns a good wage, but we may not enjoy our career choice. We may choose something that helps us earn a significant wage, but it may not be something we are happy doing.
Have you ever had a job that you didn’t enjoy that paid well?
Many workplaces may cause unhappiness, due to overworking their employees, unethical conduct, high stress, danger, etc. The fact is, we spend most of our lives working to make a living, so we need to choose wisely, but it’s difficult to find a profession available that is completely enjoyable. Our society is set up this way, it is difficult to find someone who does not feel that they are overworked, stressed, and undervalued. Many of the jobs available consist of long hours, low pay, and unhealthy working conditions. There’s also a lot of competition; we compete for jobs. This is how it is and in order to pay our bills, take care of ourselves and our families we find a way to deal with it. Most people deal with the unhappiness of their job by turning to some type of vice. Vices like intoxicants or some means of escape. Many relationships also suffer because of this type of unhappiness. For example: we work all day and come home and expect our partner to have done certain things and if they haven’t, we get upset. Our boss gets angry with us, and we come home and take it out on our spouse or kids. Our unhappiness in the work force affects our lives at home.
Have you ever allowed the stress you felt at work damage your relationship with your spouse, children or friends?
So, what do we do if we don’t like our job? Do we rebel, do we quit and take on the life of a homeless person, do we give up? Where will that get us, what will that cause, and what will be the effects?
One of life’s duties is to become a responsible productive member of society. What does it take to be responsible? Acceptance, maturity, humility, diligence, courage, just to name a few. These things will help us live a better life, it’s not always going to be easy, but we can do it. Learning to humble ourselves is necessary. We may not like it, but it takes maturity, a mature attitude is helpful, we also need to have a good work ethic and that takes diligence.
Diligence is to be persistent with work or effort. To be diligent requires a good work ethic and that is to have the ability of being responsible and not lazy. A good work ethic does not only apply to our job, but also to everything we do in life. Become aware of the areas in your life where you find laziness and work on them, understand and comprehend them. If we have issues with being irresponsible and lazy then it behooves us to work on them: we find the causes of them and work to change them. We change them by comprehending them and when we see the truth of them, they begin to transform. For instance: if I don’t like to work, I need to understand why, what is at the root of my dislike of working? Is it because I’m lazy and don’t want to do anything, do I prefer to sit around all day playing video games or getting high? Do I lack a sense of responsibility? Do I want everything to be easy? Do I want others to do it for me? Do I feel entitlement? There may be many reasons why we lack diligence and the ability to be responsible. It is up to us to discover and work on them. It takes courage to do this type of psychological work. All around we find people who suffer, people that are unhappy, and the noble truths teach us that suffering is inevitable, but they also teach us that there’s an end to suffering. The end of our psychological suffering is something each one of us can work for.
It helps to be honest with ourselves and to have courage. We need courage to live in this world. It takes courage to grow up, go to school, deal with our parents, and deal with the harsh realities of this world. We need to be honest with ourselves and not let our perception be clouded by deceit and fear. If we look back at our lives, we may find that we chose a vocation motivated by fear. While going to school our parents, teachers, friends, relatives may have told us, “You better figure it out.” Maybe we had a child on the way, and we made a sudden decision motivated by fear that led to choosing a profession that wasn’t meant for us. If we retrospect we may find that most of our decisions have been motivated by fear; fear of the unknown, fear of what may be or may not be, fear of not knowing and fear leads to anxiety and stress.
Each step of the eight-fold path begins with “right,” right does not relate to good or bad or good or evil. Right relates to purity. We are seeking purity with each step. Purity with the way we view and understand things. Purity with our intentions. Purity with our speech, with the way we communicate with ourselves and others. Purity with our actions and the way we conduct ourselves. Purity with the way we live and work and we cannot achieve any of this without mindfulness. Mindfulness is to be aware of what we’re doing, it’s to pay attention. Mindfulness as we have stated many times is to be aware of ourselves from moment to moment. With each step you are being mindful of yourself. When we work any profession, we seek to do our best, to perform the work to our highest ability, mindfully and ethically no matter what it is. When we do our duty at work in this way we become a valued worker.
What happens when you get caught performing unethical conduct at your job? What are the consequences?
Right vocation and livelihood are very deep. This step of the eightfold path also relates to our calling, something that we’re destined for.
Have you ever felt that you have a destiny?
Right vocation and livelihood are to know how to live. Many of us question why we are here, what is the purpose to our existence, and what should we be doing with our lives. We waste a lot of time and energy pursuing things that are not right for us. We may have parents that want or wanted us to pursue a certain profession, and it may not be our calling. We may also watch a lot of tv growing up and we end up wanting to imitate what we see. We see people making a lot of money, we see people that are popular, with flashy clothes, an expensive car and a big house. We tell ourselves, “I want to be like them,” and we miss out on who we are. Many of us have wasted a lot of energy and time trying to be like someone else. We lose part of our life pursuing someone else’s dream. When we were young, we may have known or had a glimpse of what we truly were meant for. Sometimes we don’t know until much later in life; after we swim through the sea of delusional fantasy or after we’ve conquered many types of vices. Our society teaches us to create a false sense of self that leads to a false sense of happiness; that if we have all the material things we desire, we will be happy, if your body is perfect, you’ll be happy, if you look like so and so you’ll be happy. All of these lies lead to suffering. Many people that have wealth, and what we think is happiness are profoundly unhappy and lonely. Most of what we learn is lie. A nice car, house, boat, all the money in the world will not bring you happiness. External circumstances do not give us happiness. Happiness is born inside, psychologically, when we feel love and are content with ourselves, when we truly know ourselves and no longer try to feed the black hole inside of us with more and more material stuff.
Each of us has a calling in life. Some of us may feel that we’re destined for certain types of things and most of those things may not be our true calling. Most of what we think is our destiny is rooted in egotistical desire and the Buddha taught that “desire is the root of suffering.” That being said, all of us have a reason for why we are here, a destiny, and the best way for us to discover what that may be is to know ourselves better.
The oracle of Delphi stated:
“Man know thyself and you shall know the universe and its Gods.”
This implies that we need Gnosis of ourselves; experiential knowledge of oneself, raising our level of consciousness so that we can know more about the mysteries of life, death, the universe and God. This statement is profound and we should meditate on it to gain deeper insights. Everything that we’ve gone over, all the steps, are about knowing ourselves and becoming conscious of oneself.
Having awareness, paying attention to ourselves helps us comprehend our impulses, emotions and thoughts. Meditation helps us even further. Meditation is a deeper way to get to know ourselves much better and our materialistic society does not teach us to look inwardly. Our society teaches us to ignore the facts about ourselves, “be what you want to be no matter the cost.” We ignore the light that exists within us and thus remain in a dark state of ignorance. If we do not get to know ourselves better, we will remain in psychological darkness, our minds will remain in chaos, and we will continue to follow the blind.
Jesus stated: “Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.” – Matthew 15:14
Everything we should follow exists within us not outside. All the answers we should seek are within us here and now. We will remain in psychological darkness if we continue to be attached to ideas, theories, beliefs, most of what we’ve put into our minds, and this leads us away from discovering our true vocation. Working to know ourselves naturally brings about the motivation for change. We become aware of the behaviors that have got us into trouble. Experiential knowledge of oneself leads to the longing for a better way of life. Gnosis (experiential knowledge) affects us in many ways, we begin to no longer wish to follow our friends, the media, or anyone who does not know themselves, reality and the truth. Some of us believe in a higher self or a higher power, God, Divinity, Allah, Brahma, or whatever you like to call it and some of us don’t and that’s ok, but some of us believe that a power greater than ourselves can help us. If you’ve ever been to an AA or NA meeting, you may have discovered their twelve-step program, and the second step relates to a higher power.
“Came to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
If we don’t feel that there is anything beyond the physical world or that there is no higher power, we should take the time to reflect and mediate on why that is?
A higher power should be something that’s personal and intimate and not something that is forced upon anyone. As we get to know ourselves, following the steps of the eightfold path, being mindful, meditating and purifying our minds daily we begin to sense and one day discover that there is something beyond us. We begin to experience divinity, we begin to intuitively understand that there is something that guides us daily, something that has our best interests at heart and we begin to see the beauty of divinity in other people, in nature, and in ourselves. The experience of divinity also relates to conscience and spirit. If we meditate daily and reach samadhi we may experience exactly that. This type of experiential knowledge moves us beyond beliefs, theories, ideas, doubts and prejudices; the blind leading the blind. Experience of the divine, experiencing higher beings of consciousness will change everything we thought we knew whether we believed in God or not.
Knowing ourselves, and the relationship we build with our own inner divinity will help us discover our purpose; what we are here to do. We are not just here to pay taxes, work long hours, pay bills, and acquire all the material things we can get our hands on. We are not just here to have as many sexual partners as we possibly can, grow old and die. That may be part of your experience but not your true purpose in life. Our calling relates to love not ego. There is much more to us, but obviously we must pay our bills, pay taxes, and be responsible citizens, but there is more. There is more to you than meets the eye.
Kahlil Gibran stated: “Work is love made visible.”
When you find someone who truly loves their vocation and performs the work selflessly you will understand that they have found their purpose in life. This is also how you will know you’ve found it. It could be any type of job that is helpful and useful. Many of us will have to work a job that may not be our calling in life but that doesn’t mean you won’t discover your true vocation. Sometimes it can be a side hobby or something we volunteer for. A profound example of someone who found their true vocation was Gandhi.
Gandhi stated: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
If you have not studied the life of Gandhi, you should. Not all of us are meant for what Gandhi did, but each one of us can discover what we’re here for and what we love to do that benefits others and our planet.
Livelihood relates to everything we do with our lives. If you’re a parent, it’s your duty to become the best parent you can be. If you are married, then you have a duty to be the best spouse you can be. In all the areas of our lives we should be striving to be loving, responsible and dependable. We should strive to be pure and ethical, becoming a good person, and during our journey we will begin to understand what were meant for and what we’re here for. We will not discover our true vocation if we are extremely selfish. Our calling in life is not to be drug dealers, murderers, thieves, liars, but for some of us that is part of the experience. We experience darkness so that one day when we begin to feel a longing to be something more, we will transform our darkness into light. “Without the darkness of Night, how can we fully appreciate the glory of the sunrise?”
“Light is born from darkness, and the cosmos sprouts from the Chaos.” – Samael Aun Weor
In our case, darkness relates to ignorance: ego, hate, anger, greed, lust, envy, unconsciousness, and suffering. When we comprehend the causes and consequences of our suffering we change. This type of change is psychological and what we call transformation. When we comprehend the facts of our vices they begin to transform into virtues, hatred into love and we acquire knowledge, experiential intuitive knowledge. This type of knowledge is helpful for when we feel called to help others.
If you’re a parent, what do you want to teach your children? What will you do when your child is drawn to things that lead to suffering?
Our world is not an easy place and many of our young children are going to face hardships and many difficulties. If you’re a parent, what will you do and how will you help them? What will you teach them? There is a lot of confusion, a lot of negative emotion, a lot of difficulty for the younger generation and it’s very challenging to be a parent today with everything the world is trying to feed them. Think back on how difficult it was for you and multiply it. It is difficult to teach our kids ethics and for them to live ethically. Almost everything taught today in school, on tv or on the internet will challenge the ethics you teach them. Society today does not teach us how to think for ourselves it teaches us what to think. When we watch tv, in most instances, we become hypnotized, and this is because we are not paying attention to ourselves, we are not mindful of what’s happening to us, we are not aware of what we’re consuming and to all the impressions that are infecting our psyche. Pay attention to when your children watch something, do they try to imitate what they see or when they see something they want, do they throw a fit to get it? Pay attention, learn to observe yourself and others. Pay attention to your impulses, pay attention to your emotions, and pay attention to your thoughts.
Right vocation/livelihood relate to how we live from moment to moment. All the steps thus far lead us to this one. They help show the way to living upright and one day when we know ourselves much better, we will discover our purpose, meaning, calling, our destiny. Whether we believe in karma or not it exists. The law of cause and effect has a strong influence on our daily lives. Everything we do has an outcome, a consequence. If we do not live ethically internally and externally, we will reap the fruits of our unethical actions. If we are causing harm to ourselves and others, we are not living this step or any of the others and we definitely will not discover our calling. We discover our upright vocation by changing our behaviors, purifying our minds and hearts. Purification connects us with divinity, our higher power. The closer we are to our higher power the better we are consciously and intuitively guided. This is very difficult for many of us to understand because our minds are consumed with doubt, theories, ideas, beliefs, and prejudices. Our minds have become dark, heavy, and it’s very difficult for us to see or understand something that is beyond us. This is not a put down, this is not meant to make you feel bad, this statement is meant for all of us. Depending on the mind, the intellect, and other people for our guidance will only get us so far. We cannot come to know nor understand that which we do not see and that which we ignore. It’s imperative that we see our own psychological darkness.
Can you think of anything that you ignore about yourself? Can you think of anything that you don’t want to face?
To find our true vocation requires that we abandon unethical ways of being. It requires that we comprehend the how’s and why’s of our unethical behaviors and adopt ethical ones. This requires all the steps we’ve discussed thus far. Our true vocation relates to something we feel called to do, but to get there requires that we change our behaviors, work on our addictions, eliminate our attachments, our egotistical ways of thinking, feeling and acting. There is so much more to us, and there is so much more to life. All of us have a purpose, no one is better than anyone and we all have the ability to change and live upright lives.
We need to work on ourselves and build a solid foundation; a foundation built on ethics. In many other lectures we have discussed the ethical discipline that we need to adopt and live from moment to moment. If we use intoxicants, we need to stay clean and sober long enough to get our minds back to a place where we can think and see things clearly. The longer we are sober the more mindful we will become. If we are wasting our sexual energy, then we need to study, comprehend and renounce those harmful behaviors. We need to work with the three factors of the revolution of the consciousness. Which we will discuss in a bit.
We are all addicted to different things and not all of them relate to drugs, alcohol, and masturbation. By paying attention to ourselves we will discover what they are and hopefully choose to work on them. Utilizing the steps of the eightfold path leads one to self-discovery which will help you find your purpose in life. Our purpose doesn’t relate to remaining a slave to any type of addiction or programming. Programming is a mechanical process that involves something or someone telling you what to think, and what to do without you having a choice, or any free will. You have a choice, “to be or not to be.” No one is forcing you to utilize these steps or to live these teachings. It is up to you!
If we want to change our lives our mission becomes, right now, to get through this day without relapsing or giving into an addictive desire. We can conquer a portion of our addictive behaviors today, and we do this by being mindful of ourselves, paying attention to our thoughts, emotions, and to the causes and consequences of our actions. Meditation and mindfulness will help us comprehend our addictive behaviors. At the end of each day retrospect meditate on your entire day. Meditation will help us discover even deeper causes to our addictions. All of us are warriors, and all of us can win the battle. All of us can discover our purpose in life, but we’ve got to conquer our inner darkness. Meditating everyday will help you discover the obstacles that are in the way of your psychological healing and finding your calling.
There is no quick solution, we will face many battles, battles that relate to defeating unhealthy habits or slipping back into old ones. This journey may take most of our lives, and it requires that we put the steps that we’ve been learning to use in each moment. We also need to understand that no one can tell you what your role in life is. You must discover it for yourself. Know that someone who has found their purpose in life does not seek money or fame or to be in the spotlight. Those who discover their vocation, their true purpose are selfless beings and perform their calling with love. Those who find their true vocation perform it simply for the love of the work. When we find it, when we know our purpose, we know it in our heart. There is no confusion, no reasoning, “is it, or isn’t it?” Without any doubt or reasoning you know. We all have to start somewhere, and if we dedicate ourselves to a higher purpose, we will change our lives and one day discover our true vocation. We should earn our living legally, peacefully and in ways that encourage compassion, understanding and awareness.
“When one is performing one’s vocation, slander becomes leaves in the wind, treachery and betrayal become games with no meaning. The love of the work is so great that there is no obstacle that one cannot overcome. In synthesis, our vocation is not accomplished by desire for power, but by a love for humanity. Your divine vocation will be found in the course of your life, not outside of you, or in a book, or a college. Look at the circumstances of today. Where is there need? Where is there injustice? Where is there suffering? How can you help? What can you offer? By asking those questions you can find your vocation. Those questions are not based on money or fame or recognition, but from a place of love. It does not mean you have to take dramatic action – it means you do what you are naturally called to do, in your heart, because it is what you must do. To find your true work, you must abandon dishonest livelihood.” – Glorian.org
“Man is never truly wise until he has fathomed the riddle of his own existence.”
- Manly P Hall
“Those who know others are intelligent; those who know themselves are truly wise.” – Lao Tzu
“Having abandoned a wrong mode of livelihood, one learns to earn their living by a right livelihood.” – Buddha Shakyamuni
Right Effort
Right Effort is the sixth step of the eightfold path that the Buddha Shakyamuni gave to humanity. With this step we are seeking to put forth the diligent effort to live each step in our moment to moment lives (Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood). If we investigate our lives, we find that there are many types of activities that we put effort into and most of them consist of fulfilling multiple egotistical desires. Occasionally, we do something that is beneficial for others and our own psychological wellbeing.
Did you perform an action today that was beneficial for your psychological wellbeing? Such as, meditation, self-observation, self-remembering, helping someone, gratitude, etc...
Can you recall anything?
If we helped someone, did we help them for the right reasons?
Take a moment to reflect!
If we are helping others to look good or to feel special or to be admired, are we making right efforts? For instance: If someone asks us for help and we put forth the effort to help them, but while we’re helping them, we’re secretly hoping that they give us money or some type of special recognition, what is that? Are those efforts and actions pure and upright? Sometimes when we help others we look around to see if others are watching. Is that performing the steps of the eightfold path in a pure and upright manner? What happens when we help someone and they don’t thank us or give us recognition for our efforts and actions? Do we get frustrated? Do we suffer? It’s helpful to pay attention to the psychological motivating factors of why we are doing something for someone. We may find, most of the time we expect something back. If this is true for us, then it behooves us to be aware of the causes and not identify or act on them but instead transform them. We should seek to help others selflessly, from love and not ego.
We can divide effort into two halves, one being mechanical efforts and the other being cognizant efforts. For example, when we watch tv, we are very diligent with watching our favorite movie or tv show but the effort we put forth is mostly mechanical, and why is it mechanical? When we sit down and watch tv we go through the motions completely unaware of our inner motivations, ‘why do I want to watch this?’ and we take in the impressions without transforming them, without any awareness or cognizance of what is happening to our hearts and minds. The motivation to watch tv is usually coming from some type of desire. For one reason or another we are unaware of why we are motivated to watch something violent, lustful, etc., and this hidden subconscious motivation causes us to put forth effort mechanically; specifically, we are describing types of efforts that seek to feed desires and addictions. For example: we may have seen someone attractive and now our lust has been activated and now we want to watch something with nudity. The effort put forth to achieve what our ego of lust wants is mechanical, there is no cognizance; we are not aware of what is happening to us, and this is one reason we need to learn to be mindful from moment to moment “like a watchman at a time of war.” Before you watch tv, have you ever asked yourself why you want to watch what your about to watch? Most of the time we are motivated and stimulated by a memory, boredom, a sensation that we received from our physical senses and any of these can trigger aversions, cravings and addictions. Mechanical effort is when we simply do something without self-awareness. We do it so much that it becomes part of our regular routine and the things we do on a regular basis usually become mechanical overtime. In the military we call this muscle memory; something we do so many times that it becomes mechanical. There are many examples where our efforts become mechanical in our own lives. Some of us put forth a lot of diligent effort to build muscle, we go to the gym and workout, and don’t get me wrong there are many health benefits with exercise but are we aware, do we comprehend why we are exercising? Are we conscious of why we put forth the effort? Do we see the hidden psychological motivating factors behind our efforts?
Are you aware of what you’re doing and why we’re doing it?
For example, our ego of envy see’s someone in better shape and we suffer, we feel jealousy. In those moments, ask yourself, do I want to look like someone else? If so, is that why you go to the gym, to look like someone else? Take some time and reflect on why you like to go to the gym? There could be many reasons, what are they? What are the causes and what are the effects?
Envy is very mechanical, study your envy, become aware of it. How many times per day do you feel envy and jealousy? Pay attention and study the mechanical nature of your envy, in most instances we simply see something that someone has and we envy them, the envy we feel arises without any effort, all it took was for us to receive an impression of someone else and our envy was triggered, and we mechanically act on it; we have negative thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others, completely unaware of what they’re doing to us. When we envy someone, a psychological button is being pushed, and that mechanical button leads to suffering. What we need in the moment of feeling envy and jealousy is self-awareness, to be aware of what’s happening and question it; is this how I should feel, how I should think, shouldn’t I be happy for others? In this way we transform our envy into happiness for others and the diligent effort we put forth to be aware of these energetic psychological disturbances is right effort.
Cognizant effort which is Right Effort is also known as Right Diligence and is something that has conscious purpose, it is having the knowledge of what we’re doing or what we want to do. Cognizant effort relates to where we should direct our energy. There are many healthy ways we can utilize our energy, that benefit our consciousness, and we will go over a few of them.
The example of transforming our envy into happiness for others relates to what is called the transformation of impressions. Transforming impressions is a great way to utilize our energy and is an upright diligent effort. So, how do we transform our jealousy into happiness for others? First, we need to learn to be self-aware, and this is called self-observation. To observe our thoughts, feelings and impulses from moment to moment and this takes a lot of energy. To have awareness of ourselves, paying attention to the impressions we take in through our senses while observing how we are triggered to react to them takes energy, and diligent effort.
So, the question was, how do we transform our envy into happiness for others?
First, what are the causes of our envy, what triggered it, ‘why do I feel envy?’ Secondly, does your envy cause suffering for you? If it does, how? In what way? How does it affect you? We need to understand the causes and effects to transform impressions correctly.
We also need to be aware of how it affects us when we do transform impressions.
What happens when I view things through my envy? How do I behave in my mind? What does my actions of envy cause? Suffering or happiness? How does it feel when I transform the way I view things through my envy compared to when I do not? When I do transform my envy into happiness for others, what happens? Do I feel better or worse? But how can I be happy for someone when I feel envious?
For example: Let’s say we have a sibling or a friend who is good at something and they receive a lot of attention. We become envious of what their good at and the attention they get. By not transforming the impressions, we create a lot of envy and jealousy, but once we become aware of how we feel about this person we can investigate our feelings and thoughts as they unfold. Then, we can question each thought and feeling. Are they pure or impure? Then, we can ask ourselves, ‘shouldn’t I be happy for them?’ ‘Do I need to be good at the same thing?’ ‘Shouldn’t I be happy that people enjoy what they’re good at?’ ‘Why don’t I feel happy for them?’ Investigate!
We all are good at something and there is no need for us to envy anyone. We need to study ourselves and investigate each thought and emotion. After we comprehend what our envy is doing to us, we can then see more clearly. When the light of conscious comprehension shines through the fog of our envy we then have an opportunity to further our investigation, to continue deep reflection and gain further insights.
In order for us to be aware of our thoughts and emotions we need upright diligence.
Diligence is careful, persistent work or effort. Now you might say, “I can be diligent when I see someone attractive or when I’m playing a video game, or when I’m trying to get high,” but is that right effort? Do those efforts lead to less suffering? Are we fully aware of ourselves when we see someone that we’re attracted to or when we’re playing a video game or when we’re triggered to use intoxicants? Are we aware of ourselves right now? How about at work, are we aware of ourselves, are we aware of our efforts and actions? Many people injure themselves at work and most of the time injuries occur because we are not paying attention to what we’re doing. Our minds are back at home or at the beach, the lake, or somewhere else or consumed by worry and fear. Most of the time we’re on autopilot and to be on autopilot is mechanical.
For instance, most people, while driving their vehicles are on autopilot and this is one reason why so many accidents happen every day. While driving our vehicles our minds are somewhere else and that is dangerous. We’re on autopilot most of the day, think about it, when someone is talking to you, are you present, are you focused and listening or is your mind somewhere else? You may look like you’re listening but are you really? When your spouse, friend or family member is talking to you about something, are you listening, fully conscious of what they’re saying or are you trying to look like your listening but your mind is really somewhere else, thinking about a football game you just watched, or what you’re going to do when they’re done talking or what you’d like to say? Do we truly diligently listen to them? Do we make an effort to be present with them?
Let’s ask ourselves, ‘when we put forth effort to do something, are we doing it consciously? Are my efforts just, are they motivated by the will to do something beneficial for myself and others or are they motivated by ego?’
Really, we direct our energy into many different efforts, but if we long for psychological freedom then we need to be diligent with studying and paying attention to ourselves. When we make conscious efforts to pay attention to what we’re doing, we become aware of what changes we need to make so that we can become an upright ethical person and by working with the three factors of the revolution of the consciousness this truly becomes possible. Many of us may have not heard of the three factors until now.
The three factors of the revolution of the consciousness are death, birth and sacrifice. The revolution of the consciousness is fundamental if we wish to liberate ourselves from suffering. It’s imperative that we direct our energy to diligently make great efforts to work daily on these factors. Working diligently with the three factors develops and liberates our consciousness little by little from its conditioning. Our conditioned consciousness suffers from dualism, the battle of the opposites and is trapped in ego. If we have ego, we will continue to suffer.
So, let’s briefly go over all three factors. Truly we could give a full presentation on each factor and that is something we may do. But for now, we will briefly discuss the importance of each factor.
The first factor we’ll discuss is Death:
We have an ego and our ego is a multiplicity. We’ve discussed many examples of the multiplicity that conditions our consciousness. When we are angry, all we understand is our anger. Our anger conditions our consciousness, that is, our ability to be cognizant, and thus limits our ability to perceive, to understand, to think, to feel, and to comprehend. Anger is something we need to study and comprehend so that it can die. When our aggregates of anger, hate and frustration die, the consciousness that is trapped in them is liberated. What replaces these psychological aggregates are virtues. Our egos of anger are disintegrated and compassion, empathy and love a born in us.
Samael Aun Weor stated:
“We need a power that is superior to the mind, a power to disintegrate our psychological defects to liberate our consciousness, to awaken it. Devi Kundalini-shakti, the igneous serpent of our magical powers. She is a variant of our own Being; she, and only she, can help us… When one has thoroughly comprehended it, when one has discovered a defect and analyzed it, then one is ready for its disintegration. Concentrate on the Divine Mother and beg her to reduce that defect to dust. The result will not be delayed, and it will become cosmic dust, releasing the percentage of consciousness that is bottled up there.” – Profound Meditation
The factor of death relates to the dissolution of our ego. Our ego needs to die. We suffer because we have ego. We cannot disintegrate our ego on our own. We need our Divine Mother Kundalini. Our individual beloved Divine Mother is the one who annihilates our ego to cosmic dust, but only after we’ve comprehended it. If this is the first time you heard about the Divine Mother, there will be a link for you to learn more at the end of the presentation.
Let’s take a moment and break down our ego into seven parts.
Most of us have heard of the seven deadly vices or sins. The seven are, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Anger, Envy, Gluttony. Each one of these egos has a legion of psychological aggregates.
Our Anger for instance has a legion of angry, hateful, and frustrated psychological components that form thousands of aggregates. Each one exists within us and pulls our strings when given the opportunity. The egoic aggregates condition our minds, our hearts, our instincts and impulses. From moment to moment, a different part of our legion is pulling our psychological strings, motivating us to be selfish, prideful, etc. Our ego, when given the opportunity, is conditioning our perception, the way we see, understand, and feel. The factor of death is to reduce to ash the psychological components that have us in a profound state of suffering. Little by little, through super efforts we destroy our ego, we free our consciousness that is trapped in bondage, and we put together, in an upright manner, our souls, and this leads us to the next factor. See Luke 21:19
Birth:
The factor of birth is about developing our soul. Most of us think we already have a soul, but what we have is an embryo of a soul, a consciousness that is not fully developed. Our consciousness is trapped in multiple vices and errors. So, what we need is a very powerful energy to dissolve our ego and free all the parts of our consciousness. We need the help of our Divine Mother, and we need the power of our sexual energy. We’ve been giving the power of our sexual energy away through the orgasm and we’ve been directing our energy to enslave our consciousness in attachments, addictions, and profound selfishness. Our sexual energy is the most powerful force that we have, and it can be utilized to reduce our legions to dust. In the east this is called sexual magic or white tantra. Sexual magic is the sexual act between man and woman without orgasm, and this is where it gets tricky for most of us. Most people want freedom, happiness, joy, health, and love. But when they hear about working with their sexual energy without orgasm they turn away. This is because we are attached to the physical sensation of the sexual spasm. The orgasm short circuits our nervous system and expels the power we need to heal ourselves and free ourselves from psychological bondage. It’s important for us to understand that all the suffering we see around the world is because we have ego and if we wish to become something more than a slave to sensations we must work with a power that is very sacred and very precious. Our sexual energy can enslave or liberate us.
Take a moment and close your eyes. Imagine what it would be like to be free of anger, to be free of greed, to be free of lust, to be free of pride, to be free of envy, imagine what that would be like for you, imagine what it would be like to see clearly, without egoic filters, imagine a world without war, imagine a world without greed and hate, imagine a world of charity and selfless love, imagine a world of virtue, imagine a world where people sacrificed their own egotistical will in order to become upright and loving human beings that transformed their vices into virtues. Imagine what it would be like to not be consumed with the desire for selfish gain but instead where helpful and useful to humanity. Imagine not wanting to be anything more than who you truly are. Imagine!!!
The third factor is Sacrifice:
All the factors are important but if we do not eliminate our ego, sacrifice will be difficult for us. Not everyone aspires to eliminate their beloved ego and work with their sexual energy so that they can awaken their consciousness and sacrifice themselves for humanity. But some of us do, and if we do aspire to awaken, and know ourselves better, and help humanity, let us continue.
Samael Aun Weor stated,
“What is the use of continuing a mechanical life, full of wrong habits? It is better that once and for all we dedicate ourselves to the knowledge of ourselves. It is necessary to know ourselves so that our consciousness awakens. An awakened consciousness, an awakened bodhichitta, is of inestimable value.”
Living the factor of sacrifice means that we are developing our bodhichitta, awakening our consciousness, transforming vices into virtues so that we can become selfless human beings who help humanity. There are two Sanskrit words in bodhichitta. Chitta means “mind.” Bodhi means “wisdom.” Bodhichitta means “enlightenment, wisdom,” and in synthesis, means the psyche of wisdom. The psyche is the soul, our consciousness, and if we have an awakened bodhichitta, we comprehend the truth, reality, emptiness, etc.
However, we cannot develop bodhicitta if we do not live all three factors, birth, death and sacrifice. When we transmute our sexual energy, and eliminate our egos, altruism and other virtues are born within us. Each psychological aggregate that is reduced to ash is replaced by a virtue of altruism, diligence, chastity, humility, empathy, happiness for others, temperance, and in this way bodhichitta is developed and awakens little by little. When we begin to psychologically wake up, sacrifice becomes something natural and spontaneous.
If we are not altruistic, generous and charitable, we need to discover the causes and effects. What’s holding us back? What keeps us from wanting others to be happy? What keeps us from sacrifice? What keeps us from performing selfless actions that benefit others? What keeps us from being unselfish? Our ego, right? Our ego of greed and selfishness keeps us from the virtue of altruism. Pay attention to the resistance you feel when faced with an opportunity to help someone. Be mindful of what it is, is it fear, is it selfishness, what ego is it? Work with the factors of birth and death, transmute your sexual energy and comprehend your egos so that you can reduce the resistance to the third factor, sacrifice, to dust.
It’s important that we make diligent super efforts, from moment to moment to live the eightfold path and these three factors. Bodhichitta is developed by working with the three factors. Awakening our consciousness and liberating ourselves from suffering is something that is real and not fantasy. It takes super efforts and profound diligence. From this moment forward, by your own freewill, work to live your lives in an upright manner, live the teachings, don’t just study them, live them, investigate yourself, know yourself, and work with the three factors of the revolution of the consciousness.
We will end this lecture with the wise words of Samael Aun Weor,
“Thus, my dear friends, along this path, annihilating the psychic aggregates that together constitute the ego, the “I”, the myself, the self-willed, we will achieve the awakening of the consciousness. It is very sad to live asleep. Sacrifice for humanity is to bring this doctrine to all the peoples of the Earth, without differences of race, creed, caste or color. The third factor is reached by loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us and persecute us. We need to be capable of kissing the whip of the executioner. I truly say that those who are not capable of sacrificing themselves for humanity will never become bodhisattvas. The one who has awakened the consciousness, the one who has awakened the bodhichitta, obviously could never be stopped on the way to the great reality. Behold, then, the advantage of working with the third factor of the revolution of the consciousness, that is, sacrifice for our fellows, the love for all beings, that populate the face of the earth. My dear friends, understand, that love is the foundation of everything that is, has been and will be. Only by loving our worst enemies, returning good for evil, could we, my friends, truly reach the bodhisattva state. It is urgent to understand that the bodhichitta-that is, the awakened consciousness-is a precious gift, and our consciousness is asleep. We are hypnotized, living like machines in a terribly painful world.” - Profound Meditation
Super efforts are needed to “explore ourselves deeply to discover our psychological defects: anger, greed, lust, envy, pride, laziness, gluttony, etc. They are the multiple defects that we carry within, and each of these is the head of a legion. Right effort is the fundamental objective of the Being.” – Samael Aun Weor
Inverential Peace!
You may have many questions after listening to this presentation and I invite you to email me at oregongnosis@gmail.com and please continue to further your studies:
