Gate 16 — Enthusiasm — The Art of Channeling Energy

Full breakdown

We're continuing with the collective process, and when it comes to the logical collective process, one thing I keep pointing out as we go is the difficulty of accessing energy. Today's gates on the agenda point toward the motors (12, 35, 45); all of them face directly at a motor, so action is always possible there. We'll also look at gate 20, which can connect to the Sacral. But leaving aside gates that point to the G Center, the only gate that looks downward with no access to energy at all is gate 16. Its heading speaks of the great art of enriching life by channeling energy harmoniously. There's no energy here. If you drop down to gate 48, you find the Gate of Depth, part of the Spleen system, which isn't a motor — which is why the talent that belongs to channel 16/48 can sit in deep frustration: it has no easy access to energy.

Gate 16 matters enormously, because it's the primary gate of identification. It's different from the gates of self-identity. We've already looked at three such gates. In them, the true nature of the direction set by the Sphinx gates comes through — they release a sense of self into the world, identified with the direction of one of the Sphinx gates. In gate 16, we're dealing with identification itself. I've known plenty of people on a mystical or spiritual path who absorbed an Eastern philosophy that says identifying with anything is terrible — don't identify! But if you have gate 16, or anything at all in the logical circuit, and you refuse to identify with it, you'll never master it. The foundation of mastery, the foundation of any real skill — and gate 16 is the Gate of Mastery, the gate of skill — lies in identifying with what you do. Without that identification, there's no way to actually embody your talent, no other path. In that sense, you'll never become a master of your craft, never a singer, a musician, an actor, a painter, never a genuine artist, unless you identify as one. Identification works mechanically.

For people who were taught they shouldn't identify, having gate 16 in their design turns into something like: don't identify with your own identification. But you have to identify with something on a practical, everyday level, whatever you're actually doing — otherwise an artist or musician has no way to reach real mastery. Mastery is built on identification. The artist needs that deep identification in order to repeat and refine the pattern. With the logical process, it's important to understand: you can't scatter your attention, you can't treat things superficially or casually from time to time. You have to identify with the process, which means sustained experimentation until a clear understanding forms. If you're not identified with that logical process, it won't pay off for you. It's not enough to just say things work a certain way — you have to identify with the process, go all the way through it, experiment with it, and come out the other side, in order to prove or disprove the truth, weight, and reliability of the pattern.