Rajas is emotion, passion. Tamas is inertia, laziness.
The Aquarian Message, 1960
Home← The LibraryEnglish · Españolevery practice in the fifty-two books↧ Download the booklet Global Gnostic Archive →Home← The LibraryEnglish · Españolevery practice in the fifty-two books↧ Download the booklet Global Gnostic Archive →Tamas is inertia, laziness — and the form he is after is not the man scratching his belly but the one who works hard for a living and will not work on himself, because there will always be a tomorrow
The map
He teaches that every defect lives in the five centres of the machine, and that the work on it is done by the will. Tap a centre to go to it.
Each of these centres has an inferior part and a superior part, and he works with both.
Every word here is his. Nothing has been paraphrased, joined or improved. Each passage was cut out of the book it belongs to by reference, and each carries that book and the paragraph it came from, so anything on this page can be found again in the source.
His definition is a guna, and it is one line: “Rajas is emotion, passion. Tamas is inertia, laziness.” He quotes the Gita for what Tamas does — it binds the embodied being “by heedlessness, laziness and sleep” — and glosses the sleep in his own hand as the sleep of the Consciousness. So the work is not about the man who does nothing, though he is here; it is about “the element of inertia called laziness… not only in its grotesque forms but also in its subtler forms”, and the subtle form has a name of his own: pure mental laziness.
The half he teaches without naming it is the super-effort. “Inner self-realization is possible only on a basis of tremendous effort, and humanity does not like to make super-efforts. People say, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we will die.’” Twenty passages here carry no word of laziness at all, and they are what laziness refuses. Beside them stands the postponement: “If a human being says I will work on myself tomorrow, then he will never work on himself, because there will always be a tomorrow.”
Negligence is folded in, and the practices are where he uses the word most — at the moment of falling asleep, in five books across twenty-five years, the same instruction: abandon laziness, and get up from your bed.
How this edition is arranged. By where the laziness sits: in each of the five centres of his psychology — intellectual, emotional, motor, instinctive and sexual — and in the will, with what laziness is before them and what is born in its place after. The instinctive and sexual centres hold two passages each, because that is what this work’s passages give them — the balm for all of it, set apart at the end so it is not missed. The grouping is ours, made on 18 September 2026 at the editor’s request; each section opens with one line of his, and every passage keeps the number it has always had, so the numbers no longer run in order down the page.
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14 passages
“Tamas is inertia, laziness.” The Aquarian Message, 1960
Rajas is emotion, passion. Tamas is inertia, laziness.
The Aquarian Message, 1960
Rajas and Tamas brings sicknesses, pain, darkness, desperation, wars, famine, crowded hospitals, etc.
The Aquarian Message, 1960
Tamas is the Guna of inertia.
Parsifal Unveiled, 1970
Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas these three Gunas (aspects or qualities), born of the Prakriti, Oh mighty-armed one, bind fast the embodied to the body. Of these, Sattwa which from its stainlessness, is luminous and good, binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to knowledge, oh, impeccable one. Know thou, oh, Kountreya, that Rajas is of the nature of passion, the source of desire and attachment; this Guna binds fast the embodied being to action. But know thou, oh, Bharata, that Tamas is born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings; it binds fast the embodied being, by heedlessness, laziness and sleep” (asleep Consciousness, the sleep of Consciousness).
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
“And where Darkness and dullness, sloth and stupor are, ‘Tis TAMAS hath caused them, Oh Kounteya!”
Parsifal Unveiled, 1970
“If it departeth in set habitude of RAYAS, it shall pass into the world of people tied to action; and, if it dies in hardened TAMAS, that blinded soul is born anew in some unlighted womb among irrational beings.”
Parsifal Unveiled, 1970
“The darkened souls of TAMAS sink back to lower deeps, loaded with witlessness!” They submerge themselves into the interior of the earth; they enter into the submerged mineral kingdom in order to retrograde by devolving in time; they descend through the animal, plant and mineral steps. Afterwards, they reemerge in the Sun’s light in order to restart a new type of evolving ascent, which has to recommence in the hard rock. Thus, the Glorious Lord took the floor again in order to state the following: “When at all gateways of the Body shines the Lamp of Knowledge, then may one see well SATTWA settled in.”
Parsifal Unveiled, 1970
Every Enlightened One knows with total certainty that after death, persons of a Tamasic temperament join the infernal worlds situated by Dante in his Divine Comedy, beneath the crust of the Earth within the entrails of the subterranean world. It is urgent to eliminate the Three Gunas from our inner nature if we truly want to accomplish the esoteric work successfully.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
Therefore, fire of passion, smoke of laziness and brimstone of pain is issued out of the mouths of the dwellers of the earth.
The Aquarian Message, 1960
The danger of Pisces people is of falling into laziness, negligence, passivity and indifference for life. Pisces people can even reach the lack of moral responsibility. The mind of Pisces people oscillates between rapid or fatal comprehension, laziness and disdain for the most necessary things of life. Those are two extremes, and they just as soon fall into one extreme as they do into the other. The will of Pisces people is sometimes strong, but inconsistent on other occasions.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
Later, the Venerable Master commented, "Much time has passed since the days of the Blessed. People are very lazy now. Within thirty years it will be very difficult to find a man like him."
The Mystery of the Golden Blossom, 1971
When a human being has become too materialistic, too lazy, then after judgement he enters Avitchi. The Tibetan Book of the Dead says : ‘On falling there, you will have to suffer unbearably, where there is certainly no time to escape.’
The Book of the Dead, 1965
What would we say of laziness? It is a Siren, who distracts mariners on the wide sea of existence. She was the one who lay Ulysses aside from his course. A loathsome, exhaling smell is what goes out of her belly.
Runic Magic, 1969
“Say unto them: Renounce sloth, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light and be saved from the seething pitch-seas of Yaldabaoth.
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983
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9 passages
“Many individuals do not work in the dissolution of the Lunar Ego because of pure mental laziness” Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
To comprehend what the element of inertia called laziness is, not only in its grotesque forms but also in its subtler forms, is indispensable so that the feeling of activity is born within us.
Fundamental Education, 1970also in The Flower That Is Born
The explanations of Master Hsueh Yen were indeed so simple and clear that his disciple Kao Feng fell into negligence and laziness, because he frankly did not need to make any effort to comprehend them.
The Solar Bodies, 1968
Many individuals do not work in the dissolution of the Lunar Ego because of pure mental laziness, Innumerable aspirants to the Light eat three banquets daily; they are terribly gluttonous.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967also in Gluttony
Many people are impoverished due to the element of laziness, and there are also people who work very hard to earn a living but whom are rather lazy when it comes to studying and knowing themselves in order to dissolve the “I”.
Fundamental Education, 1970also in The Flower That Is Born
We must leave aside mental laziness and those prejudices that make us utter phrases like, “Oh but, what would people say if I study this?” or “What would people say, if I educate myself in this?” We must study Gnosis, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, yogic philosophy, etc.
Endocrinology & Criminology, 1957
I constantly receive letters and books of all kinds; as usual their senders ask me about this or that school, about this or that book, I limit myself to answer the following: Please, give up mental idleness; you should not be concerned with other people's life, disintegrate the animal "I" of curiosity, you should not be concerned with other people's school, become serious, know yourself, study yourself, observe yourself, etc, etc, etc.
The Great Rebellion, 1975
The robots programmed by the Antichrist- materialistic science feel at a disadvantage because they do not feel capable and this we should analyze. The intellectual animal, because of the influence of a false academic education that adulterates the values of the Being, has made in his sensual mind, two terrible I’s which should be eliminated: The fixed idea: “I am going to lose!”, and laziness to practice the Gnostic techniques to acquire knowledge that is needed to emancipate ourselves from all mechanicity and come out, once and for all, from the defeatist tendency.
The Revolution of the Dialectic
Negligence and carelessness lead every human being to failure. To be negligent is, as we would say, Nec Legere, to not elect, to surrender to the arms of failure. Negligence is of the ego and its opposite is intuition, which is of the Being. The ego can neither elect nor distinguish, but the Being can.
The Revolution of the Dialectic Negligence
We need to change our way of thinking. We need to be less negligent. We need to become more serious and to face life in a different manner. We need to face life in its real and practical sense.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
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7 passages
“This psychological apathy, this coldness which is frightful, has two bases: firstly the most tremendous ignorance, secondly the most absolute absence of spiritual restlessness.” The Great Rebellion, 1975
The one who does not eliminate Tamas, will always have the Consciousness asleep; he will be lazy, he will abandon the esoteric work due to slackness, inertia, laziness, lack of willpower, lack warmth, lack of spiritual enthusiasm; he will be a victim of the foolish illusions of this world and he will succumb in ignorance.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
This psychological apathy, this coldness which is frightful, has two bases: firstly the most tremendous ignorance, secondly the most absolute absence of spiritual restlessness. A contact is missing, an electric shock, nobody gave it in the shop, nor in what was believed to be serious, least of all in the pleasures of bed.
The Great Rebellion, 1975
This is, precisely, what the Sun wants, but these lunar shadows which are so cold, apathetic and indifferent are always swallowed up by the Moon; afterwards comes the levelling of death.
The Great Rebellion, 1975
Nonetheless, people do not want to see their selves in themselves. Some of them, in spite of having desires to work on themselves, justify their negligence with phrases like the following: “The work in the office does not allow me to work on myself.” These empty vain and absurd words, without any sense, only serve in order to justify indolence, laziness and lack of love for the “Great Cause.”
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
He who is content with the state in which he lives, the dunce, the retardatary, the negligent, will never feel the desire to see himself, he will love himself too much and in no way will he be willing to revise his behaviour and his way of being. We will clearly say that various "I"s which we need to comprehend intervene in some comedies, dramas and tragedies of practical life.
The Great Rebellion, 1975
We are taught to resist the temptations of the flesh, and we flog ourselves and do penance in order to resist. We are taught to resist the temptations that laziness brings, the temptations to not study, to not go to school, the temptations to play, laugh, ridicule teachers, violate rules, etc.
Fundamental Education, 1970
The revolution of the consciousness requires tremendous super-efforts, but people do not like anything that inconveniences them.
Christmas Messages, 1952–66
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9 passages · 5 practices
“The important thing is to abandon laziness, and get up from your bed at the moment of falling asleep.” Book of the Virgin of Carmel, 1952
And what shall we say about a lazy person? You have seen him many times: a lazy person, an individual who does nothing –around here he is given the epithet that you already know too well, I do not say it because I feel sorry for him–. Undoubtedly, he is an abnormal person, he is a parasite. He wants to have his wife and does not work. Sometimes he looks for a woman who does work, and then, lives off the woman comfortably, scratching his belly. Do you think this is normal? This is how the poor one is!...
The Fifth Gospel, volume 1A Analysis Of The Human Psyche
The exterior image, even if it is well dressed, could be poor. Is perhaps the image of the proud a beautiful image, of someone who has become unbearable, that does not have a grain of humility? How does a lustful person behave, how does he live, what aspect does his bedroom present, what is his behavior in his or her intimate life with the opposite sex, or maybe he or she is already degenerated? What could be the external image of an envious person, of someone who suffers because of his fellowman’s well being and who in secrecy causes harm to others out of envy? What is the image of a lazy person who does not want to work and is dirty and abominable? And that of a glutton...? Truly, therefore, the exterior image is the result of the interior image and this is irrefutable.
The Revolution of the Dialectic
Many are the students of certain pseudo-esoteric and pseudo-occultist schools who despise the things of this world and who do not work at all because everything is vanity, but they are jealous about their virtues and never accept anyone classifying them as lazy. Many are those who hate flattery and praise, but they have no inconvenience in humiliating with their modesty, the poor poet who composed a verse for them with the only purpose of obtaining a coin to buy bread.
The Revolution of the Dialecticalso in Jealousy
Many enter the path and then they no longer want to continue working to fulfill the needs of every good citizen. Those poor beings neglect their duties towards their family, the world and towards themselves. We then hear them say phrases like these, “Money is vain”, “This is the world of Maya (illusion)”, “I am no longer interested in the things of the world”, etc. This is how these poor disciples fail because they do not know how to fulfill their duties. This is how these devotees of the path move away from initiation, precisely because of not knowing how to fulfill their duties as simple citizens.
The Greater Mysteries, 1956
A practice
The important thing is to abandon laziness, and get up from your bed at the moment of falling asleep.
Book of the Virgin of Carmel, 1952
A practice
150. The important thing is for disciples to abandon laziness. 151. Those who have not learned how to get out in the Astral Body, it is because they are very lazy. 152. The atoms of laziness are a serious obstacle for the progress towards the superior worlds.
Manual of Practical Magic, 1954
A practice
When the disciple is already falling asleep, when he finds himself in that precise state of transition between vigil and sleep, he should rise from his bed without hesitation, laziness, doubts, reasoning, naturally, like a reflex or in an instinctive manner, automatically, and absolutely childlike. Observe the birds: When they are going to fly, they do not reason about it, they do not harbor doubts nor preconceptions, but simply fly away instinctively; we can say: automatically. The disciple should proceed in that manner: imitate the birds. He should rise, therefore, from the bed and leave the room and head for any Corner of the infinite, or wherever he likes. When we say that the student should RISE from the bed, this should be translated into effective and immediate actions, without stopping to think.
Logos, Mantram, Theurgy, 1959
A practice
The attention of the disciple must be fixed only and exclusively in the process of the dream. Then, when he feels that the dream has already invaded his brain, he must abandon all of his laziness and get up immediately. The whole secret of this matter rests in leaving our home, going out towards the street. Yet, we have to conserve the dreamy state.
Occult Medicine and Practical Magic, 1955 (ed. 1978)
A practice
Without any anxiety I proposed to keep watch, to spy on my own sleep... I wanted to use that state of transition that exists between alertness and lethargy, for my astral exit... When the process of dreaming began, when characteristic dream images started to arise, delicately, feeling like a spirit, I made an effort to eliminate laziness and then rose from the bed...
The Mystery of the Golden Blossom, 1971
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2 passages
“The atoms of laziness are a serious obstacle in the progress towards the Superior Worlds.” Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
To become free from the 48, 24, 12, and 6 laws, signifies making tremendous super-efforts, but people do not like such super-efforts. People always want what is more comfortable, what is easier, and that is why nearly every human being, sooner or later, ceases to be born in order to enter the subworld of 96 laws. It is only by virtue of the revolution of the consciousness that we can liberate ourselves from the 48, 24, 12, and 6 laws, but people do not like the revolution of the consciousness. People prefer to dance, to drink, to fornicate, to commit adultery, to get drunk, to earn a lot of money, etc, etc. This is more comfortable for people than the revolution of the consciousness.
Christmas Messages, 1952–66
The atoms of laziness are a serious obstacle in the progress towards the Superior Worlds. The Great Law is the return of life to the Superior Worlds.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
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2 passages · 1 practice
“With Pranayama we dissipate laziness and ineptness.” The Yellow Book, 1959
With Pranayama the Kundalini awakens. With Pranayama the tenebrous regions of darkness and inertia are dissipated. With Pranayama we dissipate laziness and ineptness. Prana is related with the mind. The mind is the vehicle of willpower. Willpower must obey the Great Soul of the world.
The Yellow Book, 1959
A practice
See the sacred fire that was detached from your chakra Muladhara rise upwardly, penetrating and enveloping your entire body; thus burning your negative habits like: laziness, assumption, fear, loquacity, anger, envy, malignity, vanity, etc. Then finish your meditation concentrating on the following words of the Apostle Paul: There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body and repeat like him: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me. From now on try to make this state of consciousness the diapason that inspires all the acts of your life.
Aztec Christic Magic, 1973also in Fear · Anger · Envy
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28 passages · 1 practice
“The revolution of man is the revolution of his willpower, and so this could never be a mechanical, involuntary revolution.” Christmas Messages, 1952–66
We need, with maximum urgency, to work on ourselves and not dream lazily of a future or any extraordinary opportunity; Those who say: “I will first do this or that and then work” will never work on themselves. They are the dwellers of the earth mentioned in the Holy Scriptures.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
There exists out there a common saying that states “Do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today.” If a human being says I will work on myself tomorrow, then he will never work on himself, because there will always be a tomorrow.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
If a person begins his day consciously, then it is evident that such a day would be very different compared to other days When the day one is living is taken as the totality of one’s life, when one does not leave for tomorrow what one must do this very day, then indeed one gets to know what the work on oneself really means.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
Some postpone the error, leave everything for tomorrow while they improve their economic situation, without taking into consideration that the solar experiment is something very different from their personal criteria and their aforementioned projects. It is not so easy to become a solar human when we carry the Moon in our interior (the ego is lunar).
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
The war in the sky is something terrible, almost impossible to describe with words; the sexual temptations are not just anything... Is it perhaps easy to defeat the dragon? The most serious thing of this is that people have the ego alive, the red demons of Seth have not died and the conscience of each person trapped within the sinister aggregates, truly functions within its own conditioning and even justifies itself washing its hands like Pilate or postpones the error by saying: I couldn’t today, but later with time I will triumph, etc.
Yes, There Is a Hell, a Devil and Karma, 1973also in The Three Traitors
Of those who procrastinate, saying they have many births before them The Saviour answered and said unto his disciples: “Herald unto the whole world and say unto men: Strive thereafter that ye may receive the mysteries of the light in this time of affliction and enter into the Light-kingdom. Join not one day to another, or one circuit to another, hoping that ye may succeed in receiving the mysteries if ye come into the world in another circuit.” “And these know not when the number of the perfect souls will be at hand; for if the number of the perfect souls shall be at hand, I will now shut the gates of the Light, and no one from this hour onwards will enter in, nor will any one hereafter go forth, for the number of the perfect souls is completed, and the mystery of the First Mystery is completed, for the sake of which the universe hath arisen, -- that is: I am that Mystery. Of the time of the completion “And from this hour onwards no one will be able to enter into the Light and no one be able to go forth. For at the completion of the time of the number of the perfect souls, before I have set fire to the world, in order that it may purify the Aeons and the veils and the firmaments and the whole earth and also all the matters which are on it, mankind will be still existing.”
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983
Those who procrastinate are excluded from the Light “At that time then the faith will reveal itself still more and the mysteries in those days. And many souls will come by means of the circuits of the changes of the body, and coming back into the world are some of those in this present time who have hearkened unto me, how I taught, who at the completion of the number of the perfect souls will find the mysteries of the Light and receive them and come to the gates of the Light and find that the number of the perfect souls is complete, which is the completion of the First Mystery and the gnosis of the universe. And they will find that I have shut the gates of the Light and that it is impossible that any one should enter in or that any one should go forth from this hour.”
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983
However, if we continue the way we are, behaving the same way every day, repeating the same errors, repeating the same negligence as always, then, indeed, any possibility of change will be eliminated.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
Mary continued again and said unto the Saviour: “My Lord, if the faith and the mysteries shall have revealed themselves, - now, therefore, if souls come into the world in many circuits and are neglectful of receiving mysteries, hoping that, f they come into the world at any other circuit, they will receive them, will they not then be in danger of not succeeding in receiving the mysteries?’
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983
Mary pleadeth for those who have neglected the mysteries And Mary continued and said unto the Saviour: “My Lord, if a man hath received the mysteries of the Light which [are] in the first space from without, and when the time of the mysteries up to which they reach, is completed, and if that man continueth anew to receive mysteries of the mysteries which [are] within the mysteries which he hath already received, and moreover that man hath become negligent, not having prayed in the prayer which taketh away the evil of the victuals which he eateth and drinketh, and through the evil of the victuals he is bound to the axle of the Fate of the rulers and through the necessity of the elements he hath sinned anew after the completion of the time up to which the mystery reacheth, -- because he hath become negligent and hath not prayed in the prayer which taketh away the evil of the souls and purifleth them, -- and that man is come out of the body before he hath repented anew and anew received the mysteries of the mysteries which [are] within the mysteries which he hath already received, -- those which accept repentance from him and forgive his sins, -- and when he came forth out of the body and we knew with certainty that they have carried him into the midst of the dragon of the outer darkness because of the sins which he committed, and that that man hath no helper in the world nor any one compassionate, that ye should perform the mystery of the Ineffable until he should be removed out of the midst of the dragon of the outer darkness and led into the Light-kingdom, -- now, therefore, my Lord, what will befall him until he save himself from the chastisements of the dragon of the outer darkness? By no means, O Lord, abandon him, because he hath endured sufferings in the persecutions and in the whole godhood in which he is.
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983
Inner self-realization is possible only on a basis of tremendous effort, and humanity does not like to make super-efforts. People say, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we will die.” Inner self-realization is never the result of a mechanical process, even if it is evolutionary.
The Buddha's Necklace, 1967
Inner self-realization of the human being can never be the result of the mechanical evolution of nature but is the fruit of tremendous efforts and humanity does not like to make super efforts.
The Buddha's Necklace, 1967
Those who affirm that all human beings will sooner or later arrive at Intimate Self-Realisation by means of the evolution of nature are tremendous liars, jokesters, and deceivers. Because there has never been and there will never be a mechanical SelfRealisation. Intimate Self-Realisation is the revolution of the consciousness, and the consciousness could never unconsciously revolutionize itself. The revolution of man is the revolution of his willpower, and so this could never be a mechanical, involuntary revolution. Intimate Self-Realisation is the result of supreme and voluntary self-efforts that are perfectly self-conscious. Intimate Self-Realisation demands tremendous individual super-efforts, and these are only possible through the revolution of the consciousness.
Christmas Messages, 1952–66
The Inner Self-Realization of man can never be the product of any mechanical law, but rather the result of a conscious work carried out upon and within oneself, on the basis of tremendous super-efforts, in-depth comprehension and intentional voluntary sufferings. Everything returns to the point of departure and the Lunar Ego returns after death to a new womb.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
If someone wants to escape from that tragic law of Protoplasmic Involution, he should create for himself and through tremendous super-efforts, the Solar bodies.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967
The Intimate Self-realization of the Human Being is not the outcome of any Mechanization. The law of Evolution and the Law of Devolution are Mechanical Laws. The Intimate Self-realization of the Human Being is the outcome of tremendous selfcognitive super-efforts made by oneself and within oneself, here and now. To deny the Law of Evolution would be an absurdity. Nonetheless, to attribute to this Law factors that it does not have, is stupidity.
The Solar Bodies, 1968
One comprehends how absurd arrogance and pride is when within the Inferior Molecular Region. We are nothing else but simple chrysalides, miserable slugs from the mud of the earth, inside which the heavenly butterfly could be formed, based on tremendous Intimate super-efforts. But, there is not a law in order for this to be fulfilled. Those chrysalides could become lost, and this is what is most common.
Runic Magic, 1969
One must have a Centre of Gravity, a Permanent Centre of Conscious ness. We are no more than machines controlled by our “I’s” (the ego is plural). We are in a disadvantageous position which means we need super-efforts, and need to kill the “I”. That “I” is Mephistopheles; is the root of all our suffering and pain; it lives according to its own conditioning. We must reduce it to cosmic dust in order to have awakened consciousness, in order to be able to see the Path.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
The development of such latent possibilities is only possible in well-defined conditions, and this demands tremendous individual super-efforts and the experienced assistance of the Masters who have already accomplished this work in the past.
Fundamental Education, 1970
If we do not want the revolution of the consciousness, if we do not make tremendous super-efforts to develop the latent possibilities that will lead us to intimate selfrealization, it is clear that these possibilities will never develop.
Fundamental Education, 1970
Only with great super-efforts can these human possibilities be developed.
Fundamental Education, 1970
Revolutionary psychology and the ancient Philokalia affirm that through super-efforts of a very special kind consciousness can be awakened and made continuous and controllable.
Fundamental Education, 1970
In this matter efforts are not enough, super-efforts are needed.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
We have to give form to ourselves; this requires super-efforts by means of constant daily intensive work.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
The radical change, the Intimate Self-Realisation is the outcome of a series of frightful super efforts performed on and inside ourselves here and now.
My Return to Tibet, 1969
The elimination of the ‘I’ of defeatism is urgent, undelayable. It is not the quantity of theories that matter, it is the quantity of super efforts that are exerted in the work of the Revolution of Consciousness. The authentic man fabricates, in the moment that he wishes, the opportune moments for his spiritual or psychological growth!
The Revolution of the Dialectic
This matter of separating it implies a great effort and, possibly, even a tremendous super-effort. When one makes progress in the work, one can disintegrate that mistake until turning it to dust. It is clear that a force superior to the mind, capable of disintegrating the mistake that we have discovered, will be needed.
The Fifth Gospel, volume 1B Clarifications About The Psychological Work
A practice
The venerable elder Guru Wan Shan told him that during the twelve hours of the day, it is necessary to be alert like a cat which is lurking for a mouse, or like a hen which is brooding on her eggs. They do this without abandoning their duty, not even for a second. Therefore, in these studies mere efforts are not worthy, only super-efforts are so. Since we are not illuminated, we must work without rest, like a mouse which is gnawing on a sarcophagus. If we practice in this manner, we will finally be liberated from the mind and we will experience in a direct way that element which radically transforms, that element which is the Truth.
Runic Magic, 1969
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The balm
“…diligence is born in us, after laziness has been disintegrated.” Christmas Messages, 1952–66
Laziness is transmuted into the prudent activity of Mercury.
Esoteric Course of Kabbalah
There are seven vices which we must transmute: The Solar Pride The Lunar Avarice The Venusian Lust The Martian Cholera The Mercurian Laziness The Saturnian Gluttony The Jovian Envy - into faith, into humility. into altruism. into chastity. into love. into diligence. into temperance. into happiness for the wellbeing of others. Only with the science of the transmutations are we able to disintegrate the defects and dissolve the Psychological “I”. Only with the science of the trans mutations are we able to modify our errors, transmute the base metals into Pure Gold and govern. Work with the Arcanum A.Z.F. so that you may receive the sword.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
People covet the virtue of diligence, but only by comprehending in an integral way all of the processes of laziness in the hidden levels of the subconscious, diligence is born in us, after laziness has been disintegrated.
Christmas Messages, 1952–66also in Envy
Many lazy people covet the virtue of activity, but don’t want to perceive that the birth of diligence requires comprehension of the processes of laziness in all levels of the mind. Many gluttons covet continence and temperance, but don’t want to realize that only when they comprehend the processes of gluttony in the various corridors and recesses of the mind can eat and drinking moderately be natural and spontaneous.
The Buddha's Necklace, 1967also in Gluttony · Envy
If we eliminate from our psyche the factors of sloth, inertia and laziness, the horrifying scenes of this kind of defects cannot be repeated because of lack of actors. If we pulverize the sickening "I"s of gluttony, of greed for food, then feasting, drunkeness, etc, will come to an end for lack of actors.
The Great Rebellion, 1975also in Gluttony
The Intimate Christ, though he is perfect humility, infinite modesty, absolute simplicity, must eliminate from himself the sickening elements of pride, of vanity, of conceit. The Intimate Christ, the word, the Creating Logos, always living in constant activity has to eliminate in our interior, in himself and by himself, the undesirable elements of inertia, of laziness, of stagnation. The Lord of Perfection, though being used to all the fastings, temperate, never a friend of drunkeness and great banqueting, has to eliminate from himself the abominable elements of gluttony.
The Great Rebellion, 1975also in Gluttony
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How this was made. The whole library was rebuilt and swept — fifty-two books, 73,105 paragraphs, 2,157,671 words — on six families of his own vocabulary (laziness, indolence, sloth, idleness, apathy, procrastination), on his own definition (Tamas, inertia), on the negligence family, and on two phrase patterns for the thing he teaches without naming it. That returned 242 candidate paragraphs in 39 books. Every one was read and judged twice, independently, by readers who could not see each other’s work; the two passes agreed on whether to print 94.6% of the time, and a third reader settled the thirteen they did not. 87 were judged printable and 77 are printed here. The rest are recorded, with the reason each was set aside, in the project that holds this work.
Twenty-five paragraphs the word list could not see. Every work in this series since Envy has found its doctrine in a phrase rather than a word, and this one’s is the super-effort — thirty-three paragraphs, not one carrying a word of the sweep, twenty of them printed — and the narrow phrase of the postponement, I will work on myself tomorrow. The wide effort family was measured at 223 paragraphs and refused; so were lethargy and torpor, which are his words for the sleep of the consciousness and belong to a psychology work, not to a defect.
Fifty-eight rejections are one sentence said over and over. The bare recital — anger, greed, lust, envy, pride, laziness, gluttony — the seven named and nothing taught about any of them. It is the same class Greed named, and naming it is better than hiding it. Nineteen more were inertia in its physical or cosmological sense: the centre of the Earth, the density of the metal kingdom, the guna in a bare list of three.
Negligence is folded in, and the boundary with Envy is stated. Negligence was measured on its own and found too thin and too incidental for a work of its own; what he teaches of it stands here, most of it in the mind and the will. Coveting the virtue of diligence is Envy’s and is printed there; the sentence in that litany which says that diligence is born only from comprehending laziness is this work’s own, and is marked as shared.
The scripture is his quoting, not his teaching. 9 passages are set in italic behind a gold rule: the Gita’s three verses on the gunas as he quotes them, with his gloss; the Pistis Sophia’s charge to renounce sloth, its two headings on those who procrastinate, and Mary’s plea for the man who became negligent.
7 silent corrections. Four repair a line-break hyphen the two-column Fifth Gospel left standing — Un- doubtedly, com- fortably, par- asite, be- havior. Two repair a word a scanner split with a stray space or doubled a comma at: dege nerated, Gur u, earth,,. One is a lost letter, in The Buddha’s Necklace: “Inner sell-realization”, where the word is self. Nothing else has been touched.
Checked five ways, no failures. Every source paragraph was proved against the raw extraction of its own PDF, and the text printed here proved equal to those paragraphs with only the listed corrections applied. Every note written by a reader was proved to sit on the paragraph it describes. Every passage marked a practice was proved to carry its own instruction. Every pair of printed passages was compared as sequences, which found the one real reprint — a lecture printed again in The Revolution of the Dialectic, of which the book form is kept. And no passage stands on the page in the wrong language.
10 passages also stand in a finished booklet, and every one is marked where it stands. An overlap is allowed here wherever it is needed to get the teaching across; what is not allowed is an overlap a reader cannot see.
The last of the egos. Fear, Gluttony, Pride, Anger, Hatred, Lust, Envy, Jealousy, Resentment, Greed, and this. The series is complete as he listed the seven, with the four he treats as their own works beside them.