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Malkuth; Ruach, the Mind, Reason, and Intellect referred to the group of Six
Sephiroth lying around the Sun of Tiphereth; and Neshamah, the spiritual
aspirations associated with the Supernal Triangle of the Queen, King and Crown.
These Human principles function upon Four Worlds,--Divine, Moral, Intellectual
and Emotional respectively: and either of these essences may dominate a man,
and they do, in fact, exist in constantly varying proportions. The highest principle
overshadows the others, and the central ones may reach up to the higher; or by
neglect of opportunities, or by vicious actions, may fall lower and lower, so as to
approximate to the seeming matter of the body. As the Neshamah draws one to
Spiritual excellence, so the Nephesh leads down to physical enjoyment.
In another form of symbolism the Kabalist tells us a man has two companions, or
guides; one on the right, Yetzer ha Tob, to good acts, he is from the higher
Sephiroth; and one on the left, Yetzer ha Ra, encouraging the appetites and
passions, temptations to evil, is an agent of Samael and of The Beast. Man is in a
very unfortunate position according to the Zohar 95 b, for it is there said that the
Evil Angel joins him at birth, but the Good Angel only at the age of 13 years.
As to Death, as we have already learned, the man's Ego or Soul, unless the life has
been superexcellent, has to be re-born in another form, but at death, as all
religions agree, great changes occur. According to the Kabalah, the visible
material body, the Guph, decays, and the Animal aspect of the soul, the Nephesh,
only gradually fades away from it: the Ruach, the Human aspect, passes away
from the Assiatic plane, and the Neshamah, the spiritual soul, returns to the
Treasury of Heaven, to the Gan Oidin, or of Paradise, perfected to a Spiritual
world beyond the plain of re-births. The "Sepher jareh chattaim" says that a man
is judged in the same hour in which he dies; for the Shekinah, a Presence of the
Divine One, comes near him, with three Angels, of whom the chief is Dumah, the
Angel of Silence: if the soul is condemned, Dumah takes it to Gai-Hinnom, or
hell, for a period of punishment before the next incarnation; if approved, the Soul
passes to an Oidin or Heaven. In the end of the present manifestation of the
Universe, all souls will have become perfected by suffering, have been blessed in
Paradise, and will be in reunion with the God from Whom they came forth.
The Kabalistic theory of man's constitution, origin and destiny is very different
from the modern Christian view, but differs from the Indian schemes more in
manner of presentation than in principle, and these two may be fitly studied side
by side and each will illuminate the other. There is, indeed, no sharp line of
cleavage between the Western mystic doctrines, the Kabalism of the Middle Ages
related to the Egyptian Hermeticism, and the Indian Esoteric Theosophy. They
differ in language nomenclature, and in the imagery employed in the effort to
represent spiritual ideas to mankind; but there is no sufficient reason for any
condemnation of either school by any other. The world of intellectual culture is
wide enough for both to exist side by side, and the mere fact that they are
philosophic Systems in any way comprehensible to men is evidence that either
can be composed of pure and unveiled truth, for we are still only able to see as in
a glass darkly, and must make much further progress before we can hope to see
God face to face and know Him as He is.
We must be content to progress, as students have ever done, by stages of
development; in each grade the primal truths are re-stated in a different form; they
are revealed or re-veiled in language and symbolism suitable to the learner's own
mental condition; hence the need of a teacher, of a guide who has traversed the
path, and who can recognise by personal communion the stage which each pupil
has attained. There is no royal or easy path to high attainment in Mysticism.
Unwearied effort, combined with purity of life, is of vital importance. The human
intellect can only appreciate and assimilate that which the mind's eye can at any
time perceive. The process cannot be forced. Mystic lore cannot be stolen. If any
learner did appropriate the knowledge of a Grade beyond him it would be to him
but folly, disappointment and darkness.
Students have often been offered a doctrine, or assertion, or explanation, which
their intellect has rejected as absurd, or as sheer superstition; which same dogma
they have later in life assimilated with every feeling of esteem. Occultism in this
resembles Freemasonry; we are either admitted to the hidden knowledge, or we
are not; and if we are not admitted, we never believe any secret of its ritual even if
it be offered to us. The secrets of Occultism are like Freemasonry; in truth they
are to some extent the secrets that Freemasonry has lost. They are of their very
nature inviolable; for they can only be attained by personal progress; they might
be plainly told to the outsider, and not be understood by him. For if anyone has
been able to divine and to grasp such a secret, he will not tell it even to his dearest
friend; for the simple reason that if his friend is unable to divine it for himself, its
communication in mere words would not confer the hidden knowledge upon him.
The whole Kabalistic theories are of a nature similar to the secrets of
Freemasonry; there was much doctrine that was never written nor printed: these
works often describe imagery which seems folly, and contain doctrines that at
first seem absurd; yet they enshrine the highly spiritual teachings which I have
shortly outlined. The mere reading of these volumes is of little avail; the spiritual
eye needs to be opened to see spiritual things; and the great Kabalists of old did
not cast pearls of wisdom before the ignorant or the vicious, nor suffer the
unclean to enter the Temple of Wisdom. The serious student must make strenuous
efforts to attain to the higher life of the True Occultism, then perchance in a
distant future, a record of temptations avoided, and of a life of self-sacrifice may [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
Malkuth; Ruach, the Mind, Reason, and Intellect referred to the group of Six
Sephiroth lying around the Sun of Tiphereth; and Neshamah, the spiritual
aspirations associated with the Supernal Triangle of the Queen, King and Crown.
These Human principles function upon Four Worlds,--Divine, Moral, Intellectual
and Emotional respectively: and either of these essences may dominate a man,
and they do, in fact, exist in constantly varying proportions. The highest principle
overshadows the others, and the central ones may reach up to the higher; or by
neglect of opportunities, or by vicious actions, may fall lower and lower, so as to
approximate to the seeming matter of the body. As the Neshamah draws one to
Spiritual excellence, so the Nephesh leads down to physical enjoyment.
In another form of symbolism the Kabalist tells us a man has two companions, or
guides; one on the right, Yetzer ha Tob, to good acts, he is from the higher
Sephiroth; and one on the left, Yetzer ha Ra, encouraging the appetites and
passions, temptations to evil, is an agent of Samael and of The Beast. Man is in a
very unfortunate position according to the Zohar 95 b, for it is there said that the
Evil Angel joins him at birth, but the Good Angel only at the age of 13 years.
As to Death, as we have already learned, the man's Ego or Soul, unless the life has
been superexcellent, has to be re-born in another form, but at death, as all
religions agree, great changes occur. According to the Kabalah, the visible
material body, the Guph, decays, and the Animal aspect of the soul, the Nephesh,
only gradually fades away from it: the Ruach, the Human aspect, passes away
from the Assiatic plane, and the Neshamah, the spiritual soul, returns to the
Treasury of Heaven, to the Gan Oidin, or of Paradise, perfected to a Spiritual
world beyond the plain of re-births. The "Sepher jareh chattaim" says that a man
is judged in the same hour in which he dies; for the Shekinah, a Presence of the
Divine One, comes near him, with three Angels, of whom the chief is Dumah, the
Angel of Silence: if the soul is condemned, Dumah takes it to Gai-Hinnom, or
hell, for a period of punishment before the next incarnation; if approved, the Soul
passes to an Oidin or Heaven. In the end of the present manifestation of the
Universe, all souls will have become perfected by suffering, have been blessed in
Paradise, and will be in reunion with the God from Whom they came forth.
The Kabalistic theory of man's constitution, origin and destiny is very different
from the modern Christian view, but differs from the Indian schemes more in
manner of presentation than in principle, and these two may be fitly studied side
by side and each will illuminate the other. There is, indeed, no sharp line of
cleavage between the Western mystic doctrines, the Kabalism of the Middle Ages
related to the Egyptian Hermeticism, and the Indian Esoteric Theosophy. They
differ in language nomenclature, and in the imagery employed in the effort to
represent spiritual ideas to mankind; but there is no sufficient reason for any
condemnation of either school by any other. The world of intellectual culture is
wide enough for both to exist side by side, and the mere fact that they are
philosophic Systems in any way comprehensible to men is evidence that either
can be composed of pure and unveiled truth, for we are still only able to see as in
a glass darkly, and must make much further progress before we can hope to see
God face to face and know Him as He is.
We must be content to progress, as students have ever done, by stages of
development; in each grade the primal truths are re-stated in a different form; they
are revealed or re-veiled in language and symbolism suitable to the learner's own
mental condition; hence the need of a teacher, of a guide who has traversed the
path, and who can recognise by personal communion the stage which each pupil
has attained. There is no royal or easy path to high attainment in Mysticism.
Unwearied effort, combined with purity of life, is of vital importance. The human
intellect can only appreciate and assimilate that which the mind's eye can at any
time perceive. The process cannot be forced. Mystic lore cannot be stolen. If any
learner did appropriate the knowledge of a Grade beyond him it would be to him
but folly, disappointment and darkness.
Students have often been offered a doctrine, or assertion, or explanation, which
their intellect has rejected as absurd, or as sheer superstition; which same dogma
they have later in life assimilated with every feeling of esteem. Occultism in this
resembles Freemasonry; we are either admitted to the hidden knowledge, or we
are not; and if we are not admitted, we never believe any secret of its ritual even if
it be offered to us. The secrets of Occultism are like Freemasonry; in truth they
are to some extent the secrets that Freemasonry has lost. They are of their very
nature inviolable; for they can only be attained by personal progress; they might
be plainly told to the outsider, and not be understood by him. For if anyone has
been able to divine and to grasp such a secret, he will not tell it even to his dearest
friend; for the simple reason that if his friend is unable to divine it for himself, its
communication in mere words would not confer the hidden knowledge upon him.
The whole Kabalistic theories are of a nature similar to the secrets of
Freemasonry; there was much doctrine that was never written nor printed: these
works often describe imagery which seems folly, and contain doctrines that at
first seem absurd; yet they enshrine the highly spiritual teachings which I have
shortly outlined. The mere reading of these volumes is of little avail; the spiritual
eye needs to be opened to see spiritual things; and the great Kabalists of old did
not cast pearls of wisdom before the ignorant or the vicious, nor suffer the
unclean to enter the Temple of Wisdom. The serious student must make strenuous
efforts to attain to the higher life of the True Occultism, then perchance in a
distant future, a record of temptations avoided, and of a life of self-sacrifice may [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]