Anyone here study the Qabbalah?

Originally posted by ghaleon12
The person I study under is the successor to Baruch Ashlag, who was taught and is the son of Baal Ha-Sulam who is considered to be the greatest Kabbalahist of the 20th century

You got me curious, does he incorporate anything outside the classical curriculum in what he teaches? Like anything by Crowley or any other "occult" works? If not then it would be REALLY interesting to hear his commentary on the major differences between his lineage and others that have borrowed, and what he sees as being lost and/or gained there.

reply to post by ghaleon12


Ok, truce. No more high secret stuff, guess you guys just don't have the stomach for it. Here's the reality of the true Kabalah. Describing something completely homogenous and undifferentiated, to the point where what you're trying to describe is completly unquantifiable is in itself impossible. No matter how you try to cut it you're left with one, or zero, however you like. The human mind cannot TRULY conceive or FULLY perceive such a state for behold, you're still there, so where is the unquantifiable one-ness? The tree is a way for the mind to begin to perceive such a state, but we are limited, because of our corporeal existence and separation from the experience of total nullification to all reality, and unreality. Oh, why do I waste everyone's time. I'm sure someone will know.

[edit on 1-5-2009 by dashen]

Originally posted by dashen
reply to post by ghaleon12

 

Although my comments are taken much too harshly by a few of the "experts", the fact is, in the little that you have stated, you have revealed serious and fundamental flaws in you understanding of what you speak of. Honestly, these are beginners', child's errors. Yet you sit there speaking of highest knowledge so casually, like it is your mere plaything. This is after all, the very reason the alter was not ascended to on steps, but rather an inclined plane.
As for the riddles, those who have eyes in their head will see.

Despicable is a word that comes to mind. You're oblivious to other people, which is a most basic understanding of Kabbalah. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a great rule in the Torah, and of course applies to Kabbalah. Are you honestly trying to be helpful? You're so lofty that I can't understand how you expect to connect with others, which is all we're here to do since we are all parts of the same body.

Being part of a group of studying Kabbalahists a couple million strong, I can say that that attitude is no where to be found within our group.

If you see flaws that I have said by all means bring them to my attention, being the researcher that I am, I just absorb what I read. All that I've said is from books or the internet.

You seem to forget, or don't know, what a beginner is. A person's internality is what determines that, and how well they can be similar to the creator in the quality of bestowal. That striving to be like the creator, bestowing, is what determines the quality of a person, not book smarts / knowledge. I'm not sure where you stand but it seems a bit like you place a lot of importance on knowledge, which having a lot or a little doesn't make us similar to the creator.

[edit on 1-5-2009 by ghaleon12]

reply to post by ghaleon12


To show you how I live you are hereby cordially invited to spend the coming Sabbath at my home, where you will immediately see that I am a pompous prick. HOWEVER, you will also see the true altruism of my circle. I am a fairly good chef, you will have a bed, and you can bring a friend, please send notice in advance for a vegetarian menu.

My problem with Kaballah is that you learn some wonderful tools but if you study it through the traditional means, you get your hands tied badly and end up just re-enforcing someones agenda other than your own.

Its odd to see all the perversions that still carry enough of the truth to be useful, I would like to see the system in its bare bones outside of the religious trapping the traditional teachers put it in.

Obviously the point of it is to draw you closer to the creator, but it seems to come loaded with way too much jewish dogma, which given the failure of mainstream jewdiasm is not an attractive thing in my opinion.

reply to post by gYvMessanger


And that's exactly why you can't know why. Ever hear that Pink Floyd song the Wall, "How can you have any pudding if you can't eat your meat?"

I don't believe that's true, if you have studied in the lineage you say you've studied in then we both know that the form you've studied is not the same as the forms that where studied a thousand years previous.

There are quite reasonable differences in opinion on key points between the chasidic lines who study the various texts.

That on its own implies a lot of the conditioning applied by the various schools, is merely a reflection of them pushing their own agendas and philosophies as opposed to being a necessary step in the learning process, of course for some its merely using familiar analogies to make the point of their lessons, but for others it has taken on a much deeper form of conditioning as part of the learning process, this surely acts as a block in its own right.

Originally posted by gYvMessanger
My problem with Kaballah is that you learn some wonderful tools but if you study it through the traditional means, you get your hands tied badly and end up just re-enforcing someones agenda other than your own.

I know exactly what you mean. Aleister Crowley stripped it down to its bones, so have others. Other philosophies, or even Jungian psychology could offer more about the symbolism incorporated into the symbols if applied to them.


Here's an Eastern equivalent to the Tree of Life:

'The T'ai Chi Tu Diagram is the oldest symbolic representation of the Yin and Yang (T'ai Chi) Principle. (The black and white 'double-fish' representation of Yin and Yang came later.) T'ai Chi Tu is thought to summarize the movement of life into further states of differentiation and therefore, greater complexity. From Wu Chi, the undifferentiated state, T'ai Chi is born in the differentiated presence of Yin and Yang, which in turn give birth to the Five Elements. From these polar opposites and elemental forces, Heaven and Earth and all of Creation are born. Heaven and Earth are represented by the two trigrams Chien (The Creative) and Kun (The Receptive). These two trigrams become the Eight Trigrams of Yin and Yang called 'Pa Kua' or 'Bagua', and then further combine into the 64 Hexagrams of the I Ching. The I Ching contains all possible combinations of Yin and Yang within its 64 hexagrams, and as such describes all complex dynamic patterns of change. The T'ai Chi Tu Diagram helps us to understand how the Chinese saw all life as a continuum of related dynamics and furthered states of differentiation. Through this understanding we may appreciate why T'ai Chi translates as"Supreme Ultimate" or "Grand Terminus".

www.risingsunschool.com...'ai%20Chi%20Philosphers%20and%20Teachings.htm

Interesting parallels.

I find the "Qliphoth" (a word spelled tons of different ways, including kliffoth, klippot or kellipot...) particularly interesting. This is are "evil" or "nightside" version of the kaballic tree... Each of the benevolent aspects of the Tree of Life also has Qlippothic counterpart...for example, whereas the Sephiroth "Kether" represents unity, its qlippothic counterpart "Thamiel" represents the delusions of duality, and so on:

en.wikipedia.org...

The Qlipoth are usually envisioned as the "empty husks" or "shells" of the Sephiroth (actually this is the literal meaning of the word), so while the Sephiroth are kind of like "spheres" full of power, goodness, etc., the Qlipoth are just the empty husks drained of such energy. However they have a rather terrifying sinister energy of their own, of course. The paths connecting them have been compared to dark tunnels benieth the soil... Crowley was deep into this stuff, but actually there is a whole bunch of thinkers who treat these.

You can find a pretty hefty collections of PDF e-texts on this topic at the following two links:
english.grimoar.cz...
And
english.grimoar.cz...

Actually that is a great site in general...they have lots of e-texts on the "normal" orthodox and non-sinister kaballah. among lots of others arcane topics, as you will see if you hit the "brose by subject" button.

Here is another decent site on the qippoth ,described here rather poetically as, "These be they who are Unclean and Evil, even the Distortion and Perversion of the Sephiroth; the fallen restriction of the Universe; the rays of the Coils of the Stooping Dragon" :
www.angelfire.com...


On a much less sinister note, I also find it fascinating to compare the differences between the three major kaballic systems:
1) Judaic:
en.wikipedia.org...
2) Christian:
en.wikipedia.org...
3) and Hermetic:
en.wikipedia.org...

They are all based in the same originally Judaic concept but the Christian and Hermetic versions differ in some important aspects and came about much later (around the time of the Renaissance I think).








[edit on 5/1/09 by silent thunder]

No i dont think they did strip it down im sorry (people like Crowley I mean and the western traditions), I think they got taught fragments of it and then mixed it in with other things they knew to try and make sense of it from their cosmological stand point.

To be fair that's not a bad thing, but its not really quantifiable, belief on its own is a massively powerful tool, Kaballah proclaims to give you keys to help you unlock that consciousness (being an esoteric tradition), all the current forms both supposed pure forms and hybrid offshoots are evolved versions, what I want to know is the real base.

However it is of course very useful to look for the teachings in everything you see, because it helps with raising your awareness.

And seeing the parallels with what others are taught is also very useful, if their are lost tribes then it make sense that fragments of the information where scattered as well.

[edit on 1-5-2009 by gYvMessanger]

reply to post by gYvMessanger


You are correct sir, in modern times it is difficult to sift through the bull.
But in my experience, for what It's worth, the more secretive the information, the more secretive you must be about it. The more the information is "hidden" in the text, the more care that should be applied to keeping it so from those who would pervert it, as Elpihas Levi, and his supposed transmigration Crowley, the pervert.

reply to post by dashen


Yes I appreciate that, though unfortunately it makes it difficult to know who to trust, especially given the level of thought commitment required from various teachers, necessary I accept but once something is learnt it is very difficult to unlearn.

Originally posted by gYvMessanger
I don't believe that's true, if you have studied in the lineage you say you've studied in then we both know that the form you've studied is not the same as the forms that where studied a thousand years previous.

There are quite reasonable differences in opinion on key points between the chasidic lines who study the various texts.

That on its own implies a lot of the conditioning applied by the various schools, is merely a reflection of them pushing their own agendas and philosophies as opposed to being a necessary step in the learning process, of course for some its merely using familiar analogies to make the point of their lessons, but for others it has taken on a much deeper form of conditioning as part of the learning process, this surely acts as a block in its own right.

At least one person on this forum had "ignored" me, and I am being fully sincere here, you can glean the old system from the "new" system. Some of the names have changed, some of the uses have changed, but that is not a corruption, it is a sign of the times. The Kabbalists of old beheld great open miracles, modern ones are lucky to get a few hidden ones. The very system had to change to deal with the "new" relationship to our creator. Am I still being too cryptic? And can you guys tell me so without calling me a pompous ass?

Do you mean me ? I assure you I didn't ignore anything you said.

Of course evolution of understanding happens, and archetypes will change over time, some of the modern systems have gone completely off the wall though, some have even gone so far as to deliberately misrepresent ideas to people in order to achieve their own goals, others merely got confused somewhere along the way.

Mind you there is more than one path to walk, we each have our own way.

Are you being cryptic and condescending ? Certainly I think others have expressed that viewpoint, I suspect it comes with the territory though, I know I often find it difficult the muster the patience to slow down for other people, which needless to say other people find quite offending, you know your own nature how you choose to approach it is of course up to you.

reply to post by gYvMessanger


No, I do not mean you. You are one of the few people on this thing that seem to know what you're talking about, and how to properly talk about it. You're just not going to find crackheads in a dark alley casually discussing quantum field theory.

Originally posted by gYvMessanger
Are you being cryptic and condescending ? Certainly I think others have expressed that viewpoint, I suspect it comes with the territory though, I know I often find it difficult the muster the patience to slow down for other people

Which territory? The only times I am condescending, I am aware of it and I do it on purpose. If you find yourself responding in such a way automatically then I would suggest you don't have full control over your thoughts and feelings. Similarly, if you have to muster patience, then you must have some kind of desire that isn't being fulfilled. You just have to disengage, no emotional entanglement required. In Eastern systems at least they greatly value loving-kindness, and a lot of attention being paid to our feelings, where they arise from, etc.

No one sufficiently "enlightened" would come into a thread the way dashen did, and make the kinds of posts he did. We had some u2u exchanges and I probed him to some degree, and if he really knows anything of substance about his system, he isn't able to share it, just running in rhetorical circles like people do on many other parts of this site when they want to argue more than they want to discuss anything. I know some things are hard to express in words, but one can still show outward signs of understanding them, etc., and he didn't seem to understand any of the things I was throwing back at him, and the language he uses speaks for itself. A master is not so quick to become arrogant and yet not say anything. A master is humbled, for very good reason. That's about all I have to say. There is absolutely no need for condescension, except from a condescending, arrogant person, and I should add that these traits aren't good traits, they're "bad" ones. One's actions and attitudes speak louder than one's words. You basically are your actions. After our u2us I put dashen on ignore. He wants to preach but has nothing good to preach about.

[edit on 1-5-2009 by bsbray11]

My grandma does and my great grandma did, she studied it in Czechoslovakia under a Rabbi there.

I was pushed into it for awhile but I didn't really like it. I liked it better than vanilla Judaism though.

reply to post by bsbray11


Well it depends on the flavor of empowerment you go through I suppose, I'd also suggested someone who had reached such a pinnacle wouldn't be here (by here I mean ATS) in the first place. We are all in the position of traversing our various ways, and on the journey true serenity and compassion is not something that is easy to achieve, one would assume for many it is the goal after all so you cant expect a traveller to have achieved that state yet. And for those whose goal is not to achieve that state, you can't expect it to be part of their empowerment.

Though the illusion of it is something that people feel they need to project when often it is not the truth of their own situation.

I certainly wasn't calling you condescending I appreciate the themes you where trying to present in this thread and after the sabbath I will try and turn my attention to helping with that discussion.

also Raven

My grandma does and my great grandma did, she studied it in Czechoslovakia under a Rabbi there.

Women are not allowed to study it in orthodox circles, certainly not at the time of great grandma, could you explain your story a bit more ?

[edit on 1-5-2009 by gYvMessanger]

Answer is Yes.

Follow this link and it will provide you with just one of many applications.

www.naturalhealthscience.com...

Originally posted by bsbray11
Sigh......


Being that the tree is treated like any archetypal form, has anybody tried applying it to other fields of study?

As you can see, I'm also an accomplished graphic artist. (That's a joke, arguably as bad as my graphic.)

Hopefully others here follow music theory too, and if not, it's definitely worth every bit of consideration. Many times I have learned something only because I could relate through some understanding of music, music is such a close parallel to life.

[edit on 30-4-2009 by bsbray11]

This is somthing i have been wanting to research as aspects of this subject keeps popping up in my research also.