How Should I Study the Books?
Conscious Knowledge
The books published by Glorian were written in an unusual way. They were written from a state of meditation, and should be received by the consciousness, especially in a state of meditation.
Our books were not written to convince you of some position or statement, to impress you with our beliefs or ideas, or to attract followers or make lots of money. Instead, they were written for your consciousness, to help you acquire conscious knowledge. Conscious knowledge is comprehension; it is knowledge that can never be forgotten, even after death.
The consciousnessis not the intellect, the heart, or the senses of the body. The intellect is a tool for remembering and comparing. That is all it can do! If you read the books with your intellect, you will be comparing with what you were told before, and looking for contradictions. You will rely on logical arguments, and seek proof. You will not realize that the intellect can not actually understand anything; it can only compare. It only sees opposites, duality. When you read intellectually, you are confined to comparing, opposing. This does not lead to understanding, but instead stimulates conflict and confusion.
"The intellect is an instrument that shows us that, through reasoning [comparing], we cannot understand anything." —Samael Aun Weor
Our emotional center in our heart gives us our sense of feeling likes and dislikes. If we read the books emotionally, based only on what we like and dislike, we will interpret everything we read based on how it makes us feel, so when we read something that we do not like, something that brings up guilt, regret, anger, or fear, then we will react emotionally, mechanically, and reject what we are reading. We simply will not like it because we experienced feelings that we do not like. This is not understanding. Similarly, if the book brings up feelings of excitement, mania, or desire, then we will like it a lot. This is also not understanding. It is simply a mechanical reaction to sensations or feelings.
Understanding comes from the consciousness, which does not think or reason or depend on feelings or sensations.
Consciousness perceives, and from that perception it can understand.
Real understanding occurs intuitively, not intellectually or emotionally.
Our books are written for your consciousness. You will see that as soon as you start reading them: they are different.
Our books cannot be understood by the intellect, emotion, or sensations alone.
Read Consciously, Not Mechanically
Many who read attempt to memorize. They attempt to stuff the concepts into their mind. This is harmful. Understanding does not come from memorization.
Students store—within the warehouses of their memory—ideals, theories, and complete texts that are useless in the practicality of life, because in the end they disappear from their memory without leaving a single trace. People who live only reading and reading mechanically, who enjoy storing theories within the storerooms of their memory, destroy their mind, they miserably damage it. We do not pronounce ourselves against true, profound, and cognizant study based on in-depth comprehension. We only condemn the antiquated methods of obsolete pedagogy; we condemn all mechanical systems of studying, any memorization, etc., because where there is true comprehension, remembrance is irrelevant. We need to study, we need useful books... Nevertheless, it is necessary to comprehend the teachings in an integral manner, and not merely stuff them into the storerooms of our unfaithful memory. We cannot become truly free as long as we commit the mistake of comparing ourselves with the stored recollections of our memory and with the ideal of what we have the ambition of becoming or not becoming...
A comprehensive person must never accept anything in a dogmatic way. It is essential to first investigate, comprehend, and inquire, before accepting. In other words, we state that instead of accepting, it is necessary to investigate, analyze, meditate, and comprehend. Thus, when comprehension is complete, acceptance is irrelevant. —Fundamentals of Gnostic Education
Read Slowly and Reflect
Indeed, those who are accustomed to read thousands of books out of pure intellectual curiosity will assuredly miss the opportunity to study this book in depth.
It is worthless to read this book in a hurry. Those who proceed thus are mistaken.
It is necessary to profoundly study this book and to totally comprehend it, not only with the intellect but in all the levels of the mind. The intellect is only a small fraction of the mind. The intellect is not the whole mind. Therefore, whosoever understands this book only with the intellect has not understood it.
Only with internal meditation is it possible to understand this book in all the levels of the mind. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
The only way to understand these books is to read them consciously, with much attention. Because our consciousness is weak, this means we should read slowly, and in small steps. We should pause on each sentence to ensure that we fully understand it. If you do not understand it, then take a few days to contemplate that sentence. Meditate profoundly on each sentence. This is how the books were written, and the only way they can be understood.
The only thing that can save you is to study and immediately practice [what you read]; it would be worthwhile to you to study my books The Great Rebellion and Revolutionary Psychology.
I have asked the brothers and sisters, "Well brothers and sisters, have you studied my book The Great Rebellion?"
"Yes," they say, "We have read it..."
"Well, but did you study it?"
"Well, in reality, no; we read it at five hundred kilometers per hour..."
Then I become astonished: I passed too many years in order to be able to write those books The Great Rebellion and Revolutionary Psychology, and they have read it in a couple of hours!
They constantly come to me saying, "Well, I would like to work on myself, to dissolve my ego, but I wonder if you can teach me how..." But, what an abnormal psyche these terrestrial people have: they ask me to teach them to dissolve their ego, after they have read my book Revolutionary Psychology! But, what is happening? In that book I have given all the indications and now they ask me to teach them! What is happening? They have completely destroyed their intellectual center!
For example, in Atlantis or in Lemuria, no one used to study in that way. A Lemurian considered the letters to be sacred; they utilized an alphabet of 300 consonants and 51 vowels; in Lemuria the letters were sacred and no one accepted a paragraph of a sacred book, if first they had not become cognizant of that paragraph, and in order to become cognizant of that paragraph, they passed entire days meditating on it. So, they were cognizant of what they studied.
However, when one reads at "five hundred kilometers per hour" and later states, "I already read the book," "I know that book," the intellectual center has been ruined. That is not a correct way of studying; one must not go on to the next paragraph, if beforehand one does not become cognizant of it. We need to know what we are bringing to the intellectual center.
On a certain occasion, when I traveled through the countries of South America, I knew an Indian that lived near the Summum Supremum Sanctuarium. He was a "Mama," a kind of Mahatma. He was a small man of about one meter; he did not have more than one meter [in height] and some centimeters. His hair was long, his chin black and long, wearing a tunic, he looked like a small thin Christ.
He started talking about themes that I had written in The Revolution of Beelzebub. I said to him, "How is this, Brother Bernardino Alfaro Torres?" (He was baptized with that Latin name by a missionary) "How is this," I said, "that you know about my book The Revolution of Beelzebub, if you do not know how to write, neither to read... if you are illiterate?"
"Sir, we the members of the tribe of Mamas, do not need to read a book. We examine it in the Astral World. The book The Revolution of Beelzebub is a book of the Goddess Nature and we have it on the altars of our temple sanctuaries..."
He was an astonishing man: he knew the entire book; he spoke about Nirvana, of a Golden City in the Nirvanic world...
On another occasion I was with the Arhuacos. They were talking about karma, but they did not do it as the Theosophist or pseudo-Rosicrucians do. No; to see two Arhuacos talking in a café was something really curious; they were speaking about businesses: "I owe some money that my godfather lent me, and I will see how I can pay him."
"I have already paid some drafts, I will see if I can get a credit, because I need it for my business..."
"Last time I paid 500 pesos of the credit and because of that I think I will not have problems: I will get the credit..."
Well, everything was business. Any profane person would believe that they were talking about business; no: they were talking about the business with the law, about karma and dharma, and they did so better than any pseudo-esotericist, than any modern pseudo-occultist or any erudite, better than Annie Besant and her followers.
They are one hundred percent practical, and their way of studying my books was through meditation. As they did not know how to read and write, they did it through meditation, yet, those who knew how to read and write, read them and later meditated on them; but most of them did not know to read and to write. They did not have their intellectual center ruined, as the civilized people do, the so-called "civilized," or "bonachis," as are known in the Sierra Nevada.
Bernardino, the Arhuaco, stated to me, "Those bonachis think that are very cultured, very civilized, because they have small inventions like cars, airplanes, ships, and toys that are worthless, and they do not know anything about the mysteries of life and death..."
What do they know about that native sage, about that truly illuminated one? —Samael Aun Weor, Seriousness in the Esoteric Work