Tree of Life: An Introduction to the Cabala PDF
Preview Tree of Life: An Introduction to the Cabala
TREE OF LIFE An Introduction to the Cabala Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi RIDER London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Johannesburg Acknowledgements I would like to thank every person who, consciously or un consciously, living or dead, has contributed to this work. Particularly, I am grateful to my forefathers and to various personal mentors, especially those in the tradition of the Society of the Common Life. Contents I Introduction 13 II History 17 III Negative Existence 26 IV Lightning Flash 31 V Tree and Man 35 VI Tree and Gods 51 VII The Four Worlds 73 VIII Triad and Octave 81 IX Paths 95 X Practice 106 XI Exercise 109 XII Parliament 111 XIII God and Mammon 122 XIV Love Affair 139 XV Birth-Life-Death 147 XVI Time l6l XVII Planet Earth: a speculation 171 XVIII Man 183 XIX Aim 191 Index Table of Plates 1 Hebrew Tree 10 2 Tree of Life 12 3 Menorah 16 4 Tree of Thomas Aquinas 22 5 Negative existence 26 6 Lightning flash 30 7 Tree of Man 36 8 Gods and planets 52 9 Four worlds 72 10 Triad and Octave 82 11 Inner triads 91 12 Paths 99 13 Tarot: two systems 103 14 Parliament 110 15 Religion 126 16 Mammon 132 17 Birth-life-death 148 18 Time 162 19 Planet earth 172 20 Man 185 21 Evolving man 195 Preface The Cabalistic Tree of Life has been with us for two thousand or more years. Every age has seen it through its own eyes and this book is an attempt to cast it into twentieth- century terms so that its blossoms may flower for another season. The Tree of Life is an analogue of the Absolute, the Universe and Man. Its roots penetrate deep into the earth below and its top branches touch the uppermost heaven. Man, meeting point between heaven and earth, is an image of his Creator. A complete but unrealised Tree in miniature, and lower than the angels, his is to choose to rise higher by climbing the branches of himself, and so gain the ultimate fruit. London 5731 Tree of Life I Introduction The Tree of Life is a picture of Creation. It is an objective diagram of the principles working throughout the Uni verse. Cast in the form of an analogic tree it demonstrates the flow of forces down from the Divine to the lowest world and back again. In it are contained all the laws that govern and their interaction. It is also a comprehensive view of man. The relative Universe hovers between two poles. All and Nothing. Either end of this fluctuating axis may be seen as Nothing or All, as both become the entry and exit points for the Absolute who stands apart from Creation. Here we have the full reality. All else is, to the ultimate observer, illusion —a cosmic drama composed and dissolved in a cyclic round of plays within plays from the subtlest reverberations in the Highest worlds to the slowest movements and changes in the coursest Materiality. The Absolute has no direct contact with creation yet Being permeates through the matrix of the Universe, supporting it like the silence behind every sound. Without this negative reality nothing could come into existence, as shadow can not manifest without light. Here in the relative world we move amid particles and waves never for the most part suspecting that what we touch is always disappearing, and what we see is not really there. Solidity is a charade, a temporary state of nothing, frozen for a time into a form that is familiar to us, who are ourselves but travellers in the ever changing scenery called earth. 14 TREE OF LIFE Creation is separate from its creator even more than a modern production of Hamlet is far removed from Shakespeare. Yet creation bears its Author's hand and though the actors may interpret, the play remains essen tially as the Master conceived it. The relative Universe, like our analogy of a play, is constructed in the same design with protagonists and supporting cast set against a series of back grounds in which different roles, seeking to find equilibrium, create and operate dramatic events known as evolution. The relationships between the various actors or forces is very precise, though they may take up different attitudes under specific conditions. This set of combinations is laid out in the Tree of Life so that a given situation may be examined and its participants and their true status be revealed. The Tree is a model of the relative Universe. It is the template of all the world, carrying within it a recurring system of order. Moreover any complete sub-organism or organisation is an imitation of its plan. Man is the prime example. He is a microcosm of the macrocosm. His being is an exact replica in every detail in miniature of the cos moses above him. True, he moves in the physical world, is made up of atoms, molecules and cells yet he partakes in the subtle realm of forms, can assist in conscious creation and has access to the Divine. As man is an image of Creation so Creation is but a reflection of the Creator. By this resemblance we are able to study that which is below by looking at that which is above and that which we cannot observe above by examining that which is below. Through the Tree of Life we have an objec tive connection which gives us insight and knowledge by the principle of parallel—into the upper and lower, inner and outer Universes. In our account the origin of the Tree of Life is traced, then the power of its illumination and formulation. Following the INTRODUCTION 15 development of its conception we see that cosmic principles apply to any whole entity. Observing its workings we are shown how the tree gathers into an intelligible order all aspects of phenomena and demonstrates them in a reflec tive picture, a Universe wherein the Creator is present even in the densest of matter.
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