We live in patterns. They are inescapable. There are patterns extending through all states of existence. We can find them readily enough anywhere. Our human bodies are a 'Magic Maze' of patterns throughout their cellular structure. We have only to look at our own fingertips to observe our individual patterning. Insofar as the pattern of anything may be called a symbol, each of us are living Symbols forming part of a Great Design.
The basic facts are simple enough. We live between two worlds or states of existence. The Outerworld of ordinary mundane living, and the mysterious Innerworld of thoughts, feelings, and subjective activities which we vaguely classify as "spiritual". Both worlds are real in relation to ourselves, and the energies operating through them are transmutable and interchangeable from one to another. The patterns formed by such exchanges are those by which we live. We can alter ourselves by altering our life-patterns and vice versa. We and they are interdependent.
If it were possible to find or formulate what might be described as the Perfect Pattern and follow it faithfully, then we should be Perfect People. This has been the aim of every religion and philosophy, Creed, Code, or System. Looking at our past history and present situation as humans, it seems evident that we have either failed to find or to follow any such thing. Nevertheless, this has not been for want of attempts made in that direction. So many attempts have been made so often by such different means, that confusion occurs among them all, and for an individual to make any selective choice for himself is mostly a matter of instinct or inclination.
It was and is the Ideal of every 'Spiritual System' to find this Perfect Pattern and use it for the development and upliftment of such people who might fit themselves into its framework. An intelligent human applying this Design to himself must surely (in theory) be on the way to his own perfection. This was the purpose of Occult Initiation, in which aspirants were supplied with a Symbolic Plan for their progression through the inner and outer worlds.
If we consider some of the principal Systems among us, we shall see that they have all produced some kind of a Master pattern which must have been effective to some degree or they could not have affected so many people for so long a time. Perhaps the most universal was the ancient Solar, or circled Cross, held in common by nearly all faiths in one form or another. Christianity began under its aegis, the Calvary Cross being a later adaptation. Buddhists show it as the Wheel of Life, and it remains today as a major Symbol of most Mystery Schools. As a universal Symbol, it is scarcely to be surpassed.
The Hebrew faith ultimately adopted the Hexagram, or Shield of David as a Master-Glyph, and the profundity of its design is capable of indefinite interpretation. Later came the highly sophisticated development of the Quarternity and Sextuplicity as the Ten Emanations of the One, arranged in the pattern known as the Tree of Life. Few minds could, or yet can, work with this Glyph on account of its complications, so it remained almost the exclusive property of the mystics. Orthodox Rabbinism declared it heretical. However, it became the sign of a developing and Westernising mind and soul, growing away from the static Oriental outlook and culture, and such it remains today.
As we grow the Tree grows. It bears a different variety of fruit in the twenty first century than it did in the fourteenth, but it still fulfills its function of producing sustenance for the insatiable human soul. What is more, its fruits are literally inexhaustible, since they continually renew themselves with fresh supplies. The harder we pluck the Tree, the more plentifully comes its fruit. Yet there is no dogma here, there are no teachings paraded as absolute truths and no faith championed as the crowning of advancement. In fact it is the opposite. Here there is experimentation, realization and elimination through personal work. If you are expecting 'religion' then you have already fallen off the tree.
This reason is very simple. The Qabalistic Tree and its associations may be likened to a well-designed crossword puzzle with its clues. The entire meaning and value of the puzzle lies with the mental exercise involved in its construction and solution. In solving it, a mind must be used to some considerable extent, which naturally improves and develops the mind power of the thinker. By presenting the Tree as a Qabalistic puzzle of mental and spiritual magnitude, an opportunity is afforded for genuine progress of mind and spirit to whomsoever has the wits and endurance to attempt its solution. Consequently the written and published Qabalah must be considered as the clues to the enigma and not its answers except on some of the broad issues. The real solution must be worked out individually, for it lies in those who seek it and nowhere else. The key is in 'the way' to the goal, not in the goal itself.
So what is the Tree? It is a symbolic representation of the relationships believed to exist between the most abstract and the most concrete humanity. Since it is a Symbol, we must gain some knowledge of the meaning, construction, and applications of Symbols, or the Tree will be nothing more than lines and dots on paper. A Symbol is the embodiment of an idea so that it can be dealt with by differing conscious entities, or even between
different conscious levels of the same Entity. Thus a Symbol is a means of exchange much like coinage or any mutually acceptable currency. Symbolism may be considered as the currency of consciousness. After all, the very words on your screen are groups of symbols arranged so as to convey meaning from one mind to another.
The Tree-Symbol is in itself an alphabet of symbols from whence a spiritual language can be constructed which should be intelligible between Beings in different states of existence. In old fashioned terms, Gods, Angels, and Men are given a common language. In modern parlance the normal consciousness is enabled to communicate directly with the sub and super consciousness by means of inter-relative symbology. To make the Tree fully articulate is the work of every mystic, because once an intelligent contact has been established by its means then we shall make useful progress along the lines of the Perfect Pattern.
Every child knows that Trees are climbed from branch to branch upwards, getting a firm grip on the next branch before the immediate one is released. The Tree of Life is no exception to this rule. Its branches are its Paths and Sephirotic Attributes. Each must be grasped by getting a firm understanding of what is is and what it does. The peculiar nomenclature, consisting of God-Names, Archangels, Angels, and Planetary potencies can be learned rapidly enough, but is is no use leaving knowledge there. Unless they become realities for the Qabalist, the Names are worthless, and the only way to "make them come true" is to work with them in continual meditation and practice. Unless we known for certain what these mysterious "Names of Power'' signify, and how they link up with each other to form a perfect Pattern, they cannot be used to any effect. Our task is to find and follow that pattern through its entire course.
It may be as well to remind ourselves rapidly of the Sephirotic Order. 0. AIN SOPH Nothing ; 1. KETHER, Crown or Summit ; 2, CHOCKMAH, Wisdom ; 3, BINAH, Understanding; 4, CHESED, Mercy; 5, GEBURAH, Severity; 6, TIPHERETH, Beauty, Harmony; 7, NETZACH. Victory; 8, HOD, Splendour; 9, YESOD, Foundation; 10, MALKUTH, Kingdom; 11, DAATH. Experience. These Emanations or Principles by which Divinity and Humanity conjoin, operate from Nothing to Material Manifestation through four Worlds, or stages.
These so-called Worlds are confusing to students, but they are really nothing more than arbitrary divisions between Nothingness and the material universe around us. Out of Nothing, Everything comes. Whatever Power or Principle is responsible for such a production we call "GOD" by some name or another. So much is common to all Faiths but it may actually be more productive if the student refers to it by no name.
The Qabalists refer to it simply as En-Sof which translates into limitless or boundless (E=without, Sof=end). It symbolizes total unity beyond comprehension. It is in this state that all opposites exist in complete ignorance of their differences, in a unity which knows no possibility of differences. In the mind of the Qabalist the En-Sof is no-thing, does not exist, is not fathomable and cannot be discussed at all in terms of Being or Non-Being. The En-Sof is so much not a part of human experience that as rational beings we should not even attempt to discuss its existence, much less its non-existence. Because it is something beyond comprehension it is also something beyond classification. The very most we can say is that it exists in its non-existence.
Many commentators have tried to postulate the En-Sof by what it is not, hoping by misdirection to find direction. The many examples from mysticism are reminiscent of Pseudo-Dionysius definition of God:
"The cause of all things is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion, or reason, or intelligence; nor is it reason or intelligence; nor is it spoken or thought. It is neither number nor order, nor magnitude, nor littleness, nor equality, nor inequality, nor similarity, nor dissimilarity. It neither stands, nor moves, nor rests. It is neither essence, nor eternity, nor time. Even intellectual contact does not belong to it. It is neither science nor truth. It is not even royalty or wisdom; not one; not unity; not divinity or goodness; not even spirit as we know it."
But this avenue of approach continually refers us back to something until we arrive at a basic concept of what he is: nothing or no-thing. Even this fails: nothing or no-thing is comprehensible, the human mind through assiduous discipline can train itself to comprehend no-thing. But the En-Sof by definition, cannot be comprehended. So he (I use the term 'he' very loosely here) can be neither understood by what he is not, nor by the idea of nothing. Neither approach works.
The mystics played on this difficulty by pointing out that the 'nothing' (ain) signifying God had the same letters as the personal 'I' (ani), emphasizing that the last of the emnations from the En-Sof is represented by the personal 'I'. It should be now clearer to anyone grasping these topics in the light of Crowley's writings what he meant by "there is no God but man."
The great Qabalist Isaac Luria in his writings describes the first motion of the En-Sof as a 'contraction into itself'. It is on the 'surface' of that space that the first 'spark' was struck, the pinpoint of light which was to eventually become the material. If this is all sounding a lot like the science of the 'big bang', an initial explosion, keep in mind that this system of mystical thought is thousands of years old and predates science by at least a millennium. It brings to mind what Marie Antoninette once said, "There is nothing new except what has been forgotten."
The process may better be understood thus:
0 Nothing AIN
1 Limitlessness AIN SOPH
2 Limitless Light AIN SOPH AUR
3 Specialised Lights ARIM
4 Material Aspects of Light ATZILUTH
5 Denser Light BRIAH
6 Light YETZIRAH
7 Material Density ASSIAH
The 'contraction' however is itself merely a manifestation and does not in any way assist us in comprehending En-Sof. Swami Madhavanda in his translation of The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad perhaps approximates the reader closer to the best understanding we can have regarding the En-Sof:
"The form of the 'being' is as follows: Like a cloth dyed with turmeric, or like grey sheep's wool, or like the scarlet insect called Indragopa, or like a tongue of fire, or like a white lotus, or like a flash of lightening. Now therefore the description of Brahman: 'Not this, not this.' Because there is no other and more appropriate description than this 'Not this'."
