Wednesday 8 October 2014

The Kabbalah-Emanations from the Source






By Robert Green


The following passage is from an old copy of Kabbalah. It is explaining the emanations flowing from God to the world of form. Kabbalah "conceals" with the terms it uses, so here are some definitions to help you understand this passage:

En-Sof is a complicated term that means "potential in the center, or heart"...It also is thought of as concentrated"...for the mystics, it's symbol is a circle with a dot in the center. Also, some commentators of the Kabbalah call it the "Dark Waters". Put simply, it is potential.
Shekhinah is the female essence of God. God in the Kabbalah sense is both male and female. The emanations that flow downward from God and give the illusion of form come from the "female part of God". We as mystics call this female part of God the COSMIC, the HOLY GHOST, or the MOTHER.

Sefirah are emanations, or we might call them waves, or vibrations. It is these waves, or emanations that we sense with our 5 senses and give us the illusion of a unversed that is separate from self.

With these definitions, this passage will make sense to you...

Sefirah is also symbolically representative of God's feminine counterpart, the Shekinah to whom we shall devote several pages shortly. It is through her that the divine grace of the En-Sof passes through into the lower world.

THE LAST few pages have concentrated on presenting the manner in which the En-Sof made Himself known through the agency of his emanations the Sefiroth. The Sefiroth should always be thought of as different aspects of the En-Sof, different colors along a spectrum, and as intimate portions of His process. The greatest mistake would be to view them as aspects of His creation instead of the result of His divine efflux. Creation implies the establishing of something other than oneself, outside of oneself, wholly capable of existing as an independent unit or entity. Emanation on the other hand is an act of flowing (from the Latin, emanare, to flow), which implies not only the existence of a source, but that the activity of flowing is dependent on the source if it is to remain an activity. What flows through the Sefiroth is the light of the En-Sof which they need for their existence. They are composed of that light in much the same way as a bowl is composed of clay. The intimacy of the connection between the Sefiroth and the En-Sof extends to the relationships between the different Sefiroth themselves. Participating in a common reception of the En-Sof s emanations, they share also each other's qualities. The nature of their differences is marked only by the degree of predominance of the quality after which they are named. Apart from that they are equal in both power and value.
Kabbalah -The Shekhinah
This is a continuation of unveiling the Kabbalah.

Again the Kabbalah uses mysterious words to conceal, with some words meaning the same as another, so here are some definitions to help understand the following pages:
Binah means understanding and represents the "self" on the "middle pillar".
Malkuth means the kingdom of the feminine emanation. It is called by mystics the Cosmic. It is another name for the
Shekhinah.

Tetragammation are the four consonants of God's name. God's name was always written without vowels.
Neshamah is the soul. The soul in Kabbalah is divided into 3 qualities...Neshamah is the highest, finest vibration.

Anything in ( ) are my comments.

THE SHEKHINAH

The saddest note in the whole fabric of the Kabbalistic theory of the soul is struck by the idea that a man who is not aware of the precepts of righteousness may never see the Neshamah until he has left this world. Only then may he understand that the Shekhinah, God's bride, is the Neshamah and that he had for a brief time shared her presence in him.

In terms of the Sefiroth, the Shekhinah, represents the middle pillar of the three pillars. She is also known as the Superior Mother and the Inferior or Infernal Mother, the mother and the daughter, the upper Shekhinah and the lower Shekhinah—all appellations referring to the Sefiroth Binah and Malkuth respectively. She therefore also figures in the figure of the Tetragrammaton, the upper (first) and lower (last) He. In short, she is the anima mundi, the world soul who gives a portion of herself to each man in the form of the Neshamah.

We mentioned in Part I of this book that the Shekhinah was originally thought of as God's indwelling or presence. We also mentioned that the Kabbalists later took up this idea of a presence and made of it A part of God, a feminine part.

What the Kabbalists are stating is that God in Man in His whole state (oneness) is androgynous and that in His present condition He is incomplete. The Kabbalists assign the statement 'Let us make man,' to the lips of the Shekhinah and go on to further stipulate that because man was made in God's image he too is androgynous. It is for this reason that one constantly finds statements to the effect that a man must always be male and female. That is, in order for a man's faith to be firm( have confidence) he must always remain in contact with the feminine portion of himself.

In an exceedingly beautiful passage in the commentaries on the “Zohar” the “Shekhinah is likened to a lovely woman courting her lover:

“Truly, the Shekhinah releases a word and emerges a bit from her sheath, and then quickly hides herself again. This she does only for those who know her...The Shekhinah is like a beautiful and stately woman, hidden in a secreted chamber in her palace with a secret lover...This lover constantly passes the gate of her house, searching for her...She opens her chamber door and reveals her face to him but for an instant...He alone sees it.

The passage continues to relate how the mystic is the one who haunts her house and that he had been drawn to her when she once beckoned to him, revealing a portion of her face to him, and he came at the first sign without hesitation. Then she begins to speak to him, simply, within the range of his understanding, from behind a curtain until “insight” (intuition) comes to him.

Then she takes up a veil through which she speaks allegorical words (symbols and archetypes). Only by the latter may he become familiar with her, and only then does she reveal her face. She tells him of all the hidden secrets contained in her, and only then for the first time does he understand the true meaning of the soul.”

According to this passage, therefore, it is not impossible for a man to meet his Neshamah face to face before his death, if he is a Kabbalist. The union of the mystic with his soul, and therefore the restitution of the original divine order, may be Ultimately, the whole of Kabbalistic speculation. Yet it is only a key to the chamber of the sub conscious mind in which each of us may find the Shekhinah.

Kabbalah and the meaning of Resonance - Balance - Harmony.
In the Kabbalah the "Tree of the Garden of Paradise" is arranged into different configurations to explain certain Cosmic Laws. To explain "harmony and balance" the tree is arranged as 3 pilliars and the emanations, or "Sefiroth", are connected between the three pilliars with a zig zag line in the form of stairs. These zig zag lines are mathematical conclusions.

The pillar on the left is called the pillar of Judgement. The pillar on the right is called the pillar of Mercy. The pillar in the middle represents SELF and is called Understanding.

Everything in Kabbalah is mathematical. So, in Kabbalahian mathematics the left pillar of Judgement has an emanation of Darkness; the right pillar, an emanation of Light, and the Middle pillar, an emanation of Beauty. So in solving the equation of Kabbalah mathematics of these 3 pillars, we have: By understanding the Darkness we understand the Light and this equals Beauty to the Self. Beauty then is the balancing point; Beauty is the harmony of dark and light, or of evil and good. We also see from this arrangement of the pillars that SELF must Judge, it is the way that we UNDERSTAND, but to balance or harmonize our Judging there must be Mercy/"Tolerance" to have resonance or harmony within Self.



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