O CAIBALION, cap. 3 - A transmutação mental - Lúcia Helena Galvão

Good evening. Is anyone coming today for the first time? Well, we always have one person or another who are joining the group. It's very good, welcome. Just to recap where we stopped in our last meeting. We are reading this book. It's a 15-chapter book, so we'll have 15 meetings. Today we are in the third. The idea is to munch chapter by chapter, extracting what is possible to understand in our moment of Egyptian wisdom. So those who have always come will always have to have a certain patience to repeat these first two pages. I particularly think

it's very good, because Homer himself, the Greek thinkers, said, don't start anything that is deep without a certain consecration to beauty, without a certain elevation of conscience. So I think it's very good that we start with this poem, because it gives exactly this, as if it were a sacred tone. Because we are talking about what Egypt produced most nobly, one of the noblest things that Egypt produced, which was hermetic knowledge. The laws of Kybalion are a very bold proposal. Can you imagine what a human being proposes to himself to talk about the seven laws that

govern all the plans of the manifested universe, at any level you imagine? That is, in your mind, in your emotions, in the cosmos as a whole. Everything, he says, has laws behind it, which are unfoldings of only seven laws. He proposes to say what are the seven laws of the universe. I find it funny because you can measure, more or less, the size of human beings by the proposal of life they have, by the size of their dreams. I always find it curious when they talk about the life of Siddhartha Gautama, or Buddha. Imagine a

15-year-old boy, when he proposes a dream in life, in general, for the average of humanity, is what? Play soccer? Go to Disney? At 15 years old, Buddha proposed to extinguish the pain of humanity, find a way out for the pain of humanity. I'm just going to do that. Just that. I'm going to find a way out for the human being not to suffer anymore. It's over. It's a insignificant thing. Any 15-year-old boy thinks about it. So it's curious to imagine that man is the size of his dreams. Imagine a man who comes and says, I'm

going to talk about what are the total laws of the manifested world, the seven laws that rule the whole, in all plans. What kind of man was that? To propose to something so bold. So this knowledge, which has been kept for generations, resurges in certain moments of humanity, it will resurface very strongly in the Middle Ages, with the alchemists, then it resurfaces very strongly in the Renaissance, with the Platonic Academy of Charedi in Florence, where this knowledge is translated for the first time into Latin, and then it disappears again and it comes up sporadically, in

some moments. Then you can say, no, today it is resurfacing. A lot in quotes. Because the way man is today, he retains the knowledge of the past, is not from the point of view of a man of the past, but it is with his current preconceptions. We see the world through a materialistic and utilitarian view. So we tend to distort things, that is, many of the principles of Caibalion today, have become mental techniques to make money, or get a spot at the mall. You know what I'm talking about, right? It gets a little funny what

is done with it. That is, using, a knowledge that was eminently altruistic, that was focused on fraternity, to achieve personal projection, is at least funny. You will not understand this knowledge. I guarantee you one thing, in my 28 years of doing philosophy, if you are a person who read all of Plato's work, knows everything he said, but does not see the world with the same values that Plato saw, you will not understand almost anything. But sometimes a simple person, who has more or less the same values that Plato had, thought about everything before the part,

was more fraternal, more altruistic than selfish, you say half a dozen things to this person, and she already positions herself better. You know why? She is here, Plato is here, but they are on the same axis. Therefore, they are seeing the world from the same angle. The citizen read everything, but he is seeing from a very out of focus angle. And sometimes there are deviations of understanding, which are a sad thing. I've had the pleasant surprise, of seeing my teenage students, because we teach children since 4 years of philosophy, and it's fantastic. I've seen my

teenage students giving a show of interpretation of Plato, which would leave a lot of academic professor with a downer. We've had people who came to the philosophy course, invited by a 9-year-old child. It's a 9-year-old boy, who gave me a philosophy class in the queue, and he called me and I came. That is, simplicity, but a similar angle to that of the author. I guarantee you will have more depth. So I could say that after the Renaissance, it was very difficult to understand Hermes Trismegistus. Because the values ​​today have nothing to do with the current

values ​​in Egypt. So it gets something complex for you to position yourself and understand. And there is a lot of distortion in relation to that. Well, the book we are dealing with, which is this one, you know, it's here. Caibara, it even exists there to sell. You will not say, ah, it's on the internet. It has. But if you consider, I'm still a little conservative, you will print a book of this size, so cheap, chained, cute, I would prefer to have the book on my little table top. This book was written in 1908, remember, it

is not an old book. It is a book that took the tradition of the emerald table, of the Hermetic Corpus, of Minerva Mundi, what Hermes Trismegistus had, took the fundamental phrases, of the Caibalion, and explained in a current language. It's something dangerous, it's at risk of becoming a disaster. But if it's done well, it's a fantastic gain. Because what he explains, we wouldn't understand it alone. I've already told you that there is another similar case, which is a book called The Art of Living, which is an American writer, Sharon Lever, who takes the manual of

the Epictetus Philosophus, the Inquiridion, and translates it into a current language, but with fantastic happiness. It's a very well done work. Now, for these two hits, I can mention 30 mistakes. It's not that easy to do. There were people who tried to do the same thing with classic books, and it turned out to be a disaster. Because they don't understand, so when you transcribe, you transcribe your vision and limit it. The Caibalion is a very successful case. It is an anonymous book, and whoever wrote it, knew what he was doing. Because it is very well

done. So it's a book from 1908 that we are commenting on, based on the knowledge of the wise Hermes Trismegistus, who would have lived at some point between 2600 and 1500 BC, that is, a great margin of deviation. No one is sure. In fact, there are those who argue if he really existed. And today we are seeing chapter 3. Do you remember that we had a first meeting with the introduction and theme 1? In a second meeting, all this will later go to the internet, with theme 2, where he reviews the seven laws, and now

in theme 3 he will make an introduction to the commentary of the first law. This first law, which he considers so important, is in fact the mental principle, the principle of mentalism, which says that the whole is mind, the universe is mental. The principle is just that. He spends two chapters commenting, and only in the third he will actually address the law. He considers that there are some premises that you have to understand before you start analyzing the law. So today he will talk about one of these premises, which is the question of mental transmutation.

This citizen who wrote this book, thankfully he wrote it in 1908, because in 1908, I believe, last century, not so long ago, a century, there was already a little of what there is today, which is the difficulty of finding that our thoughts change, our values ​​change, our concepts change. Because for an Egyptian it would not make any sense. He knew it was changing. And in fact, he came here knowing that it had to change, that it had to be improved. That it had to come out better than it came in. This was a premise given

in culture. Now we usually live the syndrome of Gabriela Cravo and Canela. I was born like this, I grew up like this, I am like this, you are always like this. In other words, we think that our mind, our values, are something rigid. I think we need a little more chair here. We think that our values ​​are our way of seeing the world, our emotions. We think that the psyche in general, is something rigid, given, conditioned by certain environmental elements, and that we can't change. This is absurd of absurdities that we came here exactly to

build ourselves. No construction of the world would be so indispensable. Stop thinking about it. There are certain things that we think, my God, if we didn't have it, what would we do? I think we would suffer a little, but it would turn. Have you ever imagined electricity, for example? Whenever I think of something that would be, I ask myself about something that would be suffered, I remember electricity. Electricity was a gain in quality of life, out of the ordinary. But sometimes when there is no light at home, no one dies because of it. We take

the old woman, go there, go there. Anyway, and survive. A little discomfort, but we survived for centuries like this. If we didn't have, I don't know, the planes, if we didn't have the cars, it's okay, but we also survived for centuries like this. Now, when you don't have human beings, truly human beings, then no one survives. It becomes crazy. It becomes man as the wolf of man, as it is said, philosophically, life becomes unfeasible. That is, the construction of the human being is indispensable. The construction of things is desirable. It is a condition, let's say,

of interesting comfort. But look, losing the human condition is too expensive. So, transmutation. Mental transmutation. What is he going to say in the book at this moment? The mind, as well as metals and elements, can be transmuted from state to state, from degree to degree, from condition to condition, from pole to pole, from vibration to vibration. The true hermetic transmutation is a mental art. That is, the true alchemical hermetic transmutation was not to transform the human being. It was to turn lead into gold. It was to transform ignorant, brute men into wise men. Beings almost

animalized into true human beings. This was the true transmutation. And as this law, part of the principle that the universe is mental, this transformation happens, in fact, within the mind. And then it is reflected in all plans. Even the posture of the human being today, we no longer know. But it is said that these great wise civilizations of the past, a little modern psychology recovered this. That is, the observation of certain psychological traits of the person, for the way she walks, for the way she sits, for the facial rictus. Today, even the letter of the

person is analyzed. Graphology. There are companies that do this test before hiring. Because in everything you do, there is a reflection of how you are mentally. But if you want to change, you will have to act in the source, in the origin, in your mental patterns, in your way of thinking of yourself, think of life, think of the other. And this change is possible. We are not a given reality, conditioned by the environment. We can impose ourselves on the environment, and be anything we want. So it's one of the terrible elements that convinced us in

the so-called contemporary world. Because we are totally a product of circumstances. We let ourselves be a product of circumstances. Because it is more comfortable to have where to attribute the blame for our mistakes. It is the ball of the billiard. If I roll to the wrong side, it was the heel that pushed me. I'm being pushed through life in all directions. I have no initiative and therefore I have no responsibility. It gets easier. This collective victimization syndrome that we live. Despite this, it is said that the human being can impose himself on circumstances. And the

proof of this is that there were men who really did it. Very adverse circumstances. I like to quote, those who watch my lectures must have heard me say this, the Brazilian character, Machado de Assis. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis lived in a hill. His mother died very early, he was still a child. The father remarried. The father is illiterate, dies and leaves him with his stepmother, Maria Inês, who was illiterate, was a washerwoman. He could not attend a school, he was self-taught. And what was Machado de Assis in the Portuguese language as a whole, not

only in Brazil? That is, the man can impose himself on these circumstances. And the most curious thing is that he lives in a time when determinism was fashionable. People believed that man was a product of the environment and preferred theory over fact. Because Machado de Assis was there for everyone to see. And people prefer theory over fact. They don't see the fact. They go blind. They are alienated. They are as if they were pre-programmed. And they can't break this programming to see what life proposes. Would you like to ask something? No. No, we are going

to talk a little about the difference between these two words. We sometimes confuse, use alternatively, but it's not the same thing. Transformation comes from form. To change merely the form. Transmutation is a change of essence. It's not that I change the way I act with you and stay inside. Oh, what anger! I don't want to tell her some truths. No. I changed my essence. And I don't want to hurt you. I express what I have for the best naturally. Without any pressure, no internal repression. I am really like that. Transmutation is the change of the

essence of things. Yes. While transformation is the change of form. And the form can be the way of acting, the way of speaking too. But it can be merely an imposition. It can be a mask. See, many times I say this in our lectures. Recently we had the case of the Holy Spirit, which was very clear. See how our ethics is a facade ethics. When you break the rules, there is no police, you saw the level of people who were on the street breaking everything and stealing. Suddenly people will be in a situation, and we

have friends who live there, because there is a new Acropolis there, people will be in a situation of being afraid of their neighbors. Imagine that. Imagine you, something like that. A middle-class person suddenly becomes anything. Why? Because he is impuny. Isn't that curious? This is a mask. A social varnish, but without any depth. This is a form. There is no essence behind it. That is, an ethics of coercion and not conviction. This is just a form. And that's exactly what he's going to talk about next, as I told you. We have today similar things, in

terms of this. It's a little bit what was developing, for example, in Egypt. In Egypt they talked about astrology. Today they talk about astronomy. Alchemy, they talk about chemistry. The mystical psychology, although they didn't use that name, but the knowledge of man was the first thing that was done. And today, the functional psychology, applied to the facts of life. That is, they had a different way of seeing things. Astrology didn't study just the movement of the stars, which is what I think of this movement. Alchemy didn't just study the change of elements, but a positive

change that the elements would change for the better, and not change in any direction. And mystical psychology, thought not to make man simply harmonize, but to harmonize inside and outside, to harmonize with the world. To be a useful piece, a useful cell inside a large body. That is, in the same way that today we study the physical processes, the physical process, the tearing of a sheet of paper, is a physical process, it has changed its shape. The chemical processes, that you put together hydrogen and oxygen, form water, that is, something different. But I can still,

under certain conditions, revert water to hydrogen and oxygen again. Alchemy is a process of essential and irreversible transmutation. The idea of ​​the lead for the gold, of the ignorant for the wise, there is no way for you to make the wise return to being ignorant. It is an essential change that there is no way to return, there is no way to go back. So they used alchemy associated with mystical psychology for the definitive transmutation of beings into something higher in their evolutionary scale. They considered that the whole universe is in evolution. And that beings, as

they evolve, are committed not only to their evolution, but to the evolution of everything they have around them. By your works, you will know yourself. I will be a more balanced person. But I pass and leave the environments worse than they were when I passed. But dirty. Well, it's strange that you are getting better and your works worse. Isn't that so? Because your works come from what? By your works I will know you. So it is natural that if you are getting better, your trail is brighter, your environments are more beautiful, more harmonious. So that

a person looks and says, here a human being passed. It was not any being. To leave an environment with a human being, with this astral, let's say, with this harmony, it was not any being that passed by here. It was a human being. That is, there was gain. If there is gain at one point, there must be in all. That is, alchemy and mixed psychology talked about the growth of the human being, measured by the way in which it helps all nature to grow. And it commits to it. Now you will say, why didn't they

talk about atoms? Why didn't they talk about periodic tables? If they had so much knowledge like that? That's what I put down. That doesn't mean they ignored the current knowledge. It is probably logical, let's not say that Egypt had the technology that the current man has, or that the applied science was at that level. It wasn't. But they could have dedicated all their attention to it, and maybe developed a lot of it. If that were their interest. And I use with you the example of the book, which is not my example, it is that of

Professor Jorge Angel Livraga, who is the founder of Nova Acrópole, and he gives a very interesting example. Imagine that this was a leather cover book, one of those beautiful, in bookstores. And I know everything about this book. I know exactly the molecular composition of the cellulose that gave rise to this paper, and the pigment that gave rise to this ink. I can tell you, even the chemical formula of the pigment. I can tell you exactly how the leather of the cover was extracted and liked. The pigment of the golden letters, I know what its composition

is. I can define everything in this book, materially. But there is something I don't know. That these little symbols that are in here, are more than pigments applied to cellulose. I don't know how to put together these little symbols, and form a sentence, whose content refers to another place that is not here. I don't know how to read the book. Do you understand that? It's an absurd thing. And if you tell me this here, if you read, it will tell you something that is there in the universe, and is not here. You're crazy. There's nothing

like that here. Here we only have black marks made with such pigment. You're making things up. The Egyptians were not so concerned about defining pigment and cellulose, but they were concerned about reading the book of life. And that it reminds us that the whole life is capable of being read. It is a grammar. Life, the symbolism of life is a grammar, which is capable of being read. If you put together the events of your life, the harmony of the facts that accompany you, you read life, it brings you to a reality that is elsewhere. I

know what the law that made this book fall. It is gravity, if the definition of the law of gravity, I don't know, a lot of technical things. I don't know what life is trying to say with that, I don't even believe that it is trying to say anything. Do you understand that? That is, vital illiteracy. For Egypt, it is more important to read the book than to define its materials technically. And it's a little bit what we do today. Define everything technically, but what is everything? Why? We know the know-how, know how, know what I'm

going to use, we are utilitarian, but the why of things itself, no. Our definition, stop to realize that. If I ask you what a house is, what a wall is, what a chair is, you define it, it's for me to live, it's for me to sit, that is, you define things for the utilities that they have for you, and not for themselves. As if things were born to satisfy your desires. We don't stop to think that things are evolving and they are as important as us, and they have the right to be in the universe

as much as us. There is a phrase by a Russian writer, he says the following, there are those who pass through a forest and only see wood for their bonfire. Tolstoy. There are those who pass through a forest and only see wood for their bonfire. More or less how we relate to things. What is the forest itself? If it did not exist, what would it be? In itself, as a being that is in evolution, it has as much right to be here as me. Do you realize that we don't think that way? It's knowing how,

knowing for what, where. No. And for the Egyptians this was the most important. So they had an energy focus focused on transcendence, on the meaning of life, on the reading of life, and see where it pointed, what it wanted to tell you. Because life is a grammar that communicates with you through the symbol. There is content in the corridors of life, being transmitted to you through the facts. Remember that example that I gave you a million times, everyone already knows, decor, of the queue. We enter this line, it does not walk, you go to another,

then the one you were in starts to walk, the one you entered does not walk, and so it goes. In the bank, in the market, everywhere. It's a silly example, but it works well, so I always use it myself. Then you say, it's a coincidence, I'm a random one. You will not learn anything. Why is life putting me in this situation? Is it teaching me that I should be more patient? Maybe have less self-importance, be less vain? Then I have a proposal of response, I reposition myself in front of life. Stop that happening! Oops, I

got it right! Then something else happens. You put a proposal of interpretation. Do you know what will happen? There will come a certain moment that you will be curious to know who the interlocutor is, who is communicating with you, who is being the background of life through this language. Because life is very intelligent. It is very intelligent. This is a language. You have phonemes, you have all the linguistic structure. Life is communicating with you. So the Egyptians prioritized reading life, instead of technically defining the material components of life. And your energy was aimed at that.

And they had a result compatible with what they were looking for. Our historical moment is another, we are looking for another type of result. Building man and deeply understanding life is no longer our goal. That's why it's so hard to understand Egypt. Transforming versus transmuting, as I told you, are different things. It is not that we deny that transformation has a value. That is, I have a discipline to not behave the way I behaved. Okay, this is a start. But if I don't internalize it through a reflection about the reason for this action, about what

this adds to the world, if this is just a mask, at some point it will be broken and it will come out what I really am. In the case of the Holy Spirit. And don't think it's just the Holy Spirit. Some time ago this happened in London. Do you remember that? Very similar. In what we consider the first world. It means that our civilization, no matter how high it is, is superficial. Materialism does not allow depth. Because it's not all about us that is matter. So materialism only reaches what is matter. It generates a rigid

mask, but not infallible. One hour it breaks. And what you have behind it appears. Your true values. You are what you do when the last door closes behind you. Well, then the mental transmutation, the alchemy of the mind, the author of this book, will say that it is the most important study already developed. Certainly. Because we went to the world to become more human. That's what nature is waiting for us. And to become more human, the first thing we have to do is to visualize what a human being is, have an ideal, and work with

a daily discipline to go to it. That is, to know where I want to go and put myself in motion, without hurry and without pause, without holding me in that direction. And that's mind. Inner life is nothing more than the domain of the mind. And it is inner life that generates qualification as a human being. Outer life generates survival. Inner life generates true life. Human life, with a capital H. So he says, this is one of the most important principles, if not the most important to be announced in the history of humanity. Ah, but it's

gravity, it's relativity, I don't know what, it's Newton's laws. Without these we would live, but without human beings we are all condemned. And we are living well that. We know what it is to live in such a brutalized society. There is no life there. We go back to an animal stage. Panic. Panic versus aggressiveness. The universe is mental. So if you believe, and he will explain this very well, we are in chapter 3, chapter 5, he will explain why the universe is mental. He will develop a logical equation to prove to you that the universe

does not exist materially. This is an illusion. Only what exists is the mind. But this is not the time yet. But he will say, if the universe is mental, all the plans, including the physical, are inside the mind. It is a transitory illusion. So if you want to change something, start with what is real. Otherwise you will not do great things. There will be no definitive transformation. There will be a mere palliative. In fact, the Indian Ayurvedic medicine said that health is the same thing. In fact, the medicine of Asclepius, Seraphs in Egypt, Asclepius in

Greece, was the same thing. You have to dream about the origin of your problem in subtle, mental, emotional plans. Because otherwise you close an impact organ. It's like these forces break your physical body. The physical body is the impact organ. You closed a point, so to speak, a point where these forces outweighed. It will break elsewhere. Because the forces that caused the health mismatch did not stop acting. The physical plane is merely an impact organ of reality, which is mental. So you are practicing a palliative. Soon we will give an example that shows this very

clearly. Do you remember that movie Matrix? Matrix, as you want, if you want more original pronunciation. Where those two brothers, I don't remember the name now, they based Buddhism and outlined it very well. Do you remember the boy with the spoon? Do you remember that? When he enters the house there ... And he asks, how do you do this? I don't believe this is real. So I do what I want with it, because I know this is not real. As I know it's not real, I have a domain on it. And then at the end,

why that character? In fact, we have a lecture on this movie, on YouTube, if you are curious. Why Neo-Gil, whatever you want, why doesn't he die at the end, when they shoot him inside the Matrix? Why? Because he knows he wasn't there, that's a mere shadow. We are not here, this is a mere shadow. He was aware of the reality, that he, in essence, was not even there. So you couldn't kill him if he wasn't even there. That is a very well-created symbolism that they created to show that the man who is aware of his

essence dominates matter. And he will talk a lot about it. Because when we see those chaos, Moses opened the Red Sea, Jesus Christ walked over the waters, all tradition has this story. I told you, stories, let's say, legends. Look, there is a symbolic part, but there is also something of reality. These masters, at this level of wisdom, really have the domain of matter. Matter is a mere illusion projected by the mind. And they are really capable of producing things that for us would be absurd. All tradition has its stories. That's what he's going to talk

about here later. Mental transmutation is the art of changing the conditions of the universe in the divisions of matter, force and mind. So a person who really has the ability to dominate the mental plane, has a capacity to act on the material plane out of the ordinary. But these are just the top, the powerful chiefs of wisdom, the great ones, who act directly on matter. He says that the minor sages or philosophers act on matter through their minds. They change the mental pattern and the body will act differently. But there is a possibility that a

great master of wisdom acts directly on matter. Today I read an Indian tradition, because we know many Western traditions, but there is a book in the Indian tradition called The Life of Milarepa, which tells this Tibetan sage. Milarepa, who is the founder of one of the lines of Tibetan Buddhism, says that he did fantastic wonders in the material world. He is capable of producing storms, stopping storms, doing things. In general, these masters do not do exhibitionism because they are not greedy. But they have this ability to act on matter. If we stop to think, it

is not such an absurd thing, but it is a legendary thing. Imagine our body, if we were the last instances of what this organic matter of our body consists of. It is composed of cells, which in turn are composed of molecules, which in turn are composed of atoms. An atom, for example, of carbon, very present in our body. If you study the mutation of the elements in a periodic table, you know that an atom in 70 years almost nothing happens to it. 70 years is not time for an atom. For an element to transform itself

in the periodic table, it is a universe of time. That is, if an atom in 70 years does not change anything, why do we, who are made of atoms, change so much? Have you ever stopped to think about it? You realize that, in fact, it is as if there was software there, in the subtle plane, sending the atoms to organize in a different way, because we are humans. Until two years it is like this, until five years it is like this, until ten years it is like this. Until a year of age it grows at

a speed that if we continued to grow at that speed, it would become a giant. Then it decelerates, decelerates, decelerates, and then it shrinks at the end. In other words, a software, something in the mental plane, that tells a dog to behave differently. A 15-year-old dog is already old. We are in the flower of age. In other words, a software, in the mental plane, a law of life, that makes the atoms behave this way. It's like the magnet, a sheet of paper, is the iron mesh up here. The metal mesh obeys, it is what the

magnet down there is sending. In other words, there are laws in the mental plane. And the matter is organizing itself by giving this command. In other words, reality is in the mental plane. Now, imagine that a person who has so much knowledge of the mental plane, was able to make a small change in this software. You must have heard of great men in history, who we also generally think are legends, who are able to have a much greater longevity. Deaccelerate this process of aging. Because there is a mission to fulfill in the world. We heard

about it, the Trismegistus himself. The Egyptian tradition said that he lived 300 years. Ah, he's a legend. It may be. But it may not be so much. So there are men with this degree of wisdom, according to the traditions. Who am I to say there are? But these traditions from all over the world say that there are men capable of acting in the mental plane and acting directly in the matter. But in lower levels, what do we do? Act in our mind. And our mind acts on the body, and the body acts differently. In me

or in others. It's an indirect way, but it ends up causing transformations in the matter in the same way. And that's simpler. That's what we've seen happen. Were you going to ask something? In fact, the mental plane, it has two faces. It's like you imagine a mirror facing down, or facing up. The mental plane is a modus operandi to understand the world around us. But it can do that according to material goals, which is the mirror facing down, or according to spiritual goals, which is the mirror facing up. Then, when he talks about mind in

this sense, he's talking about a pure mind, facing up. Because the mind facing down is the executive of a large company. Use the mind too. Use a mind to operationalize your personal success, your egoism. But it's the same modus operandi. Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa. Divide and understand. Do you have any of these papers here for me to explain this to you? Yes, this one is still blank. It's less a comment I'm going to receive. The mind is a way of understanding the world, manifested around us. Now the mind has a characteristic, it

divides to understand. Divide, divide, understand. Isn't that right? I have a chair in my house, it's square, it's yellow, it's soft. You take out what it's not, to visualize. Ah, I got it. Imagine I try to explain to you a chair I have at home, but it's big but it's small too. It's square but it's round too. It's yellow but it's also blue. You'll say, enough! Take something out, for God's sake. Otherwise I don't understand. The mind divides to understand. It has a way, it thinks. It is mediated by reasoning. It says there is another

way to understand within a man, which is intuition. It doesn't divide, it joins. It joins. It joins. Ah, I got it. It only sees things in the whole and it is not mediated by anything, it is automatic. It is another way of understanding. But the mind is one, who changes is the boss. When it works for matter, it works for the spirit. Continuing, he will say, the smaller disciples, that is, people with less wisdom, closer to what we understand, closer to our normal knowledge, also change, but through the mind. So I change my way of

thinking, logically, it changes my feelings, it changes my energies, it will change the health of my body, and it will transform the world. But mediated by dense vehicles, and not immediately producing phenomena, like the great masters. But that also changes the world. If you change the way of thinking of people, you change the world. He says that this is very fashionable. This is in 1908. He doesn't know what happened 100 years later. This practice of mental, mentalism, mental concentration to obtain things, if it was already in fashion in 1908, today it is literally, as it

is popularly said today, bomb. What there is of movements, and movies, and practices doing this, but he says, these practices that are made of mind control, to obtain things, are not as efficient as you think. Because for a mental practice to have effect, man had to be very pure. Because working with mental practices is like accentuating the light of this room, to be able to illuminate better here on the floor. I accentuated my mental capacity. Okay, the light has increased. But if you don't take out the objects that are in the middle of the way,

you won't throw light on the floor, you will throw shade. Do you understand? So I increase the light, but it's full of dirt in the middle of the way, I won't have more light in life. I will have shade of a lot of things. So for the mental domain to be rounded in a quality of human life, more human beings, you would have to have together purification. Otherwise you will have what is very common in our current moment. There are executives, people, of big companies, with a work capacity that is something crazy, and a fantastic

mental concentration, ingenious, creative. This sky of big companies, even Steve Jobs himself says that he worked quietly 15, 16 hours a day, level of mental activity out of the ordinary, explosive. But if he didn't clean up materialism, selfishness, vanity, what will he project into the world? If not merely material works, very temporary, that two, three years after he died are already defaced. It doesn't change significantly the life of humanity. And sometimes it can even generate loss, depending on the character that is behind it. Do you understand? So concentration, imagination, mental canalization, it's good. But if

there is no purification, if there is no humanization, a construction of more human values and deeper ones, you can have a genius producing disasters. And a person who has a character deformation it is better that her mind is weak, isn't it? A criminal is better that he is out of focus. Don't you think so? It's better that he doesn't have the imagination. The Red Command was better that he had no imagination. Because if he has, it's a disgrace. Imaginary bandit is the worst thing in the world. So these things have no value in themselves, but

by the use you make of them. And for that there would have to be obstacles, gross, personalistic, in the middle of the way. That is, you shouldn't do practices of mental domain without a good practice of character formation, moral purification, construction of values. Because it is counterproductive. It can turn against humanity. That's what he's saying. And today, then, this is the latest trend. I told you about the story, and you know what I'm referring to, right? The story of mental practices to get a spot in the mall, it's not a joke. You must have seen

it. A man takes a dollar note, puts a bunch of zeros, sticks it on the ceiling of his room, on the bed where he sleeps, and opens his eyes. But he keeps looking at it, concentrating. Mental domain practices to have a million dollars. Didn't you see that? It's not possible that you left me scandalizing myself. I'm not going to mention names to be discreet, but let's go and see. This existed and it was very recent. And there was a bombastic fashion of it. Did it exist? Huh? I don't know, because I still can't get a

spot in the mall, so I can't. I can't attest to the veracity of the business, but that there was fashion, there was. Then he goes to this other information, which is very interesting. Our chapter today is very small, we are almost closing. He will say the following. The mental state of the other can change consciously or unconsciously, if defenseless, and generate facts in practical life. Here are two serious things, or three, or I don't know how many. The mental state of the other can change consciously or unconsciously. Do you know what that means? What you

are, whether you want it or not, spreads. You have a very negative mental form. No, but I didn't talk to anyone. I don't want anyone to know about it. I don't want to hurt anyone with my hatred, for example. You can be sure you are hurting. Because what you are constantly feeding radiates and contaminates all humanity. It's the history of the pool. It's also an example that I usually give. It puts several human beings inside a pool. If one has a skin disease, it spreads to everyone. That's why we do skin tests before entering the

pool. Imagine that the mental plane is like that too. The big mental pool. We are all inside it. A very negative mental form of a person who is in Japan can occur in your mind, in our mind, at any time. It's wandering through the mental plane. If a very influential person takes on a negative behavior because you fed him, a part of the responsibility is yours. In India, they call it karma. Those we influence, both for good and for evil, a part of their pain is our responsibility. It's negative karma. Those who, through your example,

behave badly, a part of their suffering is your fault. It's your karma. You will have to suffer together. Imagine that. Do you understand? It's one of the most complicated things in our education process, for example, which would make no sense for the classical world. Plato talks about it when he defines education in a very interesting way. Imagine an excellent math teacher. He knows how to teach math very well. But he is a person who, in his private life, is drugged, has a life that is all out of tune, is aggressive. When the child admires this

teacher because of math, does she tend to think that, to be so competent, she has to live as he lives? Do you realize that he spreads his vices through his disability? And a person who has so many vices, it would be better if he were a bad math teacher. Because it is less serious for the child not to know math than to receive this influence in life. So what we are, somehow, due to our efficiency, due to our virtues, we drive this, we propagate this, we generate examples that we tend to follow. And the suffering

of the people who make mistakes because they followed us, is our responsibility. In a way, they are all our children. It is a family. Humanity is our family. It is our responsibility. That we do this consciously or unconsciously. In general, unconsciously. In our case, in the medium term, no one stops thinking I'm going to hurt you. This is not a common thing. But if we feed the vices, we are assuming the fact that this can contaminate other people. And the more efficient we are at work, at anything, you give more space for the propagation of

what is behind your virtues. Greater penetration. Greater firepower. Because people are very intuitive. They don't just notice what you're saying. They notice everything you are. And everything you are, you propagate. A macerate propagates apple. There's no way. And if we are rude, we propagate rudeness. If we are selfish, we propagate selfishness. Whether we want it or not. There is a detail that is very interesting, that he will put there. And this can change the state of mind of the other to be defenseless. And generate facts in practical life. That is, I can change your mental

state if you are not attentive, if you are defenseless. And most of us are defenseless on the mental plane, which is not a joke. Remember the story of the swimming pool. When a person becomes a sage, they say in good tongues, that he knows as if he had created a wall around his emotional plane, his mental plane. Here nothing comes in. Here I only have what I put. He creates his own world, that he knows perfectly what is his and what is not. We don't have this whole identity. So constantly, the thoughts and feelings of

the people around us will enter us. There is no way. At our level, there is no way. So how do you have an identity? Do you know how? You, by definition, take a sheet of paper and write who am I? I am a person who thinks like this, has such principles, has such feelings. Anything different from this script is not me. And therefore I will not identify myself. Then comes a negative mental form of criticism, of anger. You see her coming, you can't stop her from entering, but you say, this is not mine. Welcome, criticism.

Bye, criticism. Until the next criticism. Go away. You don't create ties with her. The way she enters, she leaves. You don't feed. Now, if there is a criticism and you don't have an identity, you will say, why am I thinking this? Ah, you will see that it is because yesterday he treated me in such a way. That's what made me like this. Then you take that, take over, create a historical, root it, and in a little while it will be yours. A sadness. Hasn't this happened to you? Nothing happened in your life. Suddenly there is

a sadness. It can be anyone. In the middle of 7 billion human beings. Most likely someone closer to you emotionally. It can be anyone. If you don't have an identity, you will assume that. Why am I sad? Ah, it was because when I was little, my mother told me such and such. I had an Freudian trauma. That is, I already created roots, ties with the thing. I didn't need it. Look, there's a sadness going by. Bye, sadness. I wanted you to fix a lot, if that's necessary. Suddenly you even find out who the owner is.

Looking, you usually notice people by looking. Oops! It was she who lost that sadness. I'm feeling that it comes from her. If you have a lot of identity, a lot of purity, you know who you are, that's intelligence, right? Intelligent. Choose from within. Choose from within the things that you are not, who you are. This is by definition, it is an act of will. It is not discipline. I am this, this, this, anything. Apart from that, it's not me. I lost a sadness here. Who was it? Is it yours? That is, you can even find

the owner. And you don't identify with the things that come, and they go. They don't stay. This protects you. So, if you don't have identity, you don't know what you are, in the middle of this world of noise and information, anything that is projected on you stays. And creates roots. Then he will spend a chapter talking about it. It's about mental manipulation. How people throw ideas and you develop and think it's yours. Create a history for them and think it's yours. And it was not. It was an idea that was launched. There is a whole

chapter that he will talk about it, which is the mental gender. Do you want to ask something, Franklin? It's about this depression. Actually, when you talk, let me go to a place where I can see you behind the pilaster. When you talk about a depression, you have already entered a terrain where the thing has somatized a lot. Your body is already responding. Because there is, it's like a pendulum. We have a psychic center. I'm not a teacher of this, I'm a philosopher. But you have a psychic center. And there is a degree of oscillation that

is within your domain. A sadness, a little joy, it's within your domain. You don't lose contact with your identity. But if you don't take care of it, it generates an increasingly exacerbated eccentricity. There comes a certain moment that is pathological, because it somatizes. And certain psychic diseases, if you do a physical exam in the person, detects the behavior of hormones, the behavior of the physical body is already altered. Then you will need a physical treatment. You alone will probably not want to reverse. This is not bad, you can reverse. Physical treatment has no problem. But

it would be good for us to be careful when it starts to extrapolate too much. When it starts to lose contact with the center. When these reactions start to get very extrapolated. Because our society has no criterion. The criterion today is that everyone extrapolates on the emotional plane. It's even good. It's a sign of strong personality. From the oriental point of view, this is the most curious thing in the world. They consider that you have a human being and an animal down here. That is the one who makes the interface with the world. And this

animal that makes the interface with survival, with the world, is the personality. And you have your human being up here. So when a person comes to you and says, I have a strong personality. He is telling you, I have a weak essence. It's like the knight saying, I have a strong horse. So the knight is bad. Because who was to be strong was the knight. Control the horse. The person is proud of it. If you do something with me, I become an animal. But for God's sake, are you proud to become an animal? Do you

realize? That we are proud of things that in other historical moments would be shameful. If I become an animal, I hide. If I become a person, nobody sees. If the personality is strong, I hide. It's a sign that my ego is weak. It doesn't spread. We put it on the showcase. So these extrapolations sometimes become pathologies. And then there has to be a physical interference. But you need a doctor. Because when it comes to somatizing, you need a doctor. It changes the whole structure of the organism. Well, anyway. Being a person who has defenses, being

a person who has identity, and discipline to manage this identity every day. Without hurry and without pause. Every day checking if my life is consistent with what I am. And I am because I defined. I am because I want. There is a scheme. Very silly and rough. But you can have an idea of ​​that. Imagine that inside you there is a being. Our essence. This one we are trying to find. The being up there. Above the animal. The knight in relation to the horse. Then no one taught us what it was. Maybe we are not

in a historical moment very focused on that. We have a personality that involves this. Well, we have personality but we don't have pen. But that's okay. Which is the lookalike. Do you realize that this lookalike sometimes has nothing to do with being? Everyone looks the same. It's a massification. It's what's in fashion. Everyone acts the same. Thinks the same. Feels the same. The lookalike is the personality. Sometimes it is so distorted by the middle. The person is so turned away. There is so little internal dialogue. Seeks so little for himself. That this lookalike is sometimes

a mask totally distorted. And the same for everyone. The same behavior. The same feelings. The same way of reacting. Then you come with the external element. That is the wanting to be. That is what philosophy builds. Philosophy is exactly that. It is the wanting to be. I want to be generous. Ah, but you are being false. Because you are not like that. My being inside is. What is not the personality. I want to be a harmonious person. I want to be a person who considers the other's feelings. You are forcing the bar. You are not

like that. I'm not forcing the bar. I am like that. My personality is distorted. So this discipline that you build by definition. The list you make. It is more like you than your spontaneity. Because spontaneity was deformed by habit. It was deformed by culture. Do you understand? Your will is more like you than spontaneity. Spontaneity is not you. If you were born in another historical moment, it would be something else. It is a conditioning of the middle. The discipline is more like you than the let life take me, life takes me. As the samba says.

And this construction is exactly what he is calling identity. My little list. Why am I? Because I want to. I am generous. So this selfish thought is not mine. Who lost an egoism there? It's not mine. I am what? Altruistic. Because I want. I defined. My little list is like that. My personality. I am what? I am not. That's why we needed to review our concept of spontaneity. Spontaneity puts spontaneity as something of sincerity. Sincerity is fidelity to the true. And the true is this and not this. Spontaneity, if you go looking for Aurelio, is

acting in conformity with what you are. Isn't that what spontaneity is? I am a spontaneous person who acts in conformity with what she is. So, for me to be spontaneous, I would have to know what I am. And not what I am. Because this in general has nothing to do with me. It's a family conditioning, cultural, environmental, in many ways. If I had been born on the other side of the world, maybe it would be different. This is not me. This is an external construction. And that sometimes hurts violently and blocks my true being. So

spontaneous is to be faithful to this and not to that. And for that there is philosophy. It relates directly. By definition. This is identity construction. I am like this because I want. I made a list. I am this because I want. And don't think this is forced. This is real. Forced is this. It's the mask. Do you understand this idea? And this defends you. Because then you already have an element of definition of what you are and what you are not. Therefore, discernment. Differentiate the core of things. You already have an element of definition. Because

until then, you would not know who a thought or feeling belongs to. This is a philosophical construction. This is not for wise people. This is for philosophers, lovers of wisdom. Perfectly plausible. And this defends you from mental manipulations. Which is what happens most. You don't need to have superpowers. We have today several ways to blow ideas without people realizing it. Because soon there will be a whole group thinking the same. And they think they were the authors of it. That they were builders and conditioned. And finally, the most important thing is to understand that the

mind is not the only one. And that it is the most important of the seven principles of the Caibal. It is mentalism. We usually tell a story in Nova Acrópole. It was a story that I invented for my students many, many years ago. To explain why philosophy is voluntary. People have such a materialistic mental form today. That they think that volunteering is a good thing. But it is not. Because it is a form of self-determination. It is a form of self-determination. It is a form of self-determination. They think that social volunteering is merely charity. Which

is a good thing. We do charity. But it's not just that. And maybe that's not even the main thing. And it has a lot to do with this principle of mentalism. Which is the story of the water puddle. Some of you may already know. I used to say, imagine that you have a gutter. And this gutter caused a water puddle here on the ground. Then it divides humanity into three groups. The first group is the group of aliens. They step on everything. They make a salt lava. And they are not even there for that. The

second group is the group of well-intentioned. They come here, look at this and say, someone has to do something. They take the cloth, the rod, clean everything. They pass the detergent and clean the floor. Did they solve it? They didn't solve it. Because the gutter continues. And in a little while the puddle is there again. And in a little while the alienation troop comes. They step on everything, fill everything with mud. Then comes a third group. So you can say that the well-intentioned, they are indeed well-intentioned, but they are not efficient. And a third group

would be the philosophical mentality. The philosopher, at first, will clean the floor, because you will not argue in the mud. But the next question he will ask, where is this coming from? He will look up and see the gutter. He climbs there with certain tiles, tiles, slabs, with certain everything. The gutter is over, the puddle is over. The puddle is over, the mud is over. Realize that this act of looking up is very symbolic. Only the fool believes that the causes of physical misery are in the physical plane. The causes of physical misery have always

been and will always be in the psychological, moral and spiritual plane of man. I always exemplify in this case. Is misery a lack of material goods or a lack of fraternity? Is hunger a lack of food or a lack of honesty? You realize that what is missing is up there, in the mental plane, in the emotional plane, in the human psychic plane. The needs you have down here are merely the puddle of water, mere consequence. And it's not bad to dry the puddle, but it's a necessary condition. But it's not a sufficient condition, it's a

palliative. You do not solve the problems of the world if you do not act up there, in the plane of values, in the way a man thinks and feels the world. And this is the principle of mentalism. Philosophy acts there. That's why it's a voluntary work, yes, and one of the most necessary in the current world. We are no longer in moments for just palliatives. We never were. We must act on the causes. It is to act on the causes, it is to act on the mental plane, starting with ourselves, to be an example of

transformation and prove that this is possible. Go against the mass, think, feel and live as a human being. Well, today our chapter is this, and for you it is very small. Therefore, the principle of the chocolate cake is worth even more strongly eating a small slice of a chocolate cake. It takes longer, in general, if it is well flavored, than three and a half pages. Therefore, it will be very difficult for you to generate the mental form that it did not take time, because I will not believe it. I really hope you can read it.

While it is still recent, so that you can join what was heard with what you are reading, generate doubts. The idea is that we have a study group, it is not a conventional lecture. I know it is a different mentality, because sometimes the person gets a little shy, afraid to expose himself, but it gets much more productive if you read, if you bring doubts, which expand the understanding much more than just an oral exposition. So I count on you for next week to read chapter 4. Ideally, it would be to read it before. It was

not good. Read later, read at some point. But the idea is that you follow reading. That's right? Any more questions, people? So that's it. I really appreciate your presence, so many people on a Thursday after the carnival. Really, very good. And next week, I don't know how many.