1) [Sensory-based or] STEREO-PSYCHIC: Are the identifying states which are intimately related with the exterior perceptions that are received through the five senses and which are connected with the world of impressions.”

Everything is susceptible to change. Sugar is transformed into alcohol and alcohol is converted into vinegar by means of the action of fermentation. This is the transformation of a molecular substance.

The alchemists of the middle ages spoke about the transmutation of lead into gold. However, they did not always refer to the merely metallic physical matter. Normally, they wanted to indicate the transmutation of the lead of the personality into the gold of the spirit.

In the Gospels, the terrestrial man is compared to a seed that is capable of growth, and this has the same meaning as the idea of the rebirth of the man who is born again.

If we study biology, then we know that if the grain or seed does not die, then the plant is not born. Death and birth exists in every transformation.”

For example, the plant transforms water, air and the salts of the Earth into new vital vegetable substances, into elements which are useful to us, such as nuts, fruits, potatoes, lemons, etc. Therefore, everything is transformation.

Through the action of the solar light, the ‘fermentation’ of nature varies. The sensitive film of life [aka “Organic Life on Earth”], which normally extends over the face of the Earth, leads every universal force towards the very interior of the planetary organism [aka “the Ray of Creation” in Descent].

But each plant, each insect, each creature and even the human being, absorbs and assimilates specific cosmic energies and then transforms (as well as unconsciously transmits) them to the inferior layers of the planetary organism. Such transformed energies are intimately related with the whole economy of the planetary organism in which we live.

Every creature, according to its species, transforms specific energies which it then transmits into the interior of the Earth for the economy of the world. Therefore, each creature that has existence fulfills a function.”

What carries out those processes of the transformation of substances within us? Obviously, the Instinctive Center. The wisdom of this center is really astonishing.

Digestion, in itself, is transformation. The food in the stomach (in the inferior part of this three story factory of the human organism) goes through a transformation…”

For the purpose of nature itself, there is no need whatsoever for us to transform impressions. But we can transform impressions by ourselves, by comprehending the reason why this is necessary.

It is magnificent to transform impressions. The majority of people believe that the physical world will give them what they yearn for and seek. Really, this is a tremendous error.

Life, in itself, enters into us, into our organism, in the form of impressions.

The first thing that we should comprehend is the significance of the world of impressions and how this is intimately related with the esoteric work.

One can not really transform one’s life unless one transforms the impressions which reach the mind.

We are talking about something very revolutionary, because the entire world believes that the physical is what is real, but if we go a little deeper, we see that what we are really receiving at each moment, are merely impressions.

If we see a person that pleases or displeases us, the first thing that we obtain are impressions of them.

Life is a successive series of impressions, and not an exclusively materialistic physical type of thing as is believed by many people nowadays. The reality of life is its impressions!

It is clear that this may not be easy to grasp at first. Most people feel that life exists “as it is” or as they perceive it to be and not as its impressions. They are so influenced by this physical world that this is how they think.

The person that we see seated, for example, on a chair; the one who greets us, the one who smiles at us, etc., are truly real for us. But if we meditate profoundly on all of them, we arrive at the conclusion that what is real are the impressions. These impressions arrive at the mind through the windows of the senses.

If we did not have senses (for example, eyes to see, ears to hear, mouth to taste the foods which the organism ingests) then would what is called ‘the physical world’ exist for us? Clearly not, absolutely not.

Life reaches us in the form of impressions and it is precisely there where the possibility of working upon ourselves exists.

We have to comprehend the work that we should do. How can we achieve a psychological transformation of ourselves? By carrying out a work on the impressions at the moment in which we are receiving them.

This first work receives the name of the ‘First Conscious Shock’ and is related with these impressions
(which are everything that we know of the exterior world).”

“We need to transform ourselves internally each day. When we want to transform our psychological aspect, we need to work upon the impressions which enter into us.

Why do we call the work of the transformation of impressions “the First Conscious Shock”? Because a “shock” is something that we should not observe in a merely mechanical manner. This could never be done in a mechanical manner, one needs a self-conscious effort.

* It is clear that when one begins to comprehend this work, one begins to cease being the mechanical person who only serves the purposes of nature.

If you now think about the significance of everything that you are being taught in these classes, by means of your own efforts, beginning with the observation of oneself, then you will see that, on the practical side of the esoteric work, everything is intimately related with the transformation of impressions and with what results from this transformation.

The work, for example: on negative emotions, on angry states, on identification, on self-consideration, on the successive “I’s”, on lying, on self-justification, on excuses, on the unconscious states in which we are, is all related with the transformation of impressions and what results from it.

It will be convenient for the work upon oneself to be compared with dissection.

It is necessary to form an element of change at the place of the entry of the impressions.

By comprehending the esoteric work, we can accept life itself as work and then we will really enter a constant state of self-remembering.

The transformation of impressions will lead us to a better life and untransformed impressions will no longer act upon us as they did before.

But as long as we continue thinking in the same manner, receiving life in the same manner, then it is clear that there will be no change in us.”

Life continuously demands that we react or adapt to it. All of those reactions or adaptions form our personal life. To change one’s life is to really change our own reactions.

Exterior life reaches us as mere impressions which incessantly force us to react in a stereotypical manner.

If the reactions which form our personal life are all of a negative type, then our own life will also be negative. In that case, life consists of a successive series of negative reactions which happen as incessant responses to the impressions which reach the mind.

Therefore, our task consists of transforming the impressions of life in such a manner that they do not provoke this type of negative response. But in order to achieve this, it is necessary to be observing oneself from instant to instant, from moment to moment.

It is urgent, therefore, to be studying our own impressions.”

Instead, by acting in a new manner, we transform impressions and then, we begin to live consciously.

The ‘First Conscious Shock’ consists of transforming the impressions which reach us.

If we manage to transform the impressions which reach the mind at the moment of entry, then we obtain marvelous results which benefit our existence.

This Gnostic esoteric Work should be taken at the point where the impressions enter, because otherwise they are mechanically distributed to wrong places (by the personality) in order to evoke old mechanical reactions.

If we throw a stone into a crystalline lake, impressions are produced in the lake and the response of those impressions produced by the stone manifest in the form of waves which go from the center to the shore.

Now, imagine the mind as a lake. Suddenly, an image of a person appears, that image is like the stone of our example, which reaches the mind. Then, the mind reacts in the form of impressions.

The impressions are what is produced when the image reaches the mind and the reactions are the responses to such impressions.

If a ball is thrown against a wall, the wall receives the impressions, then the reaction follows which is the return of the ball to the one who sent it. The ball bounces back and that is the reaction.

The world is formed by impressions, for example: The image reaches our mind through the senses.

We cannot say that the table has arrived or that the table has entered our brain, but the image of the table is inside us, then our mind reacts immediately by saying: This is a wooden or metal table, etc.!

There are impressions which are not so pleasant, such as the words of an offender… But we can transform the words of an offender, right?

Words are as they are, therefore, what can we do? Transform the impressions which such words produce in us.

The Gnostic Teaching teaches us how to crystallize the Second force, the Christ in us, through the postulate which says: “One has to pleasantly receive the unpleasant manifestations of our fellow human beings.”

In the previous postulate we find the way to transform impressions which the words of an offender produce in us. Receive with gladness the unpleasant manifestations of our fellowmen.

This postulate will naturally lead us to the crystallization of the Second Force, the Christ, within ourselves; it will cause the Christ to come and take shape in us.

If we only know the impressions from the physical world, then, in reality, the physical world is not as external as people believe it to be. With just reason Immanuel Kant said: “The exterior is the interior”. If the interior is what matters, then we should therefore transform the interior.

The impressions are interior, because, all objects and things, everything that we see, exists in our interior in the form of impressions. If we do not transform impressions, nothing will change in us.

Lust, covetousness, pride, hatred, etc., exist in the form of impressions which vibrate incessantly within our psyche. The mechanical result of such impressions have been all of those inhuman elements that we carry within and that we have normally called “I” but which in their mass, constitute the myself, the oneself.

Let us suppose, for example, that a man sees a provocative woman and that he does not transform those impressions; the result will be that the same impressions, of a lustful type, will produce in him the desire of possessing her.

Such a desire is the result of the impression received and it crystallizes, it takes shape in our psyche and becomes one more aggregate, in other words, an inhuman element, a new type of lustful “I” which adds itself to the sum of inhuman elements which in their totality constitute the Ego.”

Why Anger? Because many impressions reached us, our interior, and we never transformed them. The mechanical result of such impressions of anger form the “I’s” which exist and vibrate in our psyche and which constantly make us feel angry.

Why covetousness or greed? Indubitably, many things awakened covetousness in us: money, jewels, material things of all types, etc. Those things, those objects, reached us in the form of impressions. We committed the error of not having transformed these impressions into different things, into an attraction for beauty, into happiness, etc. Such non-transformed impressions naturally became the “I” or ego of covetousness or greed which we now carry in our interior.

Why lust? Different forms of lust reached us in the form of impressions, in other words, there surged in the interior of our mind images of an erotic type whose reaction was lust. Since we did not transform those lustful waves (that unhealthy eroticism), then naturally new morbid “I’s” or egos were born in our psyche.

Therefore, today we have to work on the impressions which we may have in our interior and on their mechanical results.

Within, we have impressions of anger, covetousness, gluttony, pride, laziness and lust. We also have within, the mechanical results of such impressions, a bunch of quarrelsome and loud-mouthed “I’s”, egos or psychic aggregates which we now need to comprehend and eliminate.

The work of our life consists [1] in knowing how to transform impressions, and also, [2] in knowing how to eliminate the mechanical results of impressions which were not transformed in the past.”

No one could say that they are seeing a tree in itself.

They may be seeing the image of a tree, or smelling the scent of a tree, but not the tree in itself.

The thing in itself, as Emmanuel Kant said, is not seen by anyone; one sees the image of things, in other words, the impression of a tree (of a thing) surges in us and these impressions are internal, they are in the mind.

If one does not carry out one’s own internal modifications, then the result will be: that the birth of a new “I” or ego is produced which comes to enslave our essence, our consciousness, even more, which increases the intensity of the sleep in which we live.

When one really comprehends all that exists within oneself related to the physical world, and that what exists are nothing but impressions, then one also comprehends the necessity of transforming those impressions, and upon doing so, the transformation of oneself is produced.

There is nothing that hurts more than the words of an offender.

If one is capable of transforming the impressions which such words produce in us, then they remain without any value, in other words, they remain like a check drawn against insufficient funds.

Certainly, the words of an insulter do not have any more value than that which the insulted person gives them.

Therefore, if the insulted person does not give them any importance, then they remain like a check that bounces.

When we comprehends this, we then transform the impressions of such words into something different, into love, into compassion for the insulter and this, naturally, means transformation.

Therefore, we need to be incessantly transforming impressions, not only the present ones but also the past and the future ones.”