The Four Worlds
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After doing some reading on the Four Worlds (Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, Atziluth) from TM&MS of the A..A.. I recalled an experience this past summer when reading "The Wake World" for the first time. I wept. I do not know if this had to do with that month where I had been working with the LBRP quite frequently for this first time as well. I do remember feeling that there are so many people I know that I wish could make that jump. It felt like it had the power to release the baggage (clothes) of the material world that causes much suffering in many of my friends, family & colleagues. What occurs to me now is, is the Wake World the initiation from Assiah to Yetzirah?
Also the Four Worlds have been mentioned in certain order (in other readings also), 1 to 4. Assiah once called the 4th World. Is this how we should/could define it? I assume Atziluth would be the 1st world if so. Or does it matter? Should we define them (when explaining how they work) simply as worlds with no sequential number order other than they rise higher from Assiah as one passes initiation through their anchoring Sephirah on The Tree?
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@Nudor said
"Also the Four Worlds have been mentioned in certain order (in other readings also), 1 to 4. Assiah once called the 4th World. Is this how we should/could define it? I assume Atziluth would be the 1st world if so. Or does it matter?"
The key thing to remember is that all parts of the Tree of Life exist in all four Worlds. Kether exists in all four including Assiah, and Malkuth exists in all four including Atziluth.
Any model that groups certain Sephiroth under certain specific Worlds (as I did in the Introduction of M&MAA) is combining two different sets of information in one diagram for a particular reason. In the specific case of my Introduction, I was making the point that the A.'.A.'. grade thresholds that involve ascending the Middle Pillar another step also step up a world. That doesn't mean (for example) that "Tiphereth exists in Briah," just that the completion of the Dominus Liminis work is specifically an opening to Briah which is concurrent with an opening to Tiphereth - so that 4=7 in the A.'.A.'. sense is a grade of Netzach in Yetzirah, while 5=6 is a grade of Tiphereth in Briah.
Other systems take those steps differently. For example, the old G.D. system didn't step to Briah at 5=6: Their Second Order was more or less the commencement of working in Yetzirah.
Or... maybe that wasn't your question. Maybe you were only asking about which way to number them (1 to 4, or 4 to 1). In that case, I've over-answered
I don't think it matters - number symbolism isn't applied to them, so it's not critical in that way. I suppose the purist way is to have Atziluth 1 and Assiah 4, since the letters of Tetragrammaton map to the Tree at the Mystical Numbers of 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively (that is, at Sephiroth 1, 3, 6, and 10). But even the traditional grades are numbered in two directions at once - e.g., 2=9. Mostly I think it's a matter of convenience. -
I always love an over-answer if I stand to learn more. I was referring to the numbering (1-4) but your earlier response brought up another aspect I was thinking about today, so thank you.
My other question about The Wake World was if it can be read (metaphorically) as an initiation from Assiah to Yetzirah. Or is that too simple an idea of the work?
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Exactly right.
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i have to say this concept of the TOL and the four worlds is really giving me a big headache, it just seems so convoluted, suffice to say i'm getting that the Four Worlds are "actual" and the TOL "Mythological" and/or "Metaphorical" yet statements like the following dont sit well with me
@Jim Eshelman said
"That's a trick question because "successively" requires time, and time doesn't exist above Yetzirah (and is much more elastic in Yetzirah than in Assiah, where it's actually more elastic than is usually thought)."
if Briah is considered the world of "Creation" which in English grammar is "present continuous" how can this be divorced from time unless you can provide a definition for "time' that can satisfy both conditions.
@Jim Eshelman said
"The key thing to remember is that all parts of the Tree of Life exist in all four Worlds. Kether exists in all four including Assiah, and Malkuth exists in all four including Atziluth. "
apart from Kether in Assiah, being Malkuth in Yetzirah could you provide another example [similar to what Av did in the thread "Malkuth"] of Kether in Assiah? this may be helpful to my understanding, thanks.
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@_aLL_seEIng_eYe_ said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"That's a trick question because "successively" requires time, and time doesn't exist above Yetzirah (and is much more elastic in Yetzirah than in Assiah, where it's actually more elastic than is usually thought)."if Briah is considered the world of "Creation" which in English grammar is "present continuous" how can this be divorced from time unless you can provide a definition for "time' that can satisfy both conditions."
"Creation" (like all of the names of the worlds) is a "best effort" translation. I think the fallacy here is in the limits of language.
After Atziluth, the next three Worlds have names based on words meaning To Create, To Form, and To Make (or To Do). Notice that whatever "Creation" means as a name for Briah, it doesn't yet include even a form existing - specific images first appear in Yetzirah - and it doesn't involve a thing yet being made or done. It's a prior stage, closer (at least in some cases) to the conception that hasn't yet taken particular form, let alone been made.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The key thing to remember is that all parts of the Tree of Life exist in all four Worlds. Kether exists in all four including Assiah, and Malkuth exists in all four including Atziluth. "apart from Kether in Assiah, being Malkuth in Yetzirah could you provide another example [similar to what Av did in the thread "Malkuth"] of Kether in Assiah? this may be helpful to my understanding, thanks."
How about a white hole - the bright center from which matter streams forth into our universe. (The streaming aspect itself is Chokmah, but the source of the streaming is Kether.) Another form would be a sperm or egg cell.
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@Jim Eshelman said
" In the specific case of my Introduction, I was making the point that the A.'.A.'. grade thresholds that involve ascending the Middle Pillar another step also step up a world."
Jim, random question - the Magister Templi 8=3 grade is in Binah of Atziluth, right? Technically, this step doesn't occur on the Middle Pillar, unless the crossing of Da'ath constitutes this step up occurring at least partially on the Middle Pillar.
Also (as a separate question), I noticed (due to my girlfriend pointing this out) that the step from the Adeptus Exemptus in Chesed to the Magister Templi in Binah is the only one on the Tree of Life that occurs without a (non-hidden) path connecting the two Sephiroth involved - I'd guess that one reason for this is that the Exempt Adept is conquering rationality and thus, without hidden paths, the progression to Magister Templi in Binah, from Chesed, itself technically doesn't make diagrammatical sense. Am I missing anything else obvious? I'd like to inquire more about this but I don't really have much to start from other than this guess.
Can you shed some light onto these topics for me?
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@Ash said
"Jim, random question - the Magister Templi 8=3 grade is in Binah of Atziluth, right? Technically, this step doesn't occur on the Middle Pillar, unless the crossing of Da'ath constitutes this step up occurring at least partially on the Middle Pillar."
Yes, Da'ath is the "cross-over point."
The World for 8=3 is debatable, I guess. And remember that one can (and perhaps should) consider an outer and inner aspect of 8=3 in the same sense of 5=6 Within/Without. If you trace AC's steps through his 8=3 iitiation in Vision & Voice, he is given the grade before he is put through the ordeal (not all that unusual a format). I wouldn't argue too aggressively if someone wanted to make the aggressive point that 8=3 is matured Briah on the one hand or newborn to Atziluth on the other; but my best assessment is that there is an opening of Binah in Briah preliminary to the actual crossing of the Abyss and reception into Binah in Atziluth. (Crossing the Abyss particularly disentangles the sankharas that are more or less the fabric of Briah.)
Another thing to keep in mind: 7=4 to 8=3 is the only transition in the grade structure that is from one element to another element - it's Water (in Chesed) to Water (in Binah). (No wonder the idea of a vast, watery abyss grew in mass-mind to represent that gap.) The main characteristic of the change, then, is of Plane or World.
"Also (as a separate question), I noticed (due to my girlfriend pointing this out) that the step from the Adeptus Exemptus in Chesed to the Magister Templi in Binah is the only one on the Tree of Life that occurs without a (non-hidden) path connecting the two Sephiroth involved - I'd guess that one reason for this is that the Exempt Adept is conquering rationality and thus, without hidden paths, the progression to Magister Templi in Binah, from Chesed, itself technically doesn't make diagrammatical sense. Am I missing anything else obvious? I'd like to inquire more about this but I don't really have much to start from other than this guess."
You're pretty close, though, of course, still juggling it in a very intellectual way. You can state it more simply: That absence of a Path is the very representation of the Abyss provided by the Tree. The koan of 7=4 in this regard is that there is no Path. There is no way across. Among other things, the very concept of a "way" (as previously conceived) is limited to the plane you're leaving - like living on the outside surface of a cube and trying to ask the question of how to traverse that square world to get to a point a third of the way into the interior. From your 2-D world on the surface, traversing the infinite steps into 3-D space is incomprehensible, even unsustainable in your mind as currently constituted. Therefore... there is no path.
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@Jim Eshelman said
" Therefore... there is no path."
That was how I initially (and tentatively) answered my girlfriend's question on the subject. I took to heart Crowley's statement that the Adept is reduced to dust upon crossing the Abyss; the Adept kinda doesn't cross the Abyss, then, (s)he dies (in a sense).
It's good to hear that I have it reasonably correct though
