To be born a second time is to be born to a new life, the life of the Kingdom of God, the life of the great Universal White Brotherhood. Two thousand years ago, in Palestine, Jesus gave us the key to all spiritual work, when he said, Unless a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Today, the Master Omaam Mikhaël Aïvanhov interprets these words for our benefit. The water Jesus speaks of is Love; the Spirit, fire, is Wisdom, and Love and Wisdom unite to give birth to Truth which is the new life. In his commentary, the Master Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov shows how these three virtues of Love, Wisdom and Truth, correspond to man's psychic structure composed of heart, mind and will. Explaining that our physical bodies mirror our psychic being, he shows how Cosmic Intelligence has inscribed the secret of love in our mouths, that of wisdom in our ears and that of truth in our eyes. This volume, which is the first of a series, sets out the essential foundations of Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov's Teaching and reveals the vast scope of his thought in which Holy Scripture, esoteric symbolism and the sciences of man and of nature meet and complete each other in one all-embracing synthesis.

'True Alchemy does not consist in the spectacular transmutation of base metals into gold, but in the spiritual transmutation of man's own matter. Grains of sand are transformed into pearls; summer sees twisted, blackened vine-stocks burst into leaf and bow beneath the weight of their grapes; caterpillars are metamorphosed into butterflies; galvanoplasty transforms a drab piece of base metal into a golden ornament... All these different ways of transforming things are familiar to us but we have never studied them sufficiently closely to realize that they contain the secret of our own inner metamorphosis. If a tree, for instance, is capable of transforming the raw mineral nutrients it draws from the soil into the sugarsap which enables it to produce flowers and fruits, why should man not do likewise ? Why should we not be capable of transforming the raw juices of our instincts and passions so that they produce a rich harvest of flowers and fruit, in the form of vitality in our physical bodies, love and joy in our hearts and understanding and wisdom in our minds?'

‘When Jesus said to his disciples: “If you have the faith of the mustard seed, you will say to this mountain: Move from here to there, and it will move”, obviously this mountain is symbolic. The mountain represents the great difficulties of life that faith alone allows us to move, that is to say to resolve. In one year, two years, ten years, stone by stone, we will succeed in moving mountains. You think that this is a long time and you would like it to be done immediately. Then, in that case, copy the ants which manage in very little time to move great heaps of seeds, proportionally they represent mountains for them! Yes, but an ant does not work alone, there are multitudes of them working together. In isolation and egotism, we will never move mountains. If great things have been achieved throughout history, it is because humans were united in working together. Moving mountains means to remove in ourselves and in the world the obstacles which oppose the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is possible only if all spiritual people unite in faith and love to undertake a great work of light and peace; they will obtain many more results and the link created between them will be more powerful.’

'Human beings come and go, work and play, and busy themselves with all kinds of things, never realizing that their life is growing dim and dirty because they do nothing to protect it. They think that the life they have received is theirs to dispose of, and that they have a right to use it for pleasure or become rich, learned or renowned, as they please. So they draw on their reserves without restraint until, one day, they find themselves utterly spent and obliged to abandon all their activities. It is completely senseless to behave like that for, once we have wasted our supply of life, we have no other resources to fall back on. The Sages have always said that the only thing that is essential is life itself, and that we must protect, purify and sanctify it and eliminate whatever may hinder or prevent it from developing. And, if we do so, life will give us everything else: health, strength, power, intelligence and beauty - every thing ! The highest form of magic, the highest form of White Magic is to lead a pure, luminous life.'

'Meditate on harmony, love it, long for it so as to introduce it into your every gesture, every look, every word. Let the word "harmony" impregnate you; keep it within you as a kind of pitch pipe, and when you are feeling worried or upset, take it out and listen to it and do nothing until your whole being is in tune with it once more. In the morning, when you wake, remember to begin your day by tuning yourself to the world of universal harmony... When you enter a house let your first thought be: "May peace and harmony reign in this house.'

Yesod, the ninth Sephirah on the cabbalistic Tree of Life, is the symbol of a pure life. Taking purity as the basis of his spiritual teaching (Yesod means 'base' in Hebrew), Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov renews in our times the sense and significance of the ancient Initiations enriched by his own innumerable discoveries. He has personally practised and experimented at length with the rules and exercises he proposes for our use ; their purpose is to liberate man and awaken in every fibre of his being the vital, harmonious forces of Divine life.'

'When we focus our attention on the sun, the center of our universe, we draw closer to our own centre, our higher self, the sun within; we melt into it and begin to resemble it more and more. But to focus our attention on the sun also means to learn to mobilize all our, thoughts, desires, and energies, and put them to work in the service of the highest ideal. He who works to unify the chaotic multitude of inner forces that constantly threaten to tear him apart, and launch them in the pursuit of one, luminous, beneficial goal, becomes a powerful focal point, capable of radiating in every direction. Believe me, a human being who masters the tendencies of his lower nature can benefit the whole of mankind. He becomes as radiant as the sun. His freedom is such that his consciousness embraces the whole human race as he pours out the superabundance of light and love that dwell within him. The world needs more and more human beings capable of dedicating themselves to this work with the sun, for only love and light are capable of transforming humanity.'

This book shows us that our 'personality', that inner force of which we are all aware and which so often leads us astray, can be a precious ally rather than an enemy. Instead of waging a losing battle against our lower nature, we can learn to control and use it to elevate ourselves. In doing so we gradually discover the existence of a higher psychic power within us, our 'individuality', which is above all contingencies and conflicts and is capable of using them to create inner harmony and true fraternal bonds.

True morality is everywhere manifest in Nature, the extension of the natural laws that govern our psychic life. When human beings break these laws they pay by suffer-ing or illness. The reader will no doubt be surprised to learn that true morality is not a limitation; on the contrary it confers tremendous freedom and increases our power of action. If we obeyed these laws both in our own lives and in our dealings with others, the result would be the ideal society.

A great many people today feel the need for some practical methods that will help them to grow spiritually.A New Erth responds to that need. It contains a number of simple, effective, spiritual exercises taken from the thousands of lectures given by the Master Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov over a period of nearly fifty years. Some concern our everyday life: nutrition, breathing, hygiene, purification, and our relationships with nature and other human beings. Others touch on questions that are more directly spiritual: meditation and prayer, the development of our psychic centres, or chakras, the aura, the body of glory, and so on. All these methods grow out of that immense body of knowledge known as initiatic science, the principal goal of which is the advent of the 'new heaven and the new earth' announced in scripture.

I det åndelige livet er det et stort behov for metoder, og som svar på dette behovet er det i denne boken blitt samlet et antall enkle og effektive øvelser som Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov ga anvisning på i sine foredrag. Noen av øvelsene gjelder konkrete sider av dagliglivet, mens andre gjelder for rent åndelige aktiviteter.

‘Sexuality tends to be self-centred. It drives man to seek only his own pleasure, even to the detriment of others. Love, on the other hand, thinks of the other’s happiness above all else. It is based on self-denial and sacrifice: the sacrifice of one’s time, energy and money, even the sacrifice of one’s gratification, for the sake of helping the other, of allowing the other to blossom and develop his full potential. Nothing is more beautiful than love, when you are ready to do without, to give up what you have or what you enjoy. Spirituality begins precisely at the point where love prevails over sexuality, when a human being is willing to wrest something from himself for the sake of another. As long as you are incapable of sacrifice, you will be unable to love.’

'There are several possible attitudes towards love. You can eat it, you can drink it, and you can breathe it, but you can also live in it. Those who eat love remain on the physical plane and are never fully satisfied because they are content with pleasures of a lower order. The pleasures of those who drink love are less crude, but they are still confined to the delights and satisfactions of the astral plane. The philosophers, writers and artists who have managed to reach the mental plane are those who breathe love; love is the constant source of their inspiration. Only those who live in love, in the subtle, etheric dimension of love, truly possess it. For them it is light in the mind and warmth in the heart and they can pour out that light and warmth on those around them. Those who live in this love possess all fulness.'

‘The foods we eat every day obviously contain life, but they don’t yet possess the spirit. So we must, when we eat, concentrate on the food so that our spirit participates in this act. On eating the food, the spirit impregnates our own matter which it transforms, enlightens and regenerates .’ 

‘Know thyself” was the maxim inscribed on the pediment of the temple at Delphi. What is this ‘self’ that we have to know? Is it a question of knowing our own vices and virtues, our strengths and weaknesses? No: to know oneself is to know the different bodies (the physical, etheric, mental, causal, buddhic and atmic bodies) of which we are formed and what each of these bodies needs. If the initiates of old insisted so much on the necessity of self-knowledge it was because this knowledge opens up tremendous possibilities for growth, progress and success. As long as man is ignorant of the needs of his higher self, he will continue to surfeit his physical body while his soul and spirit suffocate and die of hunger and thirst.’ Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Know thyself! All science and all wisdom lies in knowing oneself, in finding oneself, in the fusion of one's lower self with one's higher self. The symbol of the initiate who has succeeded in finding himself is the serpent with its tail in its mouth. A serpent forms a straight or wavy line, and a line is limited. But the serpent with its tail in its mouth forms a cirde and a cirde represents the infinite, the limitless, the eternal. He who succeeds in becoming a circle enters a world without limitations where the 'above' and the 'below' are no longer separated, because all the powers and all the riches and virtues of the true, higher self have been infused into the lower self. The higher and the lower become one and man becomes a divinity.

Although we may know about heliocentricity from the point of view of astronomy, we are still far from having exhausted all its possibilities in the biological, psychological, cultural and spiritual spheres. The sun exists within each one of us and, if allowed to, can manifest its presence by awakening our consciousness to a global view of human problems.

Why is one born in a particular country and a particular family? Why is one healthy, rich, illustrious and powerful, or on the contrary poor, handicapped and miserable? Even those who think they are entirely free must put up with their fate because of their ignorance of the laws which govern the invisible world. The reply to these questions not only helps the disciple to unravel the tangled threads of his life, it also gives him the tools he must have in order to become master of his own destiny.

Hvorfor blir man født i et bestemt land og i en bestemt familie? Hvorfor er noen friske, intelligente, rike og mektige, mens andre har en funksjonshemming eller opplever andre hindringer i livet?

Is it possible for education to begin before birth? Yes. Because true education is primarily subconscious. A child is not a little animal which you can start training as soon as it is old enough. A mother can have a beneficial influence on her child in the womb through the harmony of her thoughts, acts and feelings. And this pre-natal influence must be faithfully continued once the baby is born, for, as all parents should realize, a tiny baby is highly sensitive to its environment. Ultimately, it is by example that parents and pedagogues should accomplish their educational mission.