Inferring the 3 Veils of Negative Existence?
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Hmmm... well it looks to me like this model is not the typical four worlds on top of each other. It is something I have seen before in a few books. The higher world tree ends in Malkuth and then flows over and down to the next lower world forming Kether of that world. Then that continues all the way down to the last. In other words, atziluth has it's tree and then Malkuth of Atziluth overflows downward to create Kether on Briah, etc.
They say this is seven trees but it is still actually four but just overlayed a bit differently. As for how they position Ain, Ain Soph, etc. I don't agree with it (as my limited understand goes.) I still think they should begin only above Kether of Atziluth, and not on the lower trees. Maybe someone else has a better understanding and can help us.
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I looked at the diagram again and although I think my description above is correct in one aspect, it is missing much. It seems like they are using four trees in each of the 4 worlds and my explaination only deals with one in each world. Can anyone explain this diagram?
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't get it.
As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about it and came to the realization that I probably shouldn't be too worried about understanding the 3 Veils at this point. I haven't seen things from Tiphareth yet or the Abyss, so how could I possibly expect to understand anything about what lies beyond Kether.
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I agree with Redd Fezz' last comment - trying to puzzle out things on the higher (deeper) levels isn't too profitable. I suspect the Negative Veils might only be grasped from a devotional standpoint, not an intellectual one.
What I see in this diagram is the work of someone who obviously had a personal realisation, and tried to represent it so as not to lose the insight. But I think it's over-prescriptive, and thus restricting. It looks like somebody trying to think his way to the Ultimate.
Diagrams are Yetziratic - that is, they're depictions of concepts, existing in a realm between 'stuff' (Assiah) and mystical awareness (B'riah). They can be important training tools on the Yetziratic/mental level. Which is, of course, where we do most of our learning, at least the kind we notice consciously, so diagrams are useful within limits.
But 'depicting' B'riah or Atziluth, let alone the Negative Veils, strikes me as a shaky idea. Atziluth especially is simply about energy. It may flow in an orderly way, down through B'riah, but can that really be put into a diagram? Yes, if you're <i>thinking about</i> it - approaching it Yetziratically. But beyond Yetzirah, where we can only go in meditative or inspired devotional states, conceptualising starts to break down. As it's meant to do.
I'm also a bit wary of the idea of speaking of (say) Yetzirah in B'riah, as this diagram does. Yezirah in Yesod, or Assiah in Tiphereth, okay. That's a level of something specific. But speaking of Assiah in B'riah is (to me) like saying 'down of middle', or 'measure of amount' .
As I understand it, the four worlds concept only has meaning in relation to the sephiroth, or to their connecting paths. You need a specific - the sephirah or path - to which the world in question refers.
Edward
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Hi Redd,
Loved the diagram of the four worlds, and all the trees.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
Hi Redd,
As above, so below, correct? So the bottom is reflecting the top in the diagram.
As for the veils, they are stages of manifestation, but all zero at the same time, as they don't even come close to being manifest, and the Tree is manifestation in all of its 10 phases. So Kether is the beginning of the whirlings, but before that is nothing.
Thinking,
chrys333 -
Chris, do you understand the diagrams at all?
I do not!I'm trying to imagine WHY a Tree would represent anything ABOVE Kether, since the tree represents, specifically, that which is BELOW Kether, the ray of creation or process of manifestation. The first whirlings I assume to be just that: whirlings! The central point whirling into a sphere as explained in BOTA Tarot Fundamentals Lesson 23 page 3.
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@Redd Fezz said
"Chris, do you understand the diagrams at all?
I do not! "Ah, I totally misunderstood your question. Yeah, the diagrams are really clear to me. Here's what they're trying to show. (This isn't an endorsement of the model, just an explanation.)
The illustration takes the unique perspectie of subdividing the worlds into worlds-of-worlds: Assiah of Assiah, Yetzirah of Assiah, etc.
The column on the left is one of the most common ways that the Four Worlds are modelled, wherein the Kether of one World is identical with the Malkuth of the next more subtle one. However, instead of calling those four "the whole shebang," they are here labelled as only being the way that four sub-Worlds of Assiah are laid out.
Then, this theorist takes it a step further. He or she has rooted (i.e., placed the bottom of the Yetzirah Tree - or, in this case, the set of four Yetzirah Trees (sub-Worlds within Yetzirah) - at the same place as the bottom of the Yetzirah-of-Assiah Tree. (Then repeat with the Briah and Atziluth sets.)
Because of overlaps, this produces not 16 separate Trees, but 7 Trees. For example (reading across), the Trees shown for Atziluth-of-Assiah, Briah-of-Yetzirah, Yetzirah-of-Briah, and Assiah-of-Atziluth are all defined as being the same Tree - Tree IV of the master set in the right-most column.
There are some innovative ideas here and some unusual uses of old conventional, familiar ideas. The test of its value is not whether it is "true," but whether it is "useful." Personally, I don't find it useful, so I didn't do more than glance at it long enough to see what the writer was doing; but I suppose there might be a particular mindframe in which it would be useful to me at some point in my life.
Having established this, the writer appears to be saying that the three Trees that are above Atziluth-of-Malkuth are the Three Veils. I find this extremely questionable. However - again - the value of modelling of this sort lies not in whether it is "true" but, rather, in whether it is useful.
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Oh yeah! Thanks, Jim! It seems so obvious now looking at it. Before I was trying to read it from right to left or something. Okay, now that I understand what the diagram means, I can attempt to imagine the implications. I don't think I realized before that the 3 veils represented Atziluth, Briah and Yetzirah.
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Guess I didn't understand the diagram at all, given what JAE said. I thought the whole point was that the distance of Kether to Malkuth appears to be opposites, yet really is part of the whole.
Yes, the veil thing is not correct if you put the unmanifest into the manifest. It doesn't make sense.
Well, I helped JAE get what you were really asking.
Love and L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
93! Redd Fezz
The diagram in your original post is from a specific Jewish Kabbalistic school. I'm out of town at the moment and don't have access to my library. When I return this weekend I'll post some books by a Jewish Kabbalist who has been initiated into this school and has written some excellent books using this particular model.
Love is the law, love under will!
Nick
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!
Redd Fezz, I totally forgot about the promise to post a reference to the original tree of life figure(s) you posted at the beginning of this thread. A friend of mine returned a loaned book tonight which in turn reminded me that I still needed to post a response.
Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi has written a goodly number of books on traditional Jewish Kabbalah. His teachings come from the Toledano Tradition out of medieval Spain. His Kabbalah Society web site is cardinalpublishing.com/newks/index.html. All his published books are listed on the site.
A comment regarding the books I've read of his. There is a tremendous amount of repetition. Of those books I've read I would estimate 30% to 40% of each book is repeated in other volumes. However, they are still worth the read.
Love is the law, love under will
Nick
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93 -
I have a simpler question. I am looking at charts of the Tree of Life, and I notice that some of the charts show the veils in one order, with "nothing" closest to Kether, and other charts show it in the opposite order with "nothing" farthest from Kether.
Are these different traditions?Tree of life veils of naught in the order of nothing, limitless, limitless light:
www.boostyourself.com/img/content/TreeofLifeKabbalah.jpg
www.dedroidify.com/images/treeoflife.gif
images.wikia.com/mystic/images/5/53/Treeoflife.jpgTree of life veils of naught in the order of limitless light, limitless, nothing:
www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit8/08104.gifThank you
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I've always thought it was simply different artistic styles.
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So it doesn't matter what order the veils are put in?
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@Tamara_Tornad said
"So it doesn't matter what order the veils are put in?"
It matters which way we understand the veils to be developing - Ain is the furthest removed from Kether - but, as you point out, there hasn't been standardization in the artistic representation.
I've always felt that there was philosophical distortion in the general way these were represented anyway, but "we were doing the best we can." Notice a couple of styles: Put the curves for the veils primarily above Kether (giving the same idea as "Kether above Chokmah and Binah), or draw them as circumscribing the whole Tree. I personally like the latter way better, because (in Thelemic terms) it represents the different gradiants or variations of "Nothing" as being Nuit, from which any particular point becomes a Kether than is the start of a particular 'tree of eternity.'
Note, though, that I just said "variations of 'Nothing.'" I'm not sure that the three Veils are sequential. Sequentiality is an idea that doesn't exist below past Chokmah (it arises from the number 2). There is certainly a logical sequencing, which helps us in our sub-Abyss organization of these ideas; but, from another point of view, the three Veils are three variations on looking at the same "infinite space inherently composed of infinite points but without differentiation of nature or valuation." That is, it is either seen as empty, or as saturated, or as "saturated and note the inherent contours of the Tao."
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Made me think of a color and its hues.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
93 -
Thank you so much. You already replied while I was preparing a drawing to show what I meant. You can see it here. Either link should work.
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@Jim Eshelman said
" There is certainly a logical sequencing, which helps us in our sub-Abyss organization of these ideas; but, from another point of view, the three Veils are three variations on looking at the same "infinite space inherently composed of infinite points but without differentiation of nature or valuation." That is, it is either seen as empty, or as saturated, or as "saturated and note the inherent contours of the Tao.""
I’ve always preferred to look at them as sequential -'ain, 'ain soph, 'ain soph 'aur in that order above/before Kether but as Jim says, the step from “nothing” to “no end” *is *a step of human realisation, not creation; “no end” is an idea always inherent in “nothing”.
I have more difficulty in letting go the idea of sequentiality between ‘ain soph and ‘ain soph ‘aur – “let there be light” ( יְהִי אוֹר ) or its modern expression the Big Bang; the idea that creation of the observable Universe took place at a defined moment, as opposed to Fred Hoyle’s “continuous creation” or "steady-state" theory (is Hoyle’s theory more sympathetic to the image of Nuit?)
Crowley’s Star Sponge vision is relevant here, perhaps; is a “contour” like a “twinkle”, Jim?
The idea of tsimtsum, the contraction of the “infinite light” to a restricted space to allow the emanation of Kether, is tied up with the way I've long thought of these “early” stages of creation, but Jim might see this as a late Lurianic confusion
. Stars born of a gentle female womb/sponge rather than a violent, irruptive (masculine?) Tsimtsum. Heh rather than Tsaddi?Perhaps my physicist friend was being more theologically perceptive than I gave him credit for when he said "infinite nothingness" makes no sense because "without matter there is no measure".
The indigenous people of my own country, for what it's worth, see a definite sequence. Among other characterisations of the pre-creation state, Maori talk of te Kore (nothing); te Kore te Wiawia (the nothingness that is abundant) ki te Whai-ao ( to the glimmer of dawn) ki te Ao-marama (to the bright light of day). I find the parallels intriguing.
OP
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I have always seen the veil as a representation that the Tree is not a "map" but more of a "map of a map of a map" consisting of the four Trees or Worlds. Which is in turn an infinite loop, starting in 0, ending in 0 (more like.. it all happens in 0).
Though, when examining the ideas normally associated with it..
Thinking of Kether as Light in Extention, the 'first veil' would be Light without Limit.
Kether, in this vien of thought, kind of like 0 approaching infinity (1)
The Limitless Light opening up and extending.Limitless , seen as the purest sense of being, and thus beyond our capability to percieve (as that would require limitation).
The last one I am not even going to talk about. E-gads! Even that simple statement horribly confuddles it.