Samael Aun Weor - Life

Life

Victor Manuel Gómez Rodriguez was born in Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Republic of Colombia, son of Manuel Gómez Quijano and Francisca Rodríguez de Gómez. He was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church but later rejected the Church of Rome. His childhood and family life are not well known, except that he had a brother, and his father remarried after a divorce. He was sent to a Roman Catholic Jesuit school but soon quit disillusioned by religion; he was twelve years old at the time. Instead he invested most of his time in the study of metaphysical and esoteric treatises. Later in life, as writer, lecturer and Gnostic teacher, he would demonstrate a profound esoteric knowledge of both Eastern and Western classics.

In his autobiographical account, The Three Mountains, Samael Aun Weor stated that because he was born with an awakened consciousness, he was analyzing the previous lives in which he awakened his consciousness before mastering how to walk. At the age of 17, he was asked to lecture at the local Theosophical Chapter, and a year later was admitted into the occult society Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua (F.R.A.). While a student in the F.R.A., Samael Aun Weor methodically studied the entire Rosicrucian library and it was here that he allegedly learned the secret of the "Great Arcanum", or white Sexual Magic – the esoteric key which purportedly underpins all of the world's great religions.

Few details of his life are known between the mid-1930s and 1950. He became a spiritual vagabond of sorts, traveling with neither home nor income. At one point he lived with a tribe of indigenous people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia, learning the healing secrets which would later form the foundation of his medical treatise, Occult Medicine and Practical Magic. It was also during these years that he claimed to have had his first experience of the Illuminating Void meeting his "Inner Being" or Atman whose name is "Aun Weor", meaning in Hebrew "Light and Strength."

He was briefly married to Sara Dueños and they had a son named "Imperator". However, in 1946, he met and married the Lady-Adept "Litelantes" (born Arnolda Garro Mora) with whom he lived for 35 years and had four children: Osiris, Isis, Iris, Hypatia. Samael Aun Weor explains that as soon as he met her, this "Lady-Adept" Genie began to instruct him in the Science of Jinnestan or Jinn State also known as Djinn State or Djinnestan, which he claims involved placing the physical body in the fourth dimension. In the Nahuatl Aztec religion this practice is known as Nahuatlism, and according to Aun Weor is related with hyperspace.

In 1948 he began teaching a small group of students. In 1950, under the name "Aun Weor", he managed to publish The Perfect Matrimony, or The Door to Enter into Initiation with the help of his close disciples. The book, later entitled The Perfect Matrimony, claimed to unveil the secret of sexuality as the cornerstone of the world's great religions. In it he elucidated topics such as sexual transmutation, tantra, and esoteric initiation. Writing in such a candid manner regarding sex was met with disdain by the majority of the public at the time. Seen as immoral and pornographic, Aun Weor found himself fleeing angry mobs attempting to silence him through violent means. From March 14 to 19 of 1952 Aun Weor spends five days in jail for "committing the crime of healing the sick". The account of his incarceration is recounted in a personal diary he later published as Secret Notes of a Guru.

After March 19, 1952, Aun Weor and some disciples build and live near the Summum Supremum Sanctuarium, an "underground temple" in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia. On October 27, 1954, Aun Weor received what is referred to as the "Initiation of Tiphereth", which, according to his doctrine, is the beginning of the incarnation of the Logos or "Glorian" within the soul. He states that in his case the name of his Glorian has always been called "Samael" through the ages. From then on, he would sign his name Samael Aun Weor. Thus he states that this union of Samael (the Logos) with Aun Weor (the human soul) is the Maitreya Buddha Kalki Avatar of the New Age of Aquarius. Upon being asked exactly what such a title meant, he responded:

A messenger or avatar, in the most complete sense of the word, is a courier, a man who delivers a message, a servant or maid of the Great Work. So, the word avatar must not fall into misinterpretations, it must be specified with complete clarity. I am, therefore, a servant or crew member, or messenger who delivers a message. Some time ago I said that I am a cosmic mailman, since I am giving the content of a cosmic letter. Therefore, my beloved brethren, the word avatar must never lead us to arrogance, since it only means nothing other than an emissary, a servant, a crew member who gives a message, an epistle, and that is all. In regard to Buddha Maitreya, we must analyze these two words a little in order not to fall into misinterpretations. The Innermost-Buddha in itself is the real Being, the Innermost of each one of us. Thus, when the Innermost or the real Being of somebody has attained its proper intimate Self-realization, then he is declared a Buddha. However, the term Maitreya is individual and collective; thus, from the individual point of view, it represents a teacher whose name is Maitreya, but from the collective point of view Buddha Maitreya must be understood-in the most complete sense of the word-as any initiate who has managed to Christify himself, and that is all. —Samael Aun Weor, The Avatar

Although he would declare himself as the true Kalki Avatar many times throughout his works, he also regularly rejected the worship of his personality:

I, Samael, am not in need of henchmen or followers, but only imitators of my doctrine: Gnosis. I do not follow anyone, nor do I want anyone to follow me. What I want is for each one of you to follow his own Self. I am only a lighthouse in the sea of existence, and I do not need clientele in order to subsist. Since I am against the slavery of souls, I do not want to enslave any soul, nor do I agree with executioners of ideals. Masters exists in abundance, and I am only one of many; thus, those who want to find the Masters will find them inside, within the profundities of their own inner consciousness. —Samael Aun Weor, Inside the Vestibule of Wisdom

In 1956, he left Colombia and went to Costa Rica and El Salvador. Later in 1956, he settled down for good in Mexico City, where he would begin his public life.

Before 1960, he had published 20 more books with topics ranging from Endocrinology and Criminology to Kundalini Yoga. He founded numerous Gnostic Institutions and created Gnostic centers in Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela. A "triangle" relationship was established between the Universal Gnostic Movement founded by Samael Aun Weor, the South American Liberation Action (ALAS) in Argentina headed by Francisco A. Propato Ph.D. (graduate of La Sorbonne and Spanish translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam), and the Sivananda Aryabarta Ashram directed by Swami Sivananda in India.

In spite of the victories, the development of the Gnostic Movement was not without dramatic setbacks. At the time of publishing the revised edition of The Perfect Matrimony (1961), the movement had fallen apart. He wrote that "those who did not leave the Gnostic Movement can be counted on the fingers of one hand." However by the time of his death, Samael Aun Weor had completely re-established the broad international reaches the movement previously held.

Into the 1960s, he continued to write many books on topics, such as Hermetic Astrology, Flying Saucers, and the Kabbalah. However, he also wrote sociopolitical works such as the Platform of POSCLA (Partido Socialista Cristiano Latinoamericano, or Latin-American Christian Socialist Party) and The Social Christ. Topics such as the "false" doctrines of wall street materialism, atheism, and particularly Marxism-Leninism are discussed. POSCLA's motto was given as, "All for one and one for all," and its method, the conscious practice of Ahimsa.

In what was to be the last decade of his life, he penned works such as Parsifal Unveiled, which details the esoteric symbolism of the Wagner opera, and Gnostic Anthropology in which he heavily criticizes the theories of Darwin, Haeckel, "and their followers". The books The Great Rebellion, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, and The Revolution of the Dialectic provide a ground work for the vast knowledge of esoteric psychology purported to be found rooted in every genuine religion. During this time, he was preparing the highest vehicle of his doctrine, The Pistis Sophia Unveiled, in which he meditated, verse-by-verse, upon the extremely esoteric Gnostic text Pistis Sophia.

Renunciation of Copyrights

Although he never formally received any income from his works - he lived off the charity of his students - at the 1976 International Gnostic Congress Samael Aun Weor he clarified his stance on the copyright of his works by stating:

Now, my dear friends, and forever, I renounce, have renounced and will go on renouncing copyrights. My only wish is that these books be sold at a low price, affordable to the poor, affordable to all the children of God. I wish that even the poorest, most destitue citizen be able to obtain these books with the few pennies he carries in his pocket... Whosoever wants to publish them let him publish, for the benefit of diseased mankind. —Samael Aun Weor

Prediction of Death

By 1972, Samael Aun Weor referenced that his death and resurrection would be occurring before 1978. In the chapter entitled The Resurrection in his work The Three Mountains (1972), he stated that the eight years of ordeals within the Trial of Job would occur between his 53rd and 61st birthdays. Furthermore, in the same work, it is stated that this ordeal occurs prior to resurrection, and the one going through it is "deprived of everything, even of his own sons, and is afflicted by an impure sickness." By August 1977 he had developed stomach cancer. During this time he continued to speak to both his students and the general public, giving radio and television interviews while touring Mexico. Eventually he was forced to stop, due to debilitating stomach pain. As his condition steadily worsened he would mention to those at his bedside, "Don't cling to my battered body, instead cling to my doctrinal body." Samael Aun Weor died on December 24, 1977. He was survived by his wife and children.

Years before his death, he declared he would adopt the use of a duly prepared ancient Egyptian "mummy" as a vehicle for further work, a vehicle better prepared than his own "physical body". Many of his followers expected him to return publicly shortly after his death. According to his own statements he planned to remain incognito for a certain time so that “the leaven will ferment."