The Furnace of Manifestation

It is taught that Sacrifice is one of the Three Factors of the Awakening of the Consciousness—Birth, Death & Sacrifice. But what does this mean? 

Sacrifice is a word that can trigger fear when not properly understood. Some would like to temper this meaning with a softer word, like service. Yet, service and sacrifice are not the same thing either. 

Service is given for the benefit of others, but without pain. One has plenty of resource from which to give and the amount spared is negligible, unnoticed, whether we have given our time, our attention, our energy in some form. 

The famous Biblical story recounts how a widow of extreme poverty gave to the temple her very last farthing, consisting of two copper coins.  

Regarding this act, the Christic Master Aberamentho commented, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mark 12:42-44 NKJV) 

From this we learn that there is a kind of secret power hidden in our last ounce of strength, our extra push when we feel the weakest, our efforts made when we feel all is against us. This applies both in giving to others and ourselves. It is the principle of Sacrifice which has become called the currency of this Universe, the idea that everything which is worth something has to cost something. The more it costs, the more it is worth. 

A CEO, a published author, an entrepreneur, a content creator, a painter, a singer, housewife, a mother, a best friend, a spiritual teacher, a master, a builder, a teacher, a dancer...All these give in certain ways. They give in order to receive. They give up a certain amount of energy and they receive a certain type of cosmic response in relation to what has been given. Most people know and understand this. 

However, there is a certain kind of HIGH or EXTRA giving which has been called Sacrifice. If we do not resonate with or connect to this term, we could use a word like surrender, consecration, dedication, offering, if that helps us. The point is to understand that there is indeed a Cosmic Law which many teachers have endeavored to explain to students, that for increasing gains, manifestations, Divine Expressions of greater and greater magnitudes, the COST is greater, but so is the reward. 

To bake bread, the yeast must die.  

To grow a tree, a seed must die.  

For those who consume vegetables, to make a salad the lettuce, the tomatoes & the cucumber must die. 

For those who consume meat, to make a roast chicken, the chicken must die. 

To build and create a school or community hall, a large amount of energy is seen given up in the funds, planning & construction. These input energies are sacrificed from other sources in order to create something new.  

The funds come from invested energies that represent a portion of vitality that was given. When someone works a job, they are trading their life in small parts—their own vitality—for currency (a physical representation of energy in motion). 

The planners such as the architects, designers, quantity surveyors; and the managers such as the project managers, the project coordinators, the procurment coordinators, etc.; and the laborers such as the building tradesmen of all kinds—the foremen, the general builders, the electricians, the plumbers, the painters, the laborers and so on. All these countless beings (awareness points) come together to participate in a kind of economy whereby their attention and energy is given to the creation of something. There is giving to receive. The giving from all these beings results in the building and even more energy goes into the management that will bring the school or community center to life. All of the beings involved in this project trade-in some of their vitality (they die a little), in order to give life to the new creation. 

To give birth to a new life—a baby, the mother and child must undergo immense pain that feels like DEATH to both. From this process, a new life is formed. 

There are many teachers who echo that birth & death are the same door through which the continual stream of life flows and flows and flows. We know this. Many know this, with their intellect. How many comprehend it in their heart?--That birth & death are building blocks in this reality.  

If we understood this better, we could easily give up our laziness regarding many things. The withholding of our energy is to stop the flow of life. Matter & energy cannot be created nor destroyed, simply transformed. 

Where did the yeast go? Where did the seed go?--And the vegetables, the live chicken, the clay & the bricks, the trees which became ply, which became walls?--Where are the sperm & the egg? 

You were once a baby. Now if you are reading this article, where is the baby? Can you feel the continual flow of life, the never-ending stream in the ETERNAL NOW? If you could feel it, and feel it more, then you would not be afraid of this process where one thing is given up to become another thing, perhaps, a higher thing. 

To create a solarman, the ego must die. 

However, this is a process that is not guaranteed. Just like bread, trees, salads, schools, community halls & babies are not guaranteed. With sufficient effort in an effective manner, there is the possibility for a new creation of a certain kind. However, for this, we must understand the Law of Octaves. All of nature works in Octaves.  

According to Gurdjieff, there is the teaching regarding the Semitone. All of nature is organized by the Law of Seven, seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes of the octave, Seven Logos of Creation & so on. This also has to do with the Divine musical sounds that vibrate within all of creation. Because sound is an aspect of the manifestation itself, therefore all creation must conform to the laws of music. 

The semitones of the musical octave dictate that the hardest resistance of a new creation occurs at the tones between FA - SO from the third to fourth note, & TI - DO when the jump is made to the next octave. This means that for the spiritual aspirant, for the new endeavor, for ANY substantial change on the fundamental level, there will be a cost, a resistance to overcome at roughly 50% of the way through towards the next breakthrough and RIGHT AT THE END. If we do not push through this, we fall back to the beginning. 

This is true if we begin to set a daily meditation and pranayama routine, if we begin to study spiritual practices, if we begin to attend spiritual studies, or if we are brought into deeper levels of mystery teachings. The Universe will “check to see” how much we are sure that we intend to advance, “How badly do you yearn for this change or creation? Are you willing to sacrifice?”  

Of course, this is an anthropomorphizing of the issue. What is really happening is that the creative process is drawing upon the forces of creation. The plus, minus and neutral forces which give birth to something new are being drawn into a new binding. The cost required for the creation will depend on the size of the project. The bigger the creation, the bigger the cost or the sacrifice. 

So the answer that we give to the Universe when it asks, “How badly do you yearn for this change or creation? Are you willing to sacrifice?” will be the decisive moment of our destiny. How we respond to the challenge will dictate whether an octave is raised, maintained or sunk. 

For those on the path of least resistance, following inertia, they will continue to take descending octaves right to the lowest end of the piano. However, for those prepared to take a revolutionary action, they must build the fortitude to apply what has been called the SHOCK. Think of a cold shower. There are monks of some disciplines who take cold showers as part of their practice. Whilst we cannot say that cold showers awaken the consciousness, this does sound like an externalization of what needs to happen internally in the process to raise our level of Being. Without effort and sacrifice, we will remain as we are. 

So, if we are ready and we want to pay this cost in order to create something new and of a higher order, what is it that we Sacrifice? The sacrifice is something that our Higher Self asks of us, in order to come into truer alignment. It feels like a kind of death to the false sense of self, but once given up, we find that it was never something we truly wanted in the first place. 

These costs may start out as we need to overcome the inertia we feel when it comes to meditation, spiritual studies, classes, or maybe we find that other activities begin to compete with our focus.  

At first it was easy, but at some point, we will come to FA and then again to TI. At these points we will face a MUCH HARDER CHALLENGE, more inertia or a greater feeling of being torn between the work and other activities of different values. This is the Universe asking us to define which path we will walk upon. If we choose a direction away from our initial efforts, we drop back to the beginning of the octave. This is not a terrible thing; it just means we didn’t go anywhere. We have the chance to start again. 

This process also happens with work to dissolve the ego. Let us make an example regarding an ego of general insecurity. The aspirant is working with self-observation and self-remembering. They notice where they are not confident and begin to meditate to understand this. At first, they notice that they are afraid to be honest with people. They avoid the negative emotions of others because they are uncomfortable when people become imbalanced, so they bear all of the imbalance in this equation within themselves. They sense a need to let go, but they are so afraid of others and their reactions. The student is now at the note FA. 

With daily meditation, the aspirant begins to understand the smaller revelations that there is more pain in hiding, in resentment and so they begin to be honest more with people. They decline an initiation they didn’t feel aligned to attend and rather than making up a story, they simply say, “I don’t want to go to that.” The freedom feels liberating. They are making their way through the octave. 

But as they meditate deeper, they find that the insecurity is not this simple. It relates to a massive inner sense of self that is centered around hatred, judgement, comparing, accusing, expecting, demanding and terribly one-sided incessant scorekeeping. Can they face this massive inner wound. At this point they are “attacked” internally with everything. Give up. Watch TV. Numb out. Scroll social media. Whatever the ego can think of.  

But they are at a critical point, because they are coming close to comprehending and dissolving the aggregate. They are about to discover experientially within their own energetic field that, this insecurity is the opposite of the Universal Love and Freedom for which their soul yearns. Part of the pain from this aggregate—as with all aggregates, comes from the inner knowledge that this is not our true nature. It feels painful because it is a mathematical inverse equation that is the antithesis of our wholeness. This is why in a tradition like Dzogchen it is said that our Buddha-Nature has never left. We simply have lost realization of it. They are now at the note TI. 

So what must this spiritual student move through in order to complete this octave? They must sacrifice the ego. Looking from the outside in, it seems odd for someone to cling to their pain, their source of weakness and diminishment. However, we all do this in many different ways. Our patterns look different but the problem is the same. The very innermost darkness we hold to causes us to suffer the most. It is entirely built upon illusion. And if we run away from facing this, by jumping from surface-level tactic to surface-level tactic, by using exterior regulation methods as an ongoing solution rather than a temporary one, because we’re too afraid, it hurts too much, and so on, we miss the note TI and drop back to the beginning of the octave. We think we are making progress, but we are getting distracted so as not to notice where we have come to and what is happening now. 

As soon as we can recognize this octave & its semitones IS THE PATTERN we are caught in, we can look out for these choices in the Construct regarding our spiritual path. We can expect them and prepare to meet them with force and effort. The good news is that the challenge we conquer will then become easy-peasy, once we pass those semi-tones. It is just the point of the semi-tones where we find the greatest difficulty. 

There is a difference between a surgeon and a pharmacist, an artist and a hobbyist, a published author and a blogger. There is nothing better or worse about any of these. They are each needed in their place. However, there is a correlation between the result and the input, the sacrifice and the outcome. 

We cannot say that any outcome is good or bad. They are all different and each has its place in the greater Divine tapestry. It is interesting to note that the esoteric description of the function of mankind is far less significant and glamourous than is described in many exoteric religions. Many exoteric religions have implied that man is God’s crowned jewel of a lofty position in the Universe. However, the master Samael Aun Weor said in the Fifth Gospel,  

...each plan, each insect, each creature, even...man, absorbs, assimilates certain cosmic forces and later, he unconsciously transforms and retransmits them to the inner layers of the planetary organism. 

These transformed forces are intimately related to the entire economy of this planetary organism on which we live. Undoubtedly, each creature, according to its species, transforms certain forces that it later retransmits to the interior of the Earth for the economy of the world. 

We see that in order for us to access this Creative Furnace, this crucible which gives rise to something on another level, we need to start to BECOME next-level ourselves. 

In a way, it is admirable, the sheer will that we see in those gym junkies, 5am clubs and creatives cohorts. However, what they are lacking is a full picture of the Universe Game. They have come to hack a certain creative capacity that allows them to be a kind of leader in their area. However, for many (not all) of these powerhouses, they have made an empty religion from fitness, finance and egoic content creation, lacking the higher beauty of expression in purity without the seeking for gain, the manifestation of ineffable qualities and virtues of the soul and the borderless spaciousness that comes from embodying the Unity aspect of creation which is sans-ego. How few will comprehend this? Yes, in order to truly rebel against nature, against being a simple fuel for the planet and a product of Earth’s epidermis, those few, self-selected elites will make the attempt at becoming something greater, what Gnosis refers to as building the soul. 

We are reminded that Jesus said, “In patience, you will possess your souls.”  

This is because the Essence or Divine Spark within each of us in an embryo of a soul, a potential soul that can come to be through our intense efforts. There is much more to reflect upon regarding the nature of sacrifice and its relation to this rebellion, this process to strive against nature, not with suppression and anger, but with wisdom, intelligence and powerful tools in order to gradually transcend this garden box playground call Earth and move into another layer of reality where the masters Jesus, Buddha & Krishna have gone before us, demonstrating that this Path is possible. Possible, yes. But what are we willing to sacrifice? 

So, how can we practically begin to apply this to our own patterns, loops and blind spots? We can start by reflecting on the below.

What do I spend most of my day ruminating on? Where are my thoughts, feelings & emotions becoming preoccupied?

What is causing me to feel drained? What beliefs and thinking is contributing to this?

Have I recently begun to regress in some way? What excuses am I telling myself in order to do this? For example, maybe I am harboring anger or hatred and allowing this to be my normal state. Maybe I am justifying my position. Or maybe I have stopped meditating and I am saying that I don’t need to work on my ego for now because life is too busy, etc.

Have I recently had to face a decision between putting energy towards spiritual growth or something easy and related to earthly pastimes? Did I choose what was easy because I said to myself, “Oh, I just need to relax…”

Did I choose to hide the truth when I knew I was responsible for something? “Oh, I can’t tell my friend I hit their car. They think it’s a stranger and they’ll be too mad at me if they find out it was me. It’s better for them not to know.”

Whatever the test is and looks like, only we will know what it is. Only we will know if we missed the octave. And if we did, there is always another round that we can be ready for next time.

We close these reflections with this passage from Samael Aun Weor’s Revolutionary Psychology, Chapter Three, Psychological Rebellion, and the strengthening encouragement that this KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. Knowing how the three forces bind to create, knowing the organization of the octaves, knowing that to face oneself and one’s traumas is a process of challenge and difficulty, knowing the commitment to the spiritual work is one of—at times—sacrifice, testing and intensity, what will we do when reaching the furnace in its successions of FA & TI? Will we be willing to sacrifice, to burn away the things that truly, secretly cause us pain? 

It is not irrelevant to remind our readers that a mathematical point exists within us. Unquestionably, that point is not found in the past or in the future. Whosoever wants to discover that mysterious point must look for it here and now within oneself at this exact moment, not a second earlier, not a second later. 

The two horizontal and vertical lines of the Holy Cross intersect at this point. 

Thus, we find ourselves from moment to moment before two paths: the horizontal and the vertical. 

It is apparent that the horizontal path is too base; it is traveled by my buddy and everybody, by those who are juvenile and those who are senile. 

It is evident that the vertical is different; it is the path of intelligent rebels, of revolutionaries. 

When one remembers oneself and works upon oneself, when one does not become identified with all the problems and sorrows of life, it is a fact that one is traveling along the vertical path. 

Certainly, it is never an easy task to eliminate negative emotions, to lose all identification with our trend of life, with all types of problems, with business, debts, loan payments, mortgages, telephone, water and power payments, etc. 

The unemployed ones, those who have lost their position or job for one reason or another, evidently suffer because of lack of money and for them to forget their situation and not worry or identify themselves with their own problem becomes tremendously difficult. 

Those who suffer and those who cry, those who have been victims of some betrayal or injustice, victims of ingratitude, calumny, fraud, really do forget themselves; they forget their Inner Being; they identify themselves totally with their moral tragedy. 

The work on oneself is the fundamental characteristic of the vertical path. 

Nobody treads upon the path of the great rebellion if he never works on himself. 

The work to which we are referring is of a psychological nature. This work deals with a certain transformation of the moment in which we find ourselves. 

We need to learn to live from moment to moment. 

For example, a person who is desperate about some sentimental, economical or political problems has obviously forgotten his inner Self. 

If such a person would stop for a moment, observe the situation, try to remember his inner Self and then try to understand the reason for this attitude... 

If he would reflect a little and think that everything passes away, that life is fleeting, illusory, and that death reduces all the vanities of the world to ashes... 

If he would understand that his problem in reality is nothing more than a worthless flame and soon dies, he would suddenly see with great surprise that everything has changed. 

It is possible to transform mechanical reactions through logical confrontation and the intimate auto-reflection of the Being. 

It is evident that people react mechanically when faced with the diverse circumstances of life. 

Wretched people, they usually become the victims. When flattered, they smile, when humiliated, they suffer. They insult if insulted, they hurt if they are hurt; they are never free; their fellowmen have the power to drive them from happiness to sadness, from hope to despair. 

Each of these persons traveling along the horizontal path is similar to a musical instrument on which each of his fellowmen can play the tune he wishes. 

Whosoever learns how to transform mechanical reactions is in fact entering onto the vertical path. 

This represents a fundamental change in the “Level of Being,” an extraordinary result of the “psychological rebellion.”