Have we mastered our own selves?AGEAC is the transmitter of philosophy perennis et universalis. This philosophy is sworn to the study of human beings,trying to unravel the mysteries of life and death. This was the aim of the distinguished ancient philosopherssuch as Plato, who went on to say thattrue knowledge lies within man himself. That is why the Oracle of the temple of Delphi said:Man, know thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods. . .
Q: Do you agree with the statement that manis the king of nature? The machine man is the mostmiserable beast that exists in this vale of tears, but he has the pretension and even the insolence to call himself the king of nature. Man, thatpoor intellectual animal thatmistakenly calls himself man,has invented thousands of very complicated anddifficult machines,and he knows quite well thatit sometimestakes long years of learning before getting to know and use a machine. But he completely forgets the fact that he is a more complicated machine than all the ones he has invented. There is no man who does not have wrong ideas about himself. The serious problem is thathe does not want to realize that, in fact, he is a machine.
Q: But on what basis can you say something like this, that man is a machine?If you observe any human machine carefully, you will be able to verify this. The human machine has no freedom of movement. It only functions by means ofmultiple and diverseinner influences and outer shocks. The Intellectual Animal is a poor talking puppet with memory and vitality, a living doll who has theabsurd illusion of thinking that he can do, when in reality,he can truly do nothing. Imagine for a moment, dear listener: a doll, a mechanical and automatic dollcontrolled by a complex mechanism. Imagine this puppet: it has life - it falls in love,speaks, walks, wishes, goes to war, etc. Imagine that this puppet can continuously change its owner. You must imagine that each of the owners is a different person, with aparticular set of criteria, a particular way of having fun, feeling, living, etc. , etc. , etc. For e. g. one owner,who wants money, will push certain buttons and then the doll will go into business. Another owner, half an hour later,or several hours later, will have a different idea and will make the doll dance and laugh. A third owner will make it fight; a fourth will cause it to fall in love with a woman;a fifth will make it fall in love with another;a sixth will make it fight its neighbor andcreate a problem with the police;and a seventhwill make the doll move to a new house. The doll in this example hasreally done nothing,but it thinks it has. Without doubt, it has all happened in the same way as when it rains, when it thunders, when the sun shines, but the poor doll thinks that it can do. It has the absurd illusion of having doneeverything when in fact it has done nothing. In reality, its respective owners were the ones who have amused themselves with the poor mechanical doll. This is the poor intellectual animal, dear friends,a mechanical doll like the one inour illustrative example. It is a puppetmade of flesh and blood, controlled by the legion ofsubtle energetic entities that constitute, as a whole, what we call the Ego, the pluralized “I”. The Christian Gospel qualifies all those entities as demons, and their true name is legion. Same in Hinduism where they are called Danavas or Asuras. In Buddhism, these are called Psychic aggregates.
Q: Then what is the way to become free? What is the way to become a true man?Whoever truly wants to stopbeing a mere mechanical doll must eliminate each of those entities which, as a whole,constitute the “I”. Those who truly want to stop being mere mechanical dolls must start by admitting andcomprehending their own mechanicalness. The intellectual animal is a machine, but a very special machine. If this machine begins to understand that it is a machine, if it is well directed, andif circumstances so allow,it may stop being a machine andbecome a Man. The first thing we must urgently comprehend, in depth andat all levels of the mind,is the fact that we do not have a trueindividuality;that we lack a “Permanent Centre of Consciousness”;that at one time we are oneperson and at another we are a different person. It all depends on theentity which controls the situation at any time.
Q: But how is that possible? It is difficult to imagine that we are not a single individual. What creates the illusion of unity and integrity of the intellectual animal is: firstly,the sensation of having a physical body;secondly,his or her name and surnames; and finally,the memory and a certain number of mechanical habits established in him or her through education, or acquired by simple and stupid imitation.
Q: Thank you very much for the explanation. Can you please continue and tell ushow we can stop being a machine and become a free human being?The poor intellectual animal will not be able to stop being a machine,as long as he does not have the courage to eliminate - bymeans of deep comprehension and in successive order - each of those “Metaphysical Entities”that, as a whole,make up what we call the Ego, the “I”, the “Myself”. Each idea, each passion, each vice, each affection, each hatred, each desire, etc. , etc. , etc. has its correspondingentity and the whole of those entitiesdepends completely on circumstances, on the change of impressions, on events, etc. The screen of the mindconstantly changes colors and scenes; it all depends on the entity which controls the mind at any instant. The different “entities” that make up the pluralized “I” associate with each other; they form certain special groups according to their affinities;they fight against each other, they discuss, they are ignorant of each other, etc. , etc. , etc. The entity which today swearseternal love to a womanis later displaced by another entity that has nothing to do with that oath. Then the house of cards falls down and the poor and disappointed woman cries in sorrow.
Q: So it is important to eliminate the egos,the “I”s that we carry inside. then should this not be taughtin schools and colleges to all children?School, college and university teachers muststudy the “Revolutionary Psychology” and, out of humanity,orient their pupils along the marvelous way of the Revolution of the Consciousness. We do not deny that an intellectual education,a profession and a skillto earn money are necessary; but that is not all; that is secondary. The first or fundamental thing is,knowing who we are, what we are, where we have come from, where we are going to, whatis the purpose of our existence. The poor intellectual animal is not a man, but it has inside itself, in a latent state, all the possibilities to become a man. It is not a law that those possibilities must unfold. The natural thing is that they get lost. Only by means of tremendous super-efforts can such human possibilities unfold. There is much we have to eliminate andthere is much we have to acquire. Of course, the pluralized Ego is in excess; it is something useless and harmful. It is logical to say that we have to develop certain powers, certain faculties, andcertain capacities that the machine-manthinks and believes he has, but which, in reality, he has not. When the pluralized “I” is dissolved; only the true Being remains inside us.
Q: But surely, this is something that cannot be done easily, as you just said. What are the obstacles we can expect?When you try to stop being a machine,when you do not want to be a machine any longer, nature is against you. Nature has inside us,inside each of us,elements, powers and forcesthat it activates to fight against us. It is inconvenient for nature thatsomeone stops being a machine. This is an attack against its economy; and it has great powers to bring the rebels who want to fight itunder control. This is the harsh reality of facts!Obviously, you are here to listen to me and I am here to speak to you,but you can see, right here, how nature is working to bring you under control. If you pay due attention, you will notice that some of you have felt bored when listening to this lecture;some of you have yawned;some of you wished that our lecture had finished; etc. All these are nature’s weapons.
Q: If we are all machines, part of nature’s economy,then do we have any say in our life? Any control of our own life?In no way could we deny that the “Law of Recurrence” processes itself at every moment of our lives. Certainly,in each day of our existence there exists a repetition of events, states of consciousness, words, wishes, thoughts,volitions, etc. It is obvious that if you do not observe yourself you cannot realize thisunceasing daily repetition. If you truly want to get to know yourself,you must start by observing your own behaviorwhen faced with the events of daily life. Observe your mechanical reactions when faced with the small events thattake place: in the bedroom, at home, in the dining room, in the street, at work, etc. , etc. , etc. Observe what you say, feel and think. If we believe that we are good people,that we never behave in an unconscious and wrong way,we shall never change. First of all we need to comprehend that we are “mechanical people,” simple marionettescontrolled by secret agents, by hidden “I’s”. A lot of people live inside us; we are never the same person: sometimes it is a mean person thatexpresses itself through us, sometimes an irritable person,at any other instant a generous and benevolent person, later a scandalous or slandering person, then a saint, later still a liar etc. There are all sorts of people, all kinds of “I’s” inside each of us. We need to stop being simple machines even though only for a few minutes each day; this will have a decisive influence on our existence. When we observe ourselves and do not do what an occasional “I” wants, it is obvious that we are then beginning to stop being machines.
Q: You have describeda very profound truth about human nature. How can we Master our own behavior?How can we locate the “I’s” in our structure?How does the Human Machine work?The organism of that“three-brained biped”, mistakenly called man, is a precious “machine” with five marvelous psycho-physiological centers. The order of such centers is as follows: Intellect, Emotion, Movement, Instinct and Sex. Each of the five centers penetrates the whole organism, but they have their basic capital point somewhere in the organic machine. The centre of gravity of the intellect is found in the brain. The centre of gravity of emotions is in the “solar plexus” and in the specific nervous centers of the great sympathetic system. The centre of gravity of movementis placed in the superior part of the spine. The centre of gravity of instinct is to be found in the inferior part of the spine. The centre of gravity of sex clearly has its roots in the sexual organs. INTELLECTUAL CENTRE is responsible for the elaboration of concepts,reasoning, memories, projects, analyses, etc. , etc. The intellectual centre is useful within its sphere; taking it out of its gravitational fieldwould be a serious mistake. The great realities of the spiritcan only be experienced by the Consciousness. EMOTIONAL CENTRE:cheerfulness, sadness, melancholy, euphoria, love or hatred are just some of the sensations produced by this centre. Human beings clumsily waste their energies through the abuse of violent emotions produced by movies, television, football matches, etc. MOTOR CENTRE: we need to discover ourselvesand fully comprehend all our habits. We must not allow our life to continue in a mechanical way. We need to study our habits; we need to comprehend them. They belong to the activities of the centre of movement. It is necessary to self-observe our way of living, acting, dressing, walking, etc. INSTINCTIVE CENTRE: there are several instincts - the instinct of conservation, the sexual instinct, etc. There are also many perversions of instinct. Deep inside each human being there exist subhuman, instinctive and brutal forces likecriminal instincts, lust, cowardice, fear, sexual sadism, etc. which paralyze the true spirit of love and charity. SEXUAL CENTRE:this centre is in charge of originating the so called “sexual energy”. This “energy”, contrary to what many authors suppose, is not only in charge of the reproduction of the race. It is also responsible for the health of the physical body, the psychological balance and the conquest of what is called the Being.
Q: And how does this relate to the Ego’s?Where are the I’s present in the centers?The “I” exerts control over the five inferior centers of the human machine:Intellectual, Emotional, Motor, Instinctive and Sexual Centers. That is how the human being’s lifeis reduced to psychological slavery, in which “free will” has almost disappeared. In the intellectual centre, the “I’s” of preoccupations “make hay while the sun shines. ”Covetousness projects ideas and plans for the future upon the poor mind. The emotional centre also suffers the consequences of the abuse of the “I”. Self-love is seriously wounded when we are notpaid as we think we deserve. Then comes hatred, resentment, etc. The motor centre is used by vanity to take the “machine”out for a walk in the street,showing off like a peacock,believing that everybody is looking at it. Pride makes us compete, fight our competitor and end up exhausted only to win a meaningless medal and be able to appear in the national press the next day. Laziness alters the natural mechanisms of the instinctive centrewhen, due to a lack of will,we eat in a careless way, on a diet of frozen, preserved and pre-cooked food. The energetic foundation of the sexual centre is also plundered by the different psychological aggregates. Children start from an early age with the vice of masturbation, thus losing quite fundamental elements for their development The deep ignorance in which humanity is livingmakes this centre the most damaged.
Q: Then it must be very important to understand the working of the “I”in each of the centers?Whoever wants to dissolve the “I”must study its workings in the five inferior centers. We must not condemn our defects. Neither should we justify them. The important thing is to comprehend them. The “I” works with each of these five inferior centers and when we begin to deeply comprehend the mechanismof each of these centerswe are on the way to dissolving the “I”.
Q: By doing so it must be possible to live wisely?If we want a definitive changeit is necessary that such a change first takes place within us; To live wisely we need to understand that the organic machine of the intellectual animal works in a three-brained way. The First Brain is the thinking centre. The Second Brain is the emotional centre. The Third Brain is the centre of movement,commonly called the motor centre - the five centers are distributed among the three brains, for each of them is autonomous. It has been demonstrated by practice thatall the abuses of the thinking brain produce an excessive loss of intellectual energy. The aesthetic sense, the mystical sense, ecstasy and superior musicare necessary to cultivate the emotional centre. But the abuse of this brain produces a useless lossand waste of emotional energy. The “new-wave” existentialists, the fanatics of rock etc. are all abusing the emotional brain. Harmonious and balanced sports arevery useful for the motor centre, but the abuse of sport implies anexcessive loss of motor energy and the result is usually disastrous. With time, the wrong use of the three brains has progressively shortened life. In the Pharaohs’ ancient Egypt,human life expectancy was 140 years. Now, in these modern times of petrol and celluloid, in this time of existentialism and rock rebels, human life expectancy is, according to some insurance companies, hardly 60 years. On the other hand, there is a religious community in Central Asia which consists of aged people whose average life span is between 400and 500 years. The secret of long life of these Asian monks consists in the wise use of the three brains. Contemporary pedagogyleads students to abuse the thinking brain, with results well known to psychiatry. In the ancient schools of mysteries of Babylon,Greece, India, Persia, Egypt, etc. the pupils received integral information directed to their three brains through an intelligent combination of precepts, dances, music, etc that served to inform each individual’s three brains.
Q: Very, very interesting! We are grateful to you for giving such valuable,practical information. What else would you like us to rememberand practice so that we can live a better life?In life, it is necessary to learn not to cause problems. PROBLEMS are just MENTAL SHAPES, which are created by the mind. A problem is a mental shape with two poles:a positive one and a negative one. Those shapes are held by the mind and they stop existingwhen the mind stops holding them. What should we do? Solve problems?No! That is not necessary. Then, what? What we need is to DISSOLVE them. How can they be dissolved?Simply by FORGETTING THEM. You may think that it is impossible to forgetproblems, but it is possible. When you want to forget them,the only thing you have to do is to putany other centre of the organic machine to work. Remember that the human being possesses three brains: Activate the emotional centre or the motor centre. That is the interesting thing,because then the intellectual centre rests, and then we forget our problem. Do not suffer needlessly; forget your problem and it will dissolve. Do you like painting?Seeing an exhibition will be a good way to forget your problem,or have some coffee, or a nice cup of tea; go to a lake for a swim, or climb a mountain and laugh a little; laughing makesyou feel good and forget your problem. You could say, for instance, that in this wayit is not possible to pay a bill or a debt,I do not mean that we should not do anything,that we should not work, that we do not need money to live or to pay debts, etc. We should do all thisbut without creating problems in our minds. People are afraid to forget their problems, and that is a very sad thing. LEARNING TO LIVE FROM INSTANT TO INSTANT,from moment to moment, is what I recommend. AGEAC is a non-profit organizationThrough its association of voluntary teachers & practitionersAGEAC has brought this knowledge to Millions of peoplein more than 40 countries worldwideThis presentation shows some elementsthat form the foundation of the Universal WisdomFor further study please contactnearest location at www. ageac. orgor join a free correspondence course by email or Skype
