BARDO THODOL (2009): legado tibetano sobre a Morte - LÚCIA HELENA GALVÃO

[Music] BARDO TODHOL - Tibetan legacy on death Lúcia Helena Galvão (2009) Well, the proposal today... Yesterday we were talking about something quite practical here. We were talking about time management. And today we're going for something a little more delicate, a little more complex to understand. It's a little bit... basically, a little bit of the history of Tibet. and basically the story of a book, which is this one here: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, known as Bardo Thodol. The bardo, the crossing, the release from the moment of death, through hearing. We will see what this

means. What is the purpose of this book. It is one of the classic works, known in the West today, of that so obscure, even today, such obscure Tibetan tradition. So, consider we have two hours. What can we talk about it in two hours is a short summary, we can't go that deep. This course, like all the activities we do in New Acropolis, are a small extract of what we do inside the Philosophy course in the classical way. We have in one of our course levels a series of subjects, which are the theological symbologies, where we

study traditions from both East and West ancient religions that no longer exist today. To know how they were structured. And one of these traditions that we study is also Tibetan Buddhism. So, we go into this in more detail, as it is due. Today, the intent is quite reduced. Well, let's talk basically about Tibet. Today it came to light for two reasons: 1 - through China; the invasion that China made, that generated a whole controversy, a whole political discussion, especially through the Dalai Lama and his world travels and his peaceful protest against this invasion and all

the publicity that was made around that. So what we know today is not much more than these two pieces of information. What is Tibet? It's a faraway country that, at a certain moment, who knows why, was invaded by China. And had a religious leader, who is the Dalai Lama, that sometimes we don't even know what religion is it. "Oh, it's Buddhism"... but Buddhism... exactly the same Buddhism that exists in Japan? Zen Buddhism? exactly the same Buddhism that was born in India? with Sidharta Gautama? No! It's an absolutely unique Buddhism. It is the buddhism of the

lamasian school Gelugpa. We are going to know a little bit of this history. I apologize for the pronunciation, because tibetan is not a language that I have the mastery to know exactly how to pronounce these words. It is quite exotic, but the fact is that, today, we still know very little. It's curious. Helena Blavatsky, the author of this book that I told you we will see next week, the Voice of Silence, she passes through Tibet in the 19th century. At that time, it was inhospitable. There were only a few Westerners who set foot there. Non-Tibetan

men who entered Tibet. Today is still not one of the easiest things to do. To get there is not yet one of the easiest things. You can still count the foreigners that walk there. Also because that's not very desirable. The policy that China implemented in the Tibetan territory is not very pleasant for them that the whole world knows exactly what is happening there. Then, even today, Tibet is very enigmatic. Very closed off, we don't know exactly what goes on inside, exactly what this country is like. And it's not a small country. It's a country the

size of Western Europe, it's 10 French borders, a large territory. Although the population is small and getting smaller. After the Chinese invasion, smaller and smaller. Because a massive Chinese population was settled in that territory. And the Tibetans are a minority today in their own country. But it is a huge territory and with a lot of history. I'm not sure if you are aware, but many of the civilizations that we consider and know today, that we consider as having a history of their own, enigmatic, the names we refer to them, it's not a name that they

referred to themselves by. It's a name that was created by the invaders. For example Egypt - Egypt is hidden, mysterious. Who called Egypt Egypt was greco-roman civilization. The Egyptians didn't call themselves Egypt, they were the Country of Kem. Nor did Tibet call itself Tibet. Today, I think they've already assimilated that idea. But Tibet means goat, it's the land of goats. So it's a name that came later. Incorporated, implanted by the invaders. Of questionable etymology. They didn't call themselves that way. Another thing, when we get to know it, we have the impression that Tibet well, all

they had... they were a barbaric people, very scarce culture, very sparse, that everything they received, they received from India. It's one of the most questionable things. Today, historians themselves no longer claim this with such certainty. Because traditions say the opposite happened. Much of what India received came from the influence of Tibet. That has always been a land dedicated to mysteries. Dedicated to the wise, because think about it, it's an inhospitable place. If you want to isolate yourself, be in a safe place, where you can dedicate yourself to your meditations, to your reflections, without anyone interrupting

you, Tibet was a good candidate. A place that is cut by several mountain ranges. The most famous of them - the Himalayas. An average altitude of 4.500 meters. A temperature that reaches -30ºC in winter. Dry, extremely dry. There are certain regions completely unsuitable for life. Very complicated, a place that is difficult to access even today. So the place is very isolated. Exactly because it's isolated, for a long time, it is said that Tibet was the chosen place when people wanted to isolate themselves. To dedicate themselves to meditation, to the pursuit of a deeper understanding of

oneself. I mean, many masters of wisdom have retreated to Tibet. Tibet has always been very much associated with this idea of mystery, of wisdom. A thing that sometimes students ask me: Why, throughout history, we hear about schools and masters, not only in the East, but also in the West. For example, Pythagoras, and other western schools inside Egypt itself, that were isolated from public knowledge, it seems that they hid themselves. Selfish, no? They didn't want to share this knowledge with us. Why would they do that? Generally, when humanity declines, there is a characteristic that is terrible,

but you must agree that it's a fact. When humanity declines, it tends to use knowledge for its own selfishness. And knowledge ends up working more against humanity than for it. Plato, he had a terrible phrase, that he said: "It is better to have absolute ignorance than knowledge in the hands of the wrong people". So, there has always been on the part of these men who possessed knowledge greater than average, greater-than-average wisdom, a non-selfish concern; quite the contrary, altruistic. That humanity would not have access to information that it could use against itself. Like a child with

a sharp knife in her hand. What will she do with that? She will cut herself... Is a sharp knife good or bad? It depends. It is great in the hands of a cook, it is terrible in the hand of a madman, of a child, who has no condition to cut... Then, knowledge is like a sharp knife. Excellent, depending on what you use it for. So, many times, when humanity has fallen, you will notice that these schools of wisdom had to hide. It has happened many times in history. Both in the West and in the East.

You will see that when Greece collapses, one of the first things that happens... Elêusis, Samothrace, schools of wisdom where Plato studied, where various kings studied, they vanish from the map, they hide. Because they are at risk, including their lives. When Islam declines, the Sufi schools disappear. Several sufi masters were killed. So these schools have always looked for relatively isolated locations. To protect, not only themselves, but to protect the human being from himself. To carrying knowledge that he has no moral basis to support. An interesting thing, which is a reflection that we always do in our

our philosophy course, as well. Knowledge, as anything, like the example I just gave you of the knife, is not good or bad in itself; good or evil is the use you make of it. So, imagine a person who has a state-of-the-art knowledge of atomic physics, is that good? What if it's a terrorist, a psychopath, a Nazi anything like that... Wouldn't it be better if he had no knowledge at all? So it's a series of points we have to consider. And these schools had it very concretely. The Egyptian school of Hermes Trimegistrus talked about it. The

lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding. So for a number of reasons like this, Tibet was, for a long time, the seat of much knowledge, of many inner schools. And it is said... And that's an important thing for you to understand. Was Tibet Buddhist? Yes! But before Tibet was Buddhist, it was already Buddhic. It already had a whole tradition. What is the difference between being Buddhic and being a Buddhist? Budhi is a word that means enlightenment, wisdom. Buddhism is that which began from the advent of Sidharta Gautama, a man, a historical

tradition. Before there was Buddhist philosophy, there was Buddhic philosophy. The one who pursued enlightenment through wisdom. Tibet was already Buddhist before it was Buddhist, there was already a lot there. One of the things we're going to realize is that the Bardo Todhol was already in Tibet, long before the first Buddhist stepped there. It was a popular tradition passed on, generation after generation, long before the first Buddhist stepped foot there. Buddhism, when it arrives, it incorporates itself into all this tradition. It assimilates all this tradition, in a very eclectic way, it assimilates everything that was already

there. So when did the history of Tibet begin? Hard for us to know. What is known is that when Buddhism arrives there, it was already a somewhat decadent tradition, at least the popular tradition. The religion that was in Tibet when Buddhism arrives, Buddhism arrives in the 7th century, approximately. Some monks, mainly from India, begin to arrive in that region. When it arrives, the dominant religion was a religion called Bon, or Boen which was a shamanistic religion, similar to the African religions, in which minor sorcery was practiced, small popular magics. It was already a decadence of

Tibet, the moment Buddhism gets there. And Buddhism, when it arrives, unites to what was best in these traditions. Reclaims those traditions. And creates a Buddhist form that is absolutely unique. That, by the way, is a very special feature of Buddhism. Where it passes, it fits with what was already there, and creates its own way of being, that nowhere else exists. Buddhism when it passes through Tibet, it joins the Boen tradition. When it passes through China, it joins Taoism. When it passes through Japan, he joins Shintoism. Then you will have Lamian Buddhism, you'll have the Chinese

Shana school, you'll have Zen Buddhism in Japan. Each place has a tonic, has its own coloring. It still has the same principles behind it, but it took on a coloring of its own. With the passing of time, of course, what we have there today is already very different from what we had in the beginning. But in the beginning, there was a mixture, a syncretism, where the best of the local elements were incorporated, and also the principles of the Sidharta Gautama tradition. Then, Sidharta Gautama, that master we popularly know as Buddha, who lives in India in

the sixth century B.C., in the 2nd century B.C. there is the first Canon, a Sacred work of the Buddhism is published, which is the Dhammapada, Canon Pali, and this begins to spread in various directions, especially after an emperor called Azoca, that everyone knows, right? He is the great defender of Buddhism in India. Today Buddhism in India is less than 1% of the population. Buddhism has not prospered in India, which is where Sidharta Gautama was born. It prospered in the neighboring regions and in Tibet it incorporates itself to everything there, and creates a series of traditions,

a series of masters pass through there, Pagina Sambava, Atisha, and above all, a master passing by, in the 15th century, who was called Tsongkhapa, a Chinese, he was no longer even Indian, a Chinese, Tsongkhapa, arrives in Tibet, finds a still very troubled region, two traditions that were still half at war with each other and he manages to incorporate all of this, and creates a school, which is the one we know from the Dalai Lama, which is the Gelugpa, of the yellow caps. It's not the only form of Buddhism that exists in Tibet. There are, at

least, three great schools, which are the red turbans (the Eningma), there's Sakya and then there's Kagi Appa Karma Kagyu, which are the black turbans. Three to four schools that still lived, at least at the time when India arrives in the region. The most famous of all is the one we know from the Dalai Lama. The structure of Lamaistic Buddhism incorporates two traditions. I won't go into too much detail about this, because we would be here all night explaining it to you, how much Buddhism has diversified throughout history. Buddhism fundamentally divided into three lines, which were

the Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. And the Buddhism that interferes there in Tibet is mainly the Mahayana line and the Vajrayana line. I don't want to dwell too much on this historical part, because it gets a little monotonous, but just for you to have outlines. What is the fundamental difference of the two great streams of Buddhism? What were the Hinayana and the Mahayana? The Hinayana, or small vehicle, that is the oldest school, is the one that is inspired by the teachings of Buddha and seeks liberation through wisdom. The ideal is liberation through wisdom: The wise man,

the Aratti - the one who liberates himself. What is the difference from Mahayana? Mahayana has a curious detail; Its entire tradition is fundamentally based on a single sentence from Sidharta Gautama. He said the following: That I will not rest until I see the back of the last man penetrating into Nirvana. Imagine yourselves... I will not rest until I see the back of the last man entering Nirvana. Meaning that presumed the last one is who? Evidently, himself. So Mahayana does not have as an ideal the man who liberates himself through wisdom. But the man who walks

towards wisdom leaving clear footprints so that others may follow. Their ideal is not Barati, it is Bodhisattva. It is not the person who is liberated, it is the person who walks towards liberation taking with him the greatest possible number of human beings. It is not simply individual salvation, it is fraternity. So it has a whole very different tonic and that made it have a very quick reach. Mahayana quickly spread. It is one of the traditions that you will see that, when Buddhism arrives in Tibet, the tradition that is carried there through Padmasambhava is the Mahayana

tradition. The Mahayana school has had the greatest impact in Tibet. And also the Vajrayana tradition, which is very similar to what I already had there. The Vajrayana tradition... Vajra, folks, means diamond, In Tibetan it means Dorge, the diamond, the diamond vehicle. You will see that it is common that the great Masters in Tibet have this epithet in their name, Dorge - the diamond. They considered that the whole process of evolution of the human being consisted of making his mind like a diamond: strong, determined, absolutely solid in its principles, but transparent and luminous. Absolutely transparent, pure

and luminous. But strong, resistant. We tend to think that pure and transparent things are fragile, right? Imagine how these two attributes combine in a diamond. Strong, tremendously tough, a diamond is able to cut through glass, and at the same time transparent, clean, pure. They say that a mind that is like this, through it you can see the world in such a way that anything that happens to you can be favorable. There is even a phrase from the Vajrayana school, that I find very beautiful. They say that the good pilot, who knows where his port is,

can handle the sails in such a way that any wind is favorable to him. If I know I want to go there, any event in my life can help me to move in that direction. Any event in my life, I can face it. In the sense of drawing from it experience that allows me to be more what I set out to be. Events do not hinder me, they add up. So it's a very interesting element, the view of life experiences as tools, as opportunities, and not as problems. So the Vajrayana school had that line. At

first it was that, and these three traditions add up within Tibet. Especially the Mahayana and the Vajrayana. So this master, that is Tson Kapa, who according to Buddhist tradition... Well, then there would be a whole structure for me to explain to you as well. They say that Sidharta Gautama, the Buddha himself, would have returned a few times to the world, to reform the Buddhist tradition. And one of the times would have been Tson Kapa himself. It is said that he would be Buddha himself. One of the strands, one of many stories that circulate within Buddhism.

Tson Kapa, then, is the one who builds the whole structure of this line that we know as from Gelugpa, the yellow turbans. That it is a priestly structure. Tibet was a theocracy. The Lama, the high Lama, who was the Dalai Lama, he is at the same time temporal leader, he is at the same time religious leader, he was the ruler of Tibet. And for a long time it was like this, with ups and downs. Let's not say that all the governors of Tibet history was, let's say, uneventful, we had many ups and downs. We even

had cases of murder of some Dalai Lamas in history, because of politics. So let's not be so childish as to think that it has always been a paradise. The fact is that there was a very rich religious tradition, with two strands that always exist in all these peoples. An exoteric one, which is popular religion, and an esoteric, internal one, that were these monasteries, where it is said that much wisdom was kept. The very heart of Tibet was very little known to the public. Well, all this will trigger our historical moment in what you know: The

revolution in China, the creation of the chinese communist party, the Puomi Tang, the invasion of Tibet, the destruction of most of the monasteries, the Order of the Sidenas, the death of many monks, the religious persecution, and the cultural dilution that is experienced today. Nowadays, inTibet, we can't even say exactly what still exists there. A lot has certainly been lost. So that's a panel in a nutshell of Tibet's history. Of course, if I were to give a history lecture, two hours would not be enough. There are too many details. The most important thing for us is

to understand what it means - that's the focus of this lecture today - what it means to make a book to teach people how to die. The Bardo Thodol, which is a book said to have been compiled by Padma Sambava in the 7th century, compiled, because this was hitherto transmitted by oral tradition. Don't be surprised because you're going to say: Did they pass on by oral tradition a book that size? Look, the Vedas were transmitted orally. The four Indian Vedas. It was an obligation of the Brahmans to memorize it. When a tradition is written down,

it usually means that the people are decadent. Then one can no longer trust in people's memory, so you have to write. Generally, with the people, it is like this, when it comes to writing a religious book it's because people are not very trustworthy, they no longer give the sacred things the significance they should give, so their memory no longer holds. And then you have to resort to other resources for human weakness. So, this book is compiled by Padma Sambava, it is said, in the 7th century. But how long this has been practiced in Tibet nobody

knows. What is Bardo Todhol, exactly? The bardo, the word bardo means crossing, portal, threshold. So the bardo in this room would be the portal that separates us there from the reception. The bardo is the threshold between two planes. You think a Bardo, a threshold, only happens between life and death? We have a lot of bardos, of thresholds, within life itself. So it is important that you understand that everything that is put in this book, that they will speak exoterically, externally, about the process of death, applies, ipsis litteris, to the life process. When you pass from

one level of consciousness to another. Because when we grow up something in us dies to make room to something new being born. It is an internal war. Something is left behind, something dies to give space to something new that will be born. That is not done, in general, without war, without pain. It's a delicate process, it's a threshold. We have several bardos throughout life. And what Tibet was saying, especially in that book, is that knowing how to die is a natural consequence of knowing how to live. We are constantly living bardos. As an Egyptian wise

man, Hermes Trismegistus, used to say: "As above, so below." Plato said that "man is a microcosm inside the macrocosm." I mean, the same process you witness on a large scale in galaxies, in systems, in the life of man as a whole, you see it happen daily in your life, when you face obstacles. In cycles of life, when you are forced to go through a new mindset. We are constantly going through bardos. Even because the Eastern mentality regarding death is not very similar to ours. I would dare say it is nothing like ours. For them death,

this physical death, is one of the many deaths that we have throughout life, and perhaps not the most important one. Because physical death does not take from us that which we hold most important. So they consider that there are deaths much more delicate and worse than physical death. So they consider death and life something very different than we do. They don't consider that something can become extinct, may cease to exist. Death is simply a garment that you occasionally wear it, and occasionally discard it. And knowing how to die is a natural consequence of knowing how

to grow. To go through life making the most of every opportunity, to rise to a new level. Well, then Bardo Todhol, what was done with that book? It is said that it was, within the Tibetan schools, a book that was used in initiation processes. And externally to the people it was used in the death processes. What initiation means? Has anyone ever heard of this term? It is very common that when you study history of ancient peoples, like Egypt or Tibet, you hear about it. Greece itself had its initiations. These schools, that people called boarding or

initiation schools, not to be confused with philosophy schools. Philosophy is something else, it's way down there. Philosophy is a simple love of wisdom, a simple search for wisdom. Initiation is something else. They were schools where, generally, people of a certain level of wisdom, they created a whole system where they accelerated the human being's growth process. so that he could lead other human beings. Imagine a life experience that it would take you 10 years to live. Through a master and disciple relationship, within a monastery environment, this was shortened to a year, or maybe less. Creating the

conditions for you to reach that state of consciousness in a much shorter time. So it is said that holy books were used. The Voice of Silence, which you will see next week, was used for that, and also was Bardo Todhol. To drive the process of the passage of human consciousness from one level to another. Especially when it has to be done faster than usual. This was done with a single goal. For the human being to acquire wisdom enough to lead other human beings. It was not for selfish reasons, for wanting to stand out. But so

that you could have leaders to lead humanity. That was used within the schools for that. And within society? Then it was used in the process of death itself. When a person was entering a process of agony, was agonizing, a lama was called in. Some monk. And this monk would ideally arrive when the person had not yet completed his dying process. Catching the dead still in agony, with dying process incomplete. All these traditions say something very interesting. That the ideal in the dying process is that it is done consciously. And indeed all traditions give great value

to conscience. Evolution is nothing more than the evolution of consciousness. This officiant was trying to keep the person conscious until the last moments. Then, according to the process that I told you about, classic, this Lama would come and began this reading with the person still in agony. And this reading continued for 49 days. It is the Bardo's process. Every day, even after the body was no longer present, every day the officiant arrived at this person's house and read a passage from the Bardo. Every day for 49 days. You will see that it is a very

interesting thing because 49 is a split of 7, it's a multiple of 7. And 7 is one of the most classic numbers in most traditions, theologies, of various peoples in human history. There are countless traditions that consider 7 as a sacred number. Which is the combination of the 3 - the spiritual, and the 4, the material. So 7 is a sacred number for many traditions. And this Bardo is then read in the period of 49 days, which is the unfolding of the 7th. And here comes a series of details, a series of elements from each

of these phases. Do you have any questions up to this point? - You may speak. - The Bardo means portal, and Todhol? Todhol is the doctrine of liberation by hearing. In the bardo stage, the crossing, it is doctrine. Todhol is basically doctrine of liberation by hearing and sight. A curious thing that the Bardo speaks that, by the way, you will see in several other traditions, that when the person disincarnates, understand, for this tradition the human being would have a denser body and would have a spiritual part, that I won't go into too much detail, but

that many traditions, the Indian tradition represents as a triangle. Notice that the triangle is associated with the number 3. The number 3 is associated with the sacred in many traditions. These are the triads, the trinities. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. And so there are many traditions that associate the 3 with the sacred. Not only the trinity 3, but the geometric 3 as well. It's the Egyptian pyramid, it's the cornualia, celtic cone, the 3 is often associated with the spiritual. and the 4, which is the square, is often associated with the material.

To the material world to which man is attached. Not only 4 as the 4 elements: earth, water, air and fire, but also the 4 as a geometric element, such as the cube. You will say: what is the tradition that works with cube? Never seen in my life. Pyramid I've seen, cone I've seen. Cube? What is the theology that works with the cube? You've never seen it, have you? Who here had a childhood and played with those little Recreio magazines? and it always came with those little games that you had to assemble those little dice. What

does a disassembled dice look like? Isn't that right there? Do you know this symbol from somewhere? It is a Christian cross. It's crucifixion, it's being trapped in the material world. So it's very common. If you see above the things we do, in the course of philosophy, is comparative study. And according to this tradition, this quaternary here below that we are calling personality, it was made up of four vehicles, which I won't go into much detail about. I'm going to talk about this very quickly. Which is a physical body, an energetic body, an emotional body, and

a mental body. These are the four elements. And it was considered that occasionally, the man had that dressing. Occasionally he lost it. Because really what we are is this here. It is our essence. And this here is a garment. So imagine the following... That you are taking a walk and once in a while it gets cold, you put on a jacket. Once in a while it gets hot, you take off this jacket. But you never stop being the same, in the summers and winters of existence. In the winters of existence, you add a heavy layer.

In the summers of existence, you get rid of it. But you do not cease to be what you are. Therefore, life is continuous, in cycles of life and death of the personality. For Eastern tradition death doesn't exist the way we conceive it. So they said, at a certain moment, the human being, even losing this here, he would remain conscious. His consciousness would remain continuous. Well, Tibet, the Tibetan tradition, is a reincarnationalist tradition. They consider that several times man will have such an outfit, and then his consciousness returns to its essence. And it comes back down

here, and it comes back to essence. So, the Bardo's process... When the human being is finished leaving what we are calling personality, of quaternary, personality is a word that has nothing to do with this story here. I'm using it simply because it is more usual in our vocabulary. But it's a Greek word, it comes from persona, mask. It was the mask that the actors wore in Greek theater. They considered that all our most dense physical part is a mask. That you appear on the stage of life. But when you go backstage, you don't cease to

exist. The mask simply falls. In a moment, you step in and put on another one. Then, they say, when the human being leaves his personality, he leaves it still much related to it. So comes Todhol's story of doctrine through auditing. Because all the time the officiator uses the physical name that the person had when alive. He says the person still relates to it and still listens. So she still has the capacity to relate to the physical name she used in life, until the next reincarnation process. It says that forgetfulness doesn't happen at the moment of

death. According to this tradition. But it would happen at the moment of returning to inhabit the new body. Then during all these 49 days, the officiant reads the Bardo speaking the name, O Noble son so-and-so, at this moment you see such a thing, do such a thing, but millimeter by millimeter. Day 1, what will be happening. Day 2, what will be happening. Do you see such a thing? What's curious about this process, people? And that all the time, inside Bardo Todhol, they instruct the person to know that what she is seeing is not real, it's

her illusion, a mental illusion. You are the one creating this. It is curious that within a religion, this is not real, this is a mental projection of you don't believe it. In no time they say: this exists, this is real. That's just like that, no. Don't believe it, you see it because you believe in it. If you don't believe it, it disappears. This is the projection of your mental forms. So it is of a lucidity, of a pondering, out of the ordinary. It's above attachment to one theology or another. They are very sober, it's very

interesting. So at the moment when the person disincarnates then comes the whole process that is very interesting for us to understand. There are said to be 4, 3 states, fundamentally. There is one that is the moment in which the person disincarnates It is said that they are the sensations of the moment of the death. Even that the Bardo says. What a person feels, physically, at the moment she is leaving the body. So they say, fundamentally, the following will happen. The person feels a pressure, as if your chest were being pushed down into the water. That

is the land disappearing into the water. Then a damp cold followed by a boiling heat, which is water disappearing into fire. Then the body as if it were exploding into atoms, that is the fire disappearing in the air. And then after this passage is done, this process where you have these physical sensations, it says that it follows the most important stage of the Bardo, that is the Chikai Bardo, the first Bardo. It is the Bardo at the moment of death. This death-moment Bardo, well... Of course, within such a tradition the staff did not have a

watch. How were they going to tell how long something lasted? They would say, look, it lasts as long as a meal. It was their unit of measure. You can't tell if they were eating slowly or quickly. It says it lasts as long as one meal. And there is a moment when the person begins to deidentify from the body. It says that the so-called clear primordial light appears. And then the clear secondary light. Imagine the following... A rubber ball. When you throw it against the ground, the highest jump it makes is as soon as it falls

for the first time, isn't that right? Then it decreases its height. You say that the most special experience you have is exactly that immediate moment of disincarnation. Which is called clear primary or primordial light. What does man see? Knows what? Nothing at all, only light. Nothing at all. The clear primordial light is a great luminous void. It says that this is the greatest opportunity that the consciousness of the disincarnate has to meet the divine. If it relates to it. How, generally, nobody relates to it, you feel lost in the void, you run away from it.

Here comes a lower luminosity, that is the clear secondary light, one doesn't relate to that either, she runs away from that... Then she goes into the other stage which is the so-called Second Bardo. Just this detail to explain to you, then we take a little break. Imagine what this tradition is saying: that man's best chance is to find a luminous void and relate to it. You will see that according to these oriental traditions, we'll study this next week, you will see in the Voice of Silence, the greatest evil of man, where all the other evils

come from, it's something called the heresy of separateness. Do you know what the heresy of separateness is? It's me thinking that I am one person, you are another, and we have nothing to do with each other. They say that this thinking is the origin of selfishness, things just for me, violence, I can take her things away and that can be good for me and bad for her. Of indifference, of all the evils in the world. They comes from the heresy of separateness. Which they say it is an alienation. A madness of man, that it doesn't

exist, except in the world of fiction, of unreality. And really it's just ignorance that makes us see the universe as many and not as one. This is a highly metaphysical concept. If I can get you to understand just that today, I'll leave here happy. Imagine the following... an example that we always give which is even in one of our handbooks. Imagine that you are at the edge of a beach, then you go there and pass your finger in the sand, make a furrow. Then you go there and pass your finger in the sand and make

another furrow. What impression do you have? There are two furrows, isn't that right? But the first one is made of what? Sand. The second one? Sand. And the interval between them? All sand. Momentarily differentiated. The whole universe would be divine parts of the body of a great Being. From the macrobios, Divine. You and I would be episodes of a single Being. And if I know this, wanting your harm would be madness. Wishing to possess things that you don't have would be crazy. That it is like my hand wanting the evil of my foot. If they

both know each other from the same body, that's absurd, because it knows the evil of my foot can spread all over the body and ends up hitting itself, doesn't it? Or as if my hand wanted to possess my foot. How, if both belong to a single body? When man perceives himself as part of a whole, where he is an episode of this divinity, at a crossroads of space-time, how he might feel separated from the people around him? From the beings around him? How can he think it makes sense having things just for him? Success only

for him? The highlight only for him? How can he think that anyone's loss can bring benefit to him? Do you understand? All the alienations come from there, when man thinks he is separate from the cosmos. This is a conception that is not only Tibetan you'll see that the East, generally, has this perception of unity. Pythagoras worked with this idea, of unity. And that separateness is a mere illusion. A mere illusion that has a purpose... To generate a level of consciousness. However, that man must know all the time, like that actor in the Greek theater that

I told you about: I enter and play my role, but I know that I am not that role. This is a momentary thing. What I am is there behind the scenes. So play your role the best way you can, without relating to this mask, without falling into separateness. When man relates to the All, and sees the All, which is this great luminous flash, he goes towards it. Do you think a selfish man goes towards the whole? He runs away from it, he wants it. You see, people, how it's an interesting thing, when you walk through

the streets, when you receive a brochure from a university course of, I don't know, a professional training of some sort... What does, in general, society stimulate in you? The things just for you, the highlighting, the individual success. In fact, the word "highlight" itself is already curious, isn't it? Because if you stand out it means that a bunch of stuff got left down there. For a man to succeed many must fail, because otherwise his success has no taste. So we live in a society that encourages our selfishness. It encourages our weaknesses. This is the worst kind

of manipulation. Manipulation consists of exactly this: reinforcing other's weaknesses. To what purpose? To exploit them, lead them. So all kinds of selfishness, every promise society makes of success, is based on it. It's quick, easy, and just for you. So within a mindset like this, man is confronted with a luminous whole, light in all directions... The tendency is to run away from it. At some point, it is said that man's conscience will be, when he sees the whole, walking towards it. Be willing to walk towards the whole. Be willing to be a drop of water in

the ocean. Feel what this means to you, to your consciousness. Society comes and says: Look, if you succeed, if you do the things we're telling you to do, in 10 years everybody will be talking about you, you're going to be successful, you're going to be in the spotlight. Then you come before a tradition that tells you: Look, if you succeed in what we are proposing, in 10 years you'll be more anonymous than you are today. Much more! But you will be closer to unity. To the whole, which is that what corresponds to you as a

human being. Can you imagine what an inversion of mentality, something like that? So it is said that hardly, very rarely, only high level wise men, when this bright one comes, they say: Yay! and go for it. Generally one runs away from it. And it is the 1st experience, which is said to be the most important. Which is the confrontation of unity. It says that there, the conscience of man could then free itself from incarnations, from Samsara, as they call it, the manifested world. But it is very rare that it is liberated there. Then, after this

first stage, of the primordial and secondary flash, one enters a stage of unconsciousness, which takes about three and a half to four days. And the second Bardo begins, the Chonid Bardo. Do you realize that these things are as good for death as for life? Everything we're talking about? Exactly the same idea? How a man will walk and work for unity after he dies, if he didn't do this in life at any time? If you have no perception of unity? If you think selfishly all your life? Well, nobody evolves because they die. If that were so,

we would solve the problem of humanity. Everyone would just die. Death is not evolution. So if you're selfish in life, what will you be after life? Selfish. And he will carry this selfishness with him. And his reactions will be selfish. So, generally, that first moment, which is the greatest opportunity, is missed by almost everyone. Actually, what is said is that the Bardo is an auxiliary process. But if one hasn't been educated in the science of living, what the Bardo can do is very secondary. It's a last try, to try to get the person remember, recover

some of the knowledge that he received in life. But it says that a person who, in life, refused any process of knowledge of itself and of life, during death, the Bardo does not perform a miracle. So the difference is very small indeed. You haven't read the Bardo. A person who was instructed in life and knows how to live, will know how to die. Reading the Bardo or not reading the Bardo. It's one last attempt that you make. Actually, it is said that the Bardo is more efficient for life than for death. It does not work

miracles. It won't make anyone recover a wisdom that the person has not acquired. Nature doesn't make leaps. So, after this first process, where the person already begins to recover some lucidity, she enters the second Bardo. It's the Chonid Bardo. This Chonid Bardo, as I told you, is usually given an approximate time of 3.5 to 4 days, the person already begins to perceive sounds, to see images. It's an element that I'm trying to make it look natural to you, I hope I succeed. Imagine the following, within what I talked about earlier, physical body, emotional body, excuse

me, energetic body, emotional body and mental body. According to this tradition, man creates on all these planes, this is very natural. You create things on the physical plane. Your energy creates energies. Your emotions create an environment, create emotions, generate emotions in others. And your mental forms create mental forms. The thoughts for them have substance, have reality, have endurance. They are mental forms, that if I could see on this mental plane, I would see your thoughts, everything revolving around you. Because they have substance, they are made of matter. The mind is a substance, just as physical

matter is substance, emotions are a substance, and the mind is a substance. So when you create a thought form, it has reality, it has substance. You don't see it, why? Because we are protected by the physical body. When you get rid of the physical body, through the death process, you see these subtle planes. Then you see your own thought forms. You imagine that if you could see your thoughts at this moment, they would all be very cute and nice? One's thoughts... Imagine, you see them all revolving around you. And they will revolve because they are

yours. They are like your children, they will all revolve around you. Not all of them are very cute. These are the hallucinations of the second Bardo, that is the Chonid Bardo. The man begins to see his mental forms, and does not recognize them as his own, and begins to be terribly afraid of them. He is frightened by them. The Bardo's Illusions, all the while the officiant starts saying: O, noble son, make no mistake, the beings around you are not beings, are projections of your own mind. It is very interesting that it is said that it

will appear a bunch of projections according to the culture that the person belongs to. So there are a lot of deities and monsters from the Boheng Buddhist tradition, from Tibetan Buddhism. If he was a Christian, he would see heavens and hells. If he was, I don't know, an Islamic, He would see that paradise there in the Garden of Allah. Whatever the person believes. An absolute materialist who believes in nothing would see an emptiness, as if he was dissolving, if he believes in it. Then man will see his mental forms. Because he is the one projecting.

It is a mental world. When you lose all of these denser vehicles, you will stay in this mental world. Your experience will take place here, lose these denser vehicles and your consciousness stays within the mental plane. According to this tradition, within this mental plane she will live an experience until she returns to a new life process, to have denser vehicles again. And within the mental plane you see the mental forms, as if they were real beings. - Lucia, would these thoughts be before he died? - In life, it was what you thought before, what you

had affinity for. These are your mental forms. - So, can you destroy them? Absolutely! I don't know if you've noticed, she asked an interesting question. Can you destroy your mental forms? Yes, you can. Do you realize when you have one of the most complicated things you have: circular thinking. You keep feeding it, it keeps circling around you, and asking for food. That is such a terrible business, that the moment you decide to cut, you feel that it keeps trying to find loopholes of your inattention, to enter. As if it were an addiction. You suffer from

withdrawal syndrome. It keeps trying to find loopholes to get in. Have you noticed that? You're thinking in circles, you say: I'm angry with someone, I've lived an experience and the person did something to me. I've been thinking badly about this person for days. I won't think about it anymore! Then you start trying to fixate on something else. Look, how beautiful the day is! Look, how beautiful that tree is! I've seen a tree like this somewhere before... Oh, it's on such and such street! Such street is near such street, that's near so-and-so's house. I hate so-and-so!

Is it like that, or isn't it? The mind has some associations that are sensational. It takes you away... bang! So mental forms are complicated, they're heavy. - The emotional will also help, in this case, right? Actually, you'll see, it'd take a course to talk about it... You will realize that when you have a mental form there is a chain reaction between the mind and the emotions. When you have thoughts, in a fraction of a second, it tenses the emotional, and it generates a feeling. A negative thought - soon you will be angry, or you're depressed,

or you're sad... It's a label that hangs on that mental form. Pah! Hang the tag! If you're fast, you cut the mental shape, without it tensing up emotionally. Do you realize that? It is easier to cut the mental than the emotional. I have a negative thought... if I cut fast, I can do it. Now after it has generated rage, anger, is as if you had spilled a bucket of paint. To clean it up takes work. It has a cycle. Emotion is denser than the mind. To take away a feeling of anger, of bad mood, it

has a longer cycle that cutting a mental form. Hence, it is necessary for you to be quick on the trigger. A mental form comes, pah! Cut it fast! If you cut it soon, there's no time for it to tense up the emotional. The emotional always follows, always comes with it. It hangs a label on the mental forms. - What is the need, the relevance of the officiant, by far, in the process, in the passage? - He tries to do... Imagine that you have a horizon of possibilities, nothing is that exact. Obviously, a person who has

had a very banal life, won't relate to the clear primordial light. This is too much for him. But it has a horizon of maximum and minimum possible. He tries to maximize the possibilities for that person within what is his own. You will see that he doesn't give up until the last moment. At 49 days he says hardly, only in two extreme cases a person reaches 49 days. Either he's very good or very bad. These are the extreme cases. Usually, the Bardo stops in the middle of the road. The person frees himself halfway. He relates to

some plan. We'll explain that in a moment. You only get to day 49 in the worst and best cases. We will explain why. So people, in this Chonid Bardo, one will start having visions, it's a very interesting thing, the Chonid Bardo has 14 days. It has the first seven days, where you see the so-called beneficial deities. And the following seven days, where you see the wrathful deities, angry. These are the beneficial visions and the angry visions. What does this mean? It says that within the human being, by nature, you retain all divine attributes. He has

will, he has love, he has intelligence, he has generosity, he has kindness. All these things are within man. And the absence of these things generates a shadow zone, which are the addictions. It's not that you don't have these things, but you still don't live them consciously. You haven't made use of these tools. So man has, within him, light and shadow. At each moment, depending on the level of ignorance, or wisdom, he resorts more to one or the other. But you have these elements within you. So you say that in the first 7 Chonid Bardo days,

you will see these virtues. You will see the mental plane through the heart. You will see these virtues. Represented by what you identify as Divine. So if you're a Christian, you will see the saints there, whatever. Depending on what tradition you are, you will see forms that represent for you these virtues. So you'll see that for 7 days, in the Tibetan tradition, the gods of Tibet begin to appear. So, the Dhyani Buddhas, surrounded by a lot of deities, male and female, are the mandalas of the Bardo. They will appear that way, every day one appears.

Each one represents a virtue. Super luminous and radiant. If you have developed any of these virtues, at a certain level, one of these buddhas will attract you. And you walk towards it. - What would these Buddhas be? - It's a mental form that you have created, to physically represent that virtue. Then imagine me speaking to you - Fraternity. If you are Islamic, you will think of Mohammed. If you are Christian, you will think of Jesus Christ. Well, if you are Tibetan, you'll think of a Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, for sure. Then will appear, before you, a mental

form created by you to wear that virtue, radiated from yourself. They are clear on this: everything is radiating from your heart. So, these virtues are successively appearing for him, one per day, for seven days. Each one represented by a figure from the Tibetan pantheon. Central, surrounded by a lot of gods. It is a mandala. Always one representing love, compassion, beauty, harmony, justice. Seven days like this, virtues are presenting themselves. With divine forms. And it's said that these mandalas are super luminous and beautiful. And around them, there's a shadow zone, of a very pale light and

shadow. Which is the counter part of the light, is the shadow. So when man... Let's say you were an exceptionally fraternal person, then appears before you a deity that represents fraternity. You tend to feel attraction towards it. You walk towards it, It is said that you will relate, on a certain level to this deity, and then you will live your Bardo. We will get it. That is where you are freed from the Bardo's process. You relate to this deity and stay there. Now you say that a man who didn't develop that virtue, instead of running

to the light, he will run to the peripheral zone of shadow. When he sees the light, instead of feeling attraction to it, he fears it, he runs to the peripheral zone of shadow. That is, in life... And the officiant talking all the time. In life, if you relate to the light, you will go to the light. If you relate to the shadow, you go to the shadow. So let's say, day 1, compassion; I run away from compassion, I go to shadow, I'm selfish. 2nd day, generosity; 3rd day, justice; and I'm running, running, running. These first

seven days present these deities in a beneficial way, seen through the heart. In the following seven days, it is the same deities the same virtues, but now no longer seen by the heart, but by the mind. So they were seen as kind, wonderful, attractive... from the point of view of the mind, they are terrible. They want to kill you. They want to destroy your individuality. They want to take away what you have earned. Then the same deities, seen by the mind are horrifying. So it's seven days where you see these same deities, now from the

mind's point of view. Then the eighth day is the Buddha of compassion. But for him to be compassionate, he is destroying your things, your interests, your physical body, then it's a horrifying vision. Where that same divine being has now turned into a monster, destroying everything, drinking blood, ending everything. Imagine it, it's said to a terrible thing. That's according to Tibetan tradition. It is the same deity, seen now from a negative point of view. Of destroyer of your interests, your passions, your weaknesses. Now it's the personality looking at it. And then, of course, the tendency is

for you to be even more afraid, and run away from that. If there is already some level of exhaustion in you, where, in a certain moment, you see that that being is destroying your selfishness, you say: Gee, I have wanted to to get rid of this selfishness all my life, he's going to help me! You're attracted to him. But if you are related to selfishness he's a monster. You run into the peripheral shadow zone. If, at some point, you have established a struggle against some defect you will take that being as an ally. Otherwise, you

will take it as a monster. Or you relate to the defect or to the one who fights against the defect. Depending on your identity he will be beneficial or it's going to be a monster. And then the person will run away to the shadow zone. Until he reaches the fourteenth day. There you see yourself. Your virtues and your defects. On one side you see the deities, embodying what you have best. On the other hand, you see these same deities fighting against what is worst in you. They are beneficial in both cases. Only that in some

cases they look showy, in others not. So the 14 days are to give you a chance. Or because you have related to the positive Or because you have saturated yourself with the negative. If to none of these opportunities you relate to, you would lose the 14 days of the Bardo. And the karmic weight begins to pull you down. In other words, man is becoming more and more anxious because the Bardo is giving him a feeling of fear, of anguish. He goes on longing for a physical body. This goes pulling him lower and lower. So this

is the process of the Chonid Bardo. The process of confronting illusions, with these mental forms, that do not stop there, but are fundamentally there. Confrontation of man with the luminous and the dark aspect of him as if it were not him as if it were something external. If it doesn't relate to anything that allies itself with his evolution he passes through the Chonid Bardo, after 14 days, and he will enter a third phase. I told you that whoever arrives.... The Sidpa Bardo, there you're over halfway through the process. Who arrives until the end of the

process either are those very rude people or those very good people. What does that mean? The great Masters, those high-degree lamas, they had a commitment to humanity. This process is used until today within Lamaistic Buddhism. That they would not rest between one life and another. They would disincarnate and incarnate immediately. To continue fighting for humanity. Then it says that in these exceptional cases they give up rest between one life and another. And they remain only 49 days and incarnate again. By merit. They choose to incarnate quickly by merit. Then these go until the 49th day

and come back. This is the positive case. Now you have the negative case as well. That is the person who is so attached to a physical body that can't stand the idea of a rest between one life and another without having a physical body. She has such an attraction for matter that, in 49 days, she is already hanging again towards the Earth. And the incarnation process can also be very fast. Then there are cases of extreme materialism or extreme spirituality. And all the cases in between, the ordinary men? It's said they tend to spend a

good amount of time in the Bardo. That's why it's important for you to understand it. The process, according to this Eastern tradition, between one life and another is a process of rest. It's said that the material experience is so dense, so heavy, that you would need it, between one life and another, a process of rest, of purification, so that you could come back as clean as possible. With better chances to continue evolving. This is a dense experience. And it's then said that, between one life and another, the ideal is that you stay for a period

of rest 10 times longer than the lifetime you had. That would be ideal. Then a good process they call Devachan, a good process between one life and another, it would be 700 years, a thousand years, around. The ideal for man to come back pure enough to record another experience without the traumas of the previous life. Try to understand this, imagine your life, this physical life... Doesn't have certain moments when we remember the stupid things we've done and it hurts so much that we wonder: Oh, my God! I'd like to forget! I don't want to remember

that I've done such a stupid thing in my life. Traumas remain, ruptures remain. Imagine you, according to a tradition like that, man evolves with each incarnation. So what we are today is the best we have been so far. Can you imagine what's behind us? Imagine you remembering all of this, the pain that would be. Then you say that the process of death is a merciful process, to erase these hard memories and leave only the essence of the experience. Only what you have learned from it. It's a very interesting thing that the Tibetan tradition says. It

says the following: That the ideal process for the human being would be that in each experience he could keep what he learned from it and forget the price he paid for it. If he was able to do that he wouldn't need death, do you get it? Imagine, the example I was giving him just outside there... Imagine you're happily walking down a street and distracted, thinking, as they say popularly, on the death of the heifer... Boom! He twists his foot, puts his foot in a hole and twists it. What, from this fact, is a superficial and

passing memory? Wow, what the heck, bumpy street... This Brasilia administration doesn't fix this street, I broke my heel, I lost the time... look, how unfortunate! Anyway, all this whining is an external, passing memory. And what would be the essential memory of this fact? What matters in this fact? What does it teach you? If you reflect on this fact what conclusion will you come to? That inattention causes pain. Isn't that right? Inattention is negative, it causes pain. If you reflect on that fact you get the essence of it. And you learn it. And according to this

tradition, reincarnationist, on another occasion, you would still bring it. Another life - you would start more attentive than someone else who hasn't lived that experience. Now what would be ideal? That the human being, still in that same life 10 years from now, 20 years from now, he would be an attentive person, but didn't remember the pain he went through. Didn't remember the price he paid for the experience. Because the price of pain you pay for the experiences is building up traumas. It's like an iron ball on your foot. In a little while you won't walk

anymore. You walk up to a person and say: Wow, you are such a well-balanced and self-controlled person! She: Oh, dear, if I tell you, how much I've suffered to get here... Come, sit here and I'll tell you... And it's that rosary of miseries and sufferings! That's a load, that's a burden, which, at a certain moment, no longer lets the man walk. Then, death goes there and releases you from that weight. But the essentials can't be taken away from you. Now, for that, you must have taken the essentials of the experience. Because not everybody who twists

his foot comes to the conclusion that inattention was to blame. It demands attention, it demands reflection. Not everyone has this reflection on life. That is what Plato called reminiscence. That essence, that juice of life, that nothing and no one can take away from you. So it is said that the human being, at a given time, needs death. Death is a merciful mantle. For him to erase the price he paid for the experiences and keep only the juice, the essence. And the time for it to dissipate, because you see, the Bardo says, that memory is not

lost at the time of disembodiment. Memory is lost at the time of return. So the time for that memory to go is a time 10 times longer than it took you to generate it. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to stain clothes? And how hard it is to wash them afterwards? To remove that stain? In other words, cleaning, generally, takes more work than getting dirty. It's a process, in all planes it seems that way. So man would be on that mental plane, our consciousness would be on this mental plane. Now this mental plane

has several levels. It has seven levels. What does that mean? From the highest and noblest thoughts to the coarsest and most twisted thoughts. Which level of the mental plane will you be on? The one you have always been on. Because you are not promoted because you died. If you always had twisted thoughts, you're going to be on the very coarse mental level, very clumsy. And there you'll spend your gap between one life and another. You had somewhat good thoughts, you're in an intermediate level. You had very noble thoughts, very high thoughts. You will stay in

a plane of noble and elevated thoughts. And then you will share with all those beings who vibrate at the same frequency as you. At a certain point you exhaust that experience, you come back to incarnate. Now there are those cases that I told you about that the person has such a great need of material experience, that even at this most torpid level he is not content, he wants to come back. Which is the grossest level of materialism. These are those who on the 49th day are already looking for a body. That is the third stage

of the Bardo, the so-called Sidpa Bardo. So you get this idea of the Chonid Bardo? The illusions, it's a world of illusions. Where one sees oneself. His positive and his dark side. And he chooses. And according to that choice he will fall into one of these seven levels here, of the so-called Devachan. And he will leave that Bardo process. When you relate to one thing, you leave the Bardo's process. You go into that level, there you're going to live an experience, no matter how many years it is. - Until next life? - Until next life.

So I related to one of these divine beings: I came out of that Bardo process. I entered a mental frequency and I'm staying there. Didn't I relate with anything? I keep going down on the Bardo, you know? So the Bardo at any moment can be interrupted. I related to this plan, I entered the heart of one of those Buddhas. Both the kind ones and the scary ones. I got myself into the heart of one of those beings. I entered a plane. And there I will relate myself to and there I will live my experience. For

a process, which is not an experience, there is no evolution on that plane. According to this tradition, it is a purification only process. Evolution takes place here, with all the vehicles present. Only on mental plane. That level where you're used to vibrate and relate to. There you stay. From the highest, which are those most wonderful mental planes, it is said that for the West it generated the myth of Paradise, even those grosser mental planes which they call kama-loka, that generated the idea of hell. A place of desires. Imagine a person who only thinks ...about the

most crude and gross things all day long... Well, she's going into the Bardo's plane, the mental plane where she has affinity. Then you think: It's hell! Not for her, because otherwise she wouldn't be there. She is there because she likes it, because she relates to it. It's hell for us who don't like it. She's there because she can relate to it. Moving on, according to that tradition, the person who passes from the Chonid Bardo and continues, without relating to any plan, would enter the third phase, the so-called Sidpa Bardo. Now that's a lucid stage where

it comes... You will see that it is very interesting, that many of the traditions that we see echoing in the so-called semistic monotheisms in the West has much to do with Eastern symbolism. Here comes the symbolism of the Last Judgment, which she was asking about. The Sidpa Bardo is when the person already begins to have that attraction to return to the world and having a body. It is said that, in the Bardo, the disembodied consciousness is 9 times more perceptive than when it is inside the body. So she is something like a psychic. She starts

to have attraction to the physical world, then she begins to be able to see the physical world. She approaches him. Then she is able to see, for example, what her relatives are thinking; what they are doing with her possessions. This may generate very bad feelings and thoughts. To see that no one is suffering that much. To see that people are more concerned with their heritage than missing her. And things like that can start to generate a great deal of anguish. - Which stage is it again? - Sidpa's stage. The man starts hovering for the material

world and have some sort of vision of that plane. It's said that since man no longer has a physical body, he doesn't have a nervous system that allows him to capture the light of the sun and the moon. So he has the so-called etheric nervous system of the Bardo. He sees everything grayish. And since he has no physical body to give weight he is subject to the wind gusts of karma. That throws him back and forth. He can't settle in one place. And here comes the symbolism that the Bardo brings of the so-called Last Judgment,

which I find very interesting. It says that within us there is a spiritual consciousness that, at that moment, will go over your whole life, that is the story of the Lord of death. The Lord of death, who is your own spiritual consciousness will pass your life before you, as if it were a movie. It says he puts white pebbles and black pebbles. And it goes on putting where there were spiritual intentions, where there were selfish, materialistic, torpid intentions. And it's weighting what was gained, of real addition in that life that the person lived. This is

very interesting, If you look at the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it's just the same. The man comes before Osiris, will make the negative confession, right? I was pure, I don't know what, check the weight of the dead man's heart... It's the same thing, the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The episode is identical. Then he arrives in front of... The difference in the Tibetan book is that it says that everything is you. Even the lord of death is not Osiris, is you. It is the Divine Self within you. It is a very interesting detail, because

it says that it goes over not what you have done, but the intentions and motivations behind it. He says that's all he focuses on at that time, that's all. He goes over the intent that was behind. He says that's the final judgment process that is painful. Which is man confronting the real intentions and motivations that have ruled him all his life. It's said that little is good to use. And still of those beautiful, pompous acts, when you see what is behind: vanity. Manipulation, passion, it's said that little is good to use. Because when you enter

the land of appearances you still have a little something or two, but when you go deeper, which is what really counts, what was the real motivation that moved you, it's said it's a little bit of nothing white pebble left over. Most of the motivations were substantiated in selfish interests. It's very interesting, there is a passage from the Bardo that I think is beautiful, because it says that's the most painful moment. Man has to confront the real motivations behind his actions. And that it would be much less painful if in life he used to wonder about

it. Always ask yourself: What is motivating me to do things? What do I really want out of it? That would lead him to self-knowledge and would make this process much less painful. What makes this process painful is the awareness of what we really are, because we wear masks for ourselves. We camouflage ourselves in the mirror. Sometimes the other sees us better than we see ourselves, do you realize that? That person next door knows more about you than you do. He sees your manipulations and you don't. Then you say that the process is extremely painful because

man is not used to, in life, wonder what his real motivations are. Another passage that I find very beautiful... the officiant turns to the disembodied consciousness and says: Look, if at any time in your life you have had a spiritual master who communicated to you your inner name, call upon your inner name before the Lord of Death and he will open a passage for you. I think that passage is very beautiful. If at any time in your life you have had some contact, someone, something, that put you in touch with your spiritual self and you

did something on behalf of it plead that before the Lord of Death, which is your inner name. Your inner name is your spiritual Self. Have you had any contact with this someone has instructed you about it, had some spiritual identity, remember that. Invoke this before the Lord of Death and that will give a disproportionate weight. And he opens up for you. Because it's the only valid thing in life. I realized my spiritual essence, what I really am. This unbalances the scales of white and black pebbles. It opens up the passage for you. Oh, you have

that? Okay, so it was valid. Nevertheless, it was valid. You had some contact with your true spiritual essence, some contact with who you really are. Your Divine Self. At some point. Some moment of identity. The whole life is justified by that. Then the Lord of Death opens passage. Then, past that Sidpa process, that's the end of the story, right? Sidpa, at one point, the person will start tending toward, approaching couples that are joining together to conceive children. And then the officiant keeps trying to prevent it. No, wait a minute! Hold on! That's the process of

closing the womb door. No, don't go! Wait a little bit more... And try to avoid, try to prolong the process. Try to avoid that incarnation so quickly. But, at a certain moment, when he realizes that the attraction to the physical plane is too great, he begins to orient, so that at least he chooses wisely the door of the womb. Look out! Choose a place where people value wisdom. Don't choose fortunes, chooses simple parents, but who are virtuous. Beware, choose such a thing! He begins to direct that at least, the opening of the womb door is

favorable. So that that person has good conditions for evolution. When there is no more way. He tries, until the last moment, to do the closing of the womb door. Preventing the person from incarnating so quickly. So, when that person is already approaching the 49th day, he already starts to hover over the Earth, and it's interesting because the Bardo has some very curious things. It says that the life wish of the dead provokes sexual desire in the living. So there must be a lot of people wanting to live, right? Then he starts hovering and, at a

certain moment, he chooses by affinity. There's no way, there's no officiating that will work. He chooses by affinity the belly gate and there he will incarnate. And then a process begins, he enters a process of unconsciousness, that when he enters the womb door, there's no point in you trying to drive anymore. That he loses his identity with his name. That then the officiant already loses contact with him. There's no more way. It's gone through the belly door, it's over. Now it's done. You no longer recognize the name of your former self. - And he loses

consciousness? - For a while yes, for a while yes. Rare cases of exceptional masters, they retain consciousness during the whole process. But this one you don't need to guide, because he knows what he's doing. So it's very interesting - just in those cases is that the Bardo's reading will get the 49th day. How does he know that? It says, it's very interesting, because in the traditional process the Lamas were observing symbolic facts. They were doing the Bardo's reading. At one point, a flash of sunlight came in. They considered it as a symbolic symptom that the

person had broken free. The Bardo wasn't necessary anymore. When they incinerated, when they cremated the body, they saw the form that the bones took. Sometimes the bone would take the shape of a symbol. It was a sign that the person had released. They had signs that the person, at some point, no longer needed the Bardo, because she had already entered some plan, had already found her place. If none of these signs were coming bone relics, smell of incense, solar flare, rainbow light, a lot of signs there. If none of that was coming they would do

readings until the last day. That same time until the last day. That's the end of the last day, if the person opened the womb door, then it's over, contact is lost and she already starts another experience. If it was a great monk, a great lama, they knew. Well, let's wait three, four years, they took the personal objects from that monk who had died and they would see which child recognized them. The tulco phenomenon. When it was an ordinary man, well, they hoped that the experience would be the best possible. And that was the end of

the Bardo process. They don't really consider it a new experience. They consider that the whole life is one experience. What they consider that there is a loss of identity with the physical name of the previous personality there. But the human experience is one. It's like, well, I don't remember the mistakes I made, but the predisposition to make them goes with me. The inability, the lack of virtue goes with me. So the experience is the same. You simply don't remember the mistakes you've already made. But you go with the virtues you have accumulated, you go with

the inabilities that you have, you're simply going to have a new vehicle. Like if you change your car. I drive bad. I change my car, so am I going to drive well? No, I will continue to drive badly. I'm the same driver, I just changed the vehicle. The experience goes on all the time. What I think is beautiful, just concluding, because we passed our time. That's how much the Bardo gives us values to live by. Because there is no point in trying to memorize these things. To die well, the Bardo's point is to live well.

To know what our true motivations are, take care of our mental forms, seek to give some metaphysical meaning to life, that is, to search for something spiritual, from the inner name. I mean, all these elements that it so constantly shows us. What actually has value in life. Seeking life vision where we consider what is really important. Caring about all the elements that really qualify, that give meaning to life. He is a book for life and not for death, because if you don't do it in life, you can't do it in death. [Music] New Acropolis is

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