Chet ח is the eighth Hebrew letter. The letter ח Chet is pronounced "khhet" with the sound coming from the throat. The shape of the symbol is similar to the lower case Latin symbol n.
Chet ח is an accumulation of all the preceding Hebrew letters. So far we have studied the first seven letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which symbolize a progression of light in nature. That progression is also numerical, as each letter represents a number; Aleph is one, Beth is two, and so on, to ח Chet, which represents the number eight.
The books of Moses are books of Kabbalah, which means that they are a science of numbers. These books are written in Hebrew, therefore every letter is also a number, and every passage of the Bible has a numerical significance. In regard to the letter Chet, we need to see that this eighth letter encloses within itself the Seven Days of Genesis, through which everything is created.
The Four Worlds
When we observe a graphic of the Hebrew Alphabet arranged vertically, it symbolizes and mathematically encodes how the Ain Soph Aur (Ray of Creation) descends and is modified, giving rise to everything that exists. To be more specific, the first three letters—Aleph, Beth and Gimel—represent very abstract concepts that the intellect has difficulty understanding, because they represent the World of Archetypes, that in Kabbalah is named the World of Atziluth.
This is comparable to the raw potential that exists in the seed, the sperm, and the ovum. Within the seed of any organism are the archetypes, mathematical factors, that when properly combined will produce a new organism. In modern science, this is called DNA. In every cell of our bodies there exist archetypes. The archetypes are our inheritance that we have received through countless generations over a time span that the mind cannot comprehend. These archetypes exist in our DNA in the physical sense and in the karmic sense; they are factors of cause and effect. Everything about us is there in our DNA. What we are now is a consequence of previous actions—cause and effect, the basic law that manages everything existing.
Within DNA is encoded light, energy, force, that is modified according to our specific Karma. We all have our own unique code. This code applies to us physically, but here we are more interested in the spiritual aspect, the real Being, behind our name, ideas, history, memories, etc.
Inside every cell is a light, an inner energy, that is the life essence of who we are. This can be called, soul, essence, Buddha nature or tathagatagarbha in Sanskrit. Our essential core essence has been modified through many centuries. As we live today, during every moment, we modify that light. The light is never static, and is moving constantly, according to our will. How we modify our own light will determine the outcome.
The light of our God is what created our specific DNA, and we see that in these Hebrew letters: the root light, the light of Chokmah, what is known in Hebrew as Shekinah.
At the dawn of creation, that light emerges from the nothing, a trinity of three in one, symbolized in the first three letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. The trinity descends to create with the archetypes, because it must, and divides itself in two.
By studying cellular division within the field of biology, it is revealed that this is exactly the process that occurs in every cell of every organism in nature. The cell splits, creating a mirror image. This is a microcosm of what happens when the trinity in the world of Atziluth divides to enter the World of Creation, called Briah.
Atziluth is the world of archetypes where the blueprints exist, the raw code, not yet formed. The trinity divides itself into Father-Mother, male-female; this is represented by the sephirah Daath (Hebrew: Knowledge) where that trinity becomes two trinities, Father and Mother, each of which encodes the three in one.
In Hebrew, this is called Daath, which begins with the letter Daleth, the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That profound mystical ray of light enters into the world of creation, Briah. The reflection of this in our physical matter is when the sperm and ovum meet. This moment is when the archetypes of the male and female join together and creation begins, in that instant. At that moment, a most beautiful mystical miracle occurs in the DNA.
DNA is a beautiful structure that resembles two strands in a spiral shape. The strands are connected by four elements that always match in precise pairs that cannot be matched any other way, and are universal in DNA. When these pairs match and form a long string, this is the raw data of a person, including their spiritual nature. When the sperm and ovum meet, the same thing occurs as in any cellular division: the DNA splits and replicates itself precisely.
This is a great magical mystery that is happening right now in all of us. This is exactly what happens in Daath, in Briah, the World of Creation: the light divides then recombines. This is the exact process of nature at every level: division and combination. Everything that exists reproduces in this way, but in levels: among the elements, minerals, plants, animals, and humans.
The power of creation, the world of Briah, is in Daath, which means knowledge: the knowledge of how to divide and combine, and through that mystery, to create life.
When that division and combination is completed, light descends.
The letter after Daleth is Hei, the fifth letter, which represents the world of Yetzirah, the World of Formation. The letter Hei represents a womb that contains a seed, the birth in preparation, the period of gestation. This is true physically and spiritually. Spiritually, the letter Hei represents the womb of our Divine Mother. Physically, it represents the womb of our birth mother, the woman who through the act of sexual union received the seed of the male.
The world of Yetzirah, Formation, is where the embryo develops, protected in isolation, so that it can grow through the process of division and replication. That embryo is in a constant process of its cells dividing and multiplying in its safe environment. Then a great transformation occurs, a great pressure pushes downward as the light pushes for the life to emerge. The light that was gestating in the womb emerges into the world of Assiah, the World of Action. Here we see the three letters Vav, Zayin, and Chet. These three letters relate to the World of Action, Assiah.
In the previous lectures, we described how the letter Vav relates to man and the letter Zayin to woman, in a physical sense. In a spiritual sense, these letters relate to the Two Witnesses, the two channels of energy alongside our spinal column. Vav and Zayin can also represent the spinal column, Zayin modified according to the process of the light. Chet is the union of the two letters Vav and Zayin. Here we have another example of dividing and combining, as happens all the way down through the Tree of Life.
Life
The letter Chet is the first letter of the Hebrew word for life: חי chai. You may know the expression La Chaim, Hebrew for "to life." The first eight letters of the Hebrew alphabet represent the entire process of the Tree of Life, how energy and light descend, constantly dividing and combining, both on a physical and spiritual level. This is the law, how nature functions.
It is important to grasp this principle, because it affects us all in every moment. To sustain life requires a continuous process of division and replication, when we breathe, think, eat, and feel, there is always a process of death, birth, and sacrifice. When we eat, we divide, we take life. We are inclined not to think in these terms, but this is reality. For us to live, something else must die: plants, animals, and minerals. Those elements are needed to sustain life. Everyday we make the effort to obtain air, water, and food. Food is a complex mixture of plants, minerals, and usually animals, all of which die, are sacrificed, so that we can live. These three factors create; they are the Law of Three.
To live we must perform those three factors (death, birth, and sacrifice) physically, but also spiritually. If we wish for a spiritual life, we must perform those three factors spiritually with the consciousness. In the same way that something must be sacrificed to permit physical life, the same applies spiritually.
This is all represented by the first eight letters of the Hebrew alphabet and in the Four Worlds of Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah. All of this is symbolized on this map we call "the Tree of Life." The correct translation from Hebrew is actually "Tree of Lives," plural, because life is not one aspect, it is a combination. Life is not singular, we do not exist independently of others; we only exist because of other factors and conditions. Buddha taught that there is no existence of itself: everything is interdependent. The basis of Buddhism is the Law of Dependent Origination (pratityasamputpada). This profound law states in simple terms that you do not exist independently! We do not exist on our own, because we do not exist independently of nature. Our basic physical existence depends on many things: air, water, food, the earth and all the laws that sustain physical matter. We tend to ignore this. We have a tendency to think that we are independent and can do whatever we please, and live that way. In Sanskrit this condition is called Avidya, which means ignorance. That is ignorance of the fundamental facts of life, to be in a state of ignoring the truth. The truth is we are weak and dependent on many factors about which we ignore and abuse. This is why we suffer. The main cause of suffering is ignorance (avidya). Most of all, we ignore our true nature. Deep within those archetypes that exist within our DNA, waiting to be brought to life is the true state of our existence, our true being, but we ignore this, we have no knowledge of this, we do not even realize that we possess a soul. We may believe in a soul, talk about it and theorize, but we have not experienced the reality of that soul.
The soul in Kabbalah has different names. The main name we need to know is Nephesh. In the book of Genesis it states:
"And Jehovah Elohim formed אדם Adam [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils נשמת חיים Neshemah Chaim (the breath of lives); and אדם Adam became a נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah (living soul)." - Genesis / Bereshit 2:7
This is a most beautiful scripture when you study the letters and words in Hebrew.
People nowadays think we are "Adam" or his physical descendants, but the Adam referred to in this scripture is not us. This Adam is our Being, the real Adam, who is inside. This is the Adam related with Daath, the letters Daleth and Aleph. This is a very superior aspect of our Being, deep within the consciousness, about which we ignore.
When that inner self first emerged from the light God, that light Jehovah Elohim breathed into that Adam the breath of life, Neshemah Chaim, and Adam became Nephesh Chaiah. There are two stages here, the breath that is Neshemah, another name for the soul after which Adam becomes Nephesh Chaiah.
The Hebrew words Nephesh Chaiah in English mean "living soul." What is a living soul? It is a soul that embodies and expresses all of its archetypes, a soul that has the letter Chet fully developed, which has received all of the light from above and expresses it. This is the primordial Adam, which is our inner Being.
However, as you know from the Bible, there are some problems. Humanity or the soul that we have, became seduced, and wrongfully ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is Daath. Adam and Eve took that light and transformed it incorrectly. Here, this Adam and Eve represent an extension of the superior Adam, a lower aspect of Adam that has been divided (the separation of sexes) in order for those two parts (male and female) to recombine and create life. Unfortunately, they did not follow the instructions and made a mess of it.
The Tree of Life that we are studying in these eight Hebrew letters is paired with the Tree of Knowledge. It could be said that they are the same tree, because one cannot exist without the other; they depend on each other. The Tree of Life is represented in the ten spheres (sephiroth) and the Tree of Knowledge is represented in the sephirah Daath, which is in its throat. The two trees cannot be separated. There are some schools in modern times that teach about one and not the other, in which case they are teaching nothing, because the Tree of Knowledge is the very essence of the Tree of Life. Solomon wrote about this repeatedly throughout the Proverbs. Without knowledge, (Daath), you cannot have Chaiah, life.
What we need to learn is how to restore in ourselves the Nephesh Chaiah. When the abuse of the Tree of Knowledge occurs, the light is wrongly transformed, so the soul is expelled from Eden. The scripture explains that the Garden of Eden was left empty, and Adam and Eve entered into suffering and ignorance. We are in that state now. We do not even know our own Nephesh, our own soul. Thus, our soul cannot be a living soul, a Nephesh Chaiah. For the soul to be living, it has to be enlivened with consciousness, light. The one who returns to Eden restores that, becomes conscious of the soul, fills the soul with life, Chaim.
The way this occurs is according to the laws expressed in the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, not by accident or by beliefs. It is not important what school we attend, the teacher we follow, how we dress or the color of our hair. The importance lies in our behavior, how we act, use our energy, and transform life. Remember in every instant we are transforming forces. Physically, we transform air, water, and food, but the main transformation that we perform moment to moment is conscious, with will, in the mind and in the heart. We take the light into Assiah, our physical body, male or female, but our temple is in disarray, there is no light there, only a dull glow. Within our temple, we can barely see the way through life day to day. Most of us would like to know or see God, but we only have beliefs and theories, no perception. This is because the light of Shekinah does not illuminate the altar of our heart. We have not formed the Ark, the temple of Solomon inside. Because of this, Assiah is dark, we are on the path of death, not the path of life.
Kabbalah teaches us that when Adam abused the Tree of Knowledge he let go of the Tree of Life. This is why Adam left the Garden and no longer had access to the Tree of Life. Adam became duplicitous, caught in the pendulum of life. Adam began to swing back and forth between opposite poles: yes and no, good and bad, pleasure and pain, craving and aversion. This is how the human mind behaves constantly. Our mind is always swinging between, "I want and don't want, I believe and don't believe, I accept you or don't accept you, love and hate." Duality is a basis of suffering, and when that happened, Adam entered the path of death. This is why the Bible states,
"...all the days of your life ye shall eat dust and to dust ye shall return."
That is the pain of death, the pain of ignorance, the Karma. Unfortunately, because we persist in our ignorant behavior, we persist in grasping onto illusions, we persist in grasping the tree of death. During this transformation of our life force, we become attached to lies and illusion; we invest our very way of life into lies. We believe that if we gain an education or have a child we will find happiness, or if we belong to a particular group, that we will be protected and be on the right path. These are lies and illusion; they have nothing to do with the state of truth in us from moment to moment. The truth is far beyond any theory or belief; it is life itself that vibrates with the light of the Lord, the light of Chokmah. That light cannot be known through a belief or a theory, it can only be known through the free, awakened soul. When our Nephesh grasps onto lies and attachment, it "becomes" that; we trap ourselves by taking that light that descends through the Four Worlds into our three nervous systems, our three brains, and turn it into hell. Our suffering is created by ourselves; not by anyone else.
Spiritual and religious people become attached to their doctrines, schools, and teachers. Political people become attached to their leaders, ideals, and theories. Business people become attached to their status, tangible wealth, and position. Women become attached to men, possessions, appearances, and children.
All of this is a profound Avidya, an ignorance of the truth, an ignorance of that primordial light that dimly flickers in the depth of our souls waiting for the moment it might be awakened. That awakening only happens by causes and conditions. To awaken the soul only happens if we know the laws.
After the sin in the Garden, the mistake of Chavah and Adam, Jehovah Elohim said, because you have committed this error and fallen prey to the serpent and eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge out of desire, you will know pain as a result of desire. It is after that moment Adam names the woman. Previous to that, the woman was always called Isha, "woman." When the sin occurred and they were cast out of the Garden, it says in the scripture that Adam named his Isha, Chavah, which we translate in English as "Eve," but it is not Eve, it is Chavah, because she was "the mother of all living."
"And Adam called his אשה (isha, woman) [by the] name חוה Chavah (Eve); because she was the אם (em, mother) of all living (חי)." - Genesis / Bereshit 3:20
Historically and physically, this has significance, but our main focus in this tradition is the spiritual meaning. How do we understand, know, and apply it?
We have explained many times that Adam and Eve as man and woman symbolize psychological aspects of ourselves. Adam represents the brain, and Eve represents the sexual anatomy. When Eve is tempted by the serpent, she eats of the fruit which is related with sex, and passes that fruit to Adam in the brain, and they become entranced. This is how we become psychologically entranced by the power of light that is in the sexual act, the power of creation. Unfortunately, we take that light and incorrectly transform it. Instead of taking that light and respecting the law that has been given (to not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge), we misuse it and propel it in the wrong direction.
When you look at these eight Hebrew letters vertically, the first is Aleph. Aleph relates to the element air, breath, or wind. Aleph is very subtle. It is the breath of God. When God created through Bereishit, the first word in the Book of Genesis, the first letter of that word is Beth. In order for the letter Beth to be empowered, to create, God has to breathe: "Bereishit." That breath is Aleph. That breath is silent, secret. If you imagine that breath, as secret, and count down through the Tree of Life, without counting the first sphere in which it occurs, related to Aleph, we would start counting from Chokmah, Beth, ending in Yesod where Chet manifests. Creation, sex, is there, the sexual anatomy relates to Yesod. Aleph at the top of the Tree of Life descends down through the eight letters, the breath of God, the light that is modified through all the processes until the light rests in Assiah, in our physical body.
The ultimate modification, the most refined, powerful force in our body is our sexual energy. There is nothing that can compare with that force, physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. Nothing can motivate, tempt, push, or empower us more than our sexual energy. No one can deny that we are all subject to this everyday. The way we can create like God is through the sexual act. That means the light of Aleph is in Assiah, in the body, in sex. It is here that the serpent tempts us.
Purity and Impurity
The ninth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is Teth, which represents the serpent. When we arrange these letters together, Chet, Teth, and Aleph we spell the Hebrew word חטאת for "sin." This is no accident. The power to sin occurs when that serpent steals the Aleph and projects it downwards.
"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, חטאת chatta'ah (sin) lieth at the door (the letter daleth of Daath)." - Genesis 4:7
Looking at the Tree of Life, we see the Ray of Creation descending down the tree, which is the process of the light becoming modified. When it arrives in Assiah, which relates with the sephiroth Malkuth and Yesod, this where the serpent is within us psychologically, where we misuse and abuse that light modifying it with desire, lust, resentment, anger, envy, greed, pride, etc. Every one of these is an abomination, a sin, against that light and against oneself, because we take that force and project it downwards. That light force is polarized and creates what we call hell, Klipoth. This is represented in the story of Adam and Eve. They took the light from the tree, destroyed themselves spiritually, and were cast out of Eden ("bliss") because of desire. We do this continually; it is why we suffer. The Tree of Life is our body, heart, and mind. We are abusing the fruit in ourselves continually, deepening our suffering continually.
What should happen is reflected in the Tree of Life. The divine, sacred, holy light should be transformed and returned upward. During every single transaction in life, the process of death, birth and sacrifice occurs, a process of light transformation in the DNA, which splits and a new strand is created, whereby the light replicates itself in purity. When a sin or fault occurs, the replication also occurs, but creates pain.
Creation is dual and polarized. We can create for good or evil. This is why the Tree of Knowledge is of Tob and Rah, of so-called "good and evil." More accurately, Tob and Rah represent purity and impurity. To create purity means that we modify the light consciously in ourselves, respecting the law, with knowledge and wisdom, not with desire, envy, pride, greed or anger but with love, tolerance, and chastity.
"The fruit of the righteous (צדיק tsaddiyq) [is] עץ חיים a tree of lives; and he that winneth נפש Nephesh [is] wise (חכם chakam)." - Proverbs 11:30
Solomon wrote in Proverbs
"She is a עץ־חיים (tree of life) for those who hold to her, and those who draw near to her are אשר (Asher). By חכמה Chokmah (wisdom) יהוה Jehovah founded ארץ ('erets) the earth, by תבונה (Tabuwn, knowledge from experience) established שמים shamayim (the fiery waters, heaven). With His דעת Da'ath (the Upper Eden) the abysses are split, and the שחקים (heavens) drip טל dew. My son, let them not depart from your eyes; sprout sound wisdom and discretion, and they shall be חיים (life) for your נפש nephesh (soul), and חן (grace) for your throat." - Proverbs 3
By means of wisdom and discretion, we can take that light force and give life to the soul. The power with which we have created Hell is the same power we use to create Heaven. Hell and heaven are psychological states. We experience them all the time. When we were children, we were less burdened with Karmic weight (the ego). We experienced Heaven psychologically—not constantly, but we tasted it during moments in life of total freedom and innocence, a Nephesh with life and light without a trace of fault. We observe this purity and innocence most easily in the eyes of babies. The purity we see in children's faces is how we should all look, but with intelligence and experience. Instead, we lose it. We become embroiled in the problems of life in our minds and forget that state.
When we as souls were innocent and pure, full of light, we were full of the beauty of Nephesh. The soul relates with beauty, which in Hebrew is the sephirah Tiphereth. This is what we need. We empower this by doing what we know is right, not because someone said it, because our school teaches it, or the group, religion, boss, wife or husband says so, but because in our heart consciously we know it is right. By using this light force correctly, we create life for our soul. This soul is not created by beliefs, membership, paying dues, or following anyone. The soul is created by how we behave in the mind with each other. Secretly, in our minds, we attack, criticize, hate, resent, and lust. On the surface, we might appear as the sweetest person on Earth, but in the cave of our mind we mercilessly beat and abuse our fellow men and women. This process creates a transformation of forces in the mind and that is why we are where we are now: suffering in darkness.
This is focused on in a prayer of Solomon where it is said,
"Intelligence and wisdom, crown me."
The Hebrew words for Intelligence and wisdom are Binah and Chokmah. "Crown me" is a reference to the sephirah Kether, "the crown." In that prayer, we are begging for the light of Aleph to descend into us and enlighten us, to give us chaiah, life, as a soul. The next line of the prayer,
"Spirits of Malkuth, lead me betwixt the two pillars upon which rests the whole edifice of the temple."
What are the two pillars? The pillars are the left and right columns of the Tree of Life: mercy and severity. We want to be in the middle upright path, not caught in a life of pain and pleasure, craving and aversion, good and bad. The way beyond duality is on the middle path in the midst of the Tree of Life. That path goes from Malkuth in Assiah through Yesod (sex) to Tiphereth (beauty, the soul) through Daath (knowledge) and reaches the crown, Kether, at the top of the tree. That path is the path of consciousness through our spinal column, through our Vav, between the columns of the temple Vav and Zayin. When the two pillars are united, we see the letter Chet. The whole tree becomes the letter Chet, and enclosed in secrecy and sanctity in the heart of the temple are Tiphereth and Daath: the human soul and the knowledge of creation. That is the Ark.
The next line of the prayer states,
"Angels of Netzach and Hod, establish me upon the cubic stone of Yesod."
Yesod is at the base of the tree and is the Hebrew word for "foundation." Yesod is where we find the letter Teth, the serpent. When we conquer the serpent, we command it as Moses did, raising the serpent on the rod of our willpower, the spinal column (Vav), and establish "the foundation stone." That is the stone of Yesod upon which the entire temple, Chet, rests. The temple is Chet, chaiah, life. Why is that?
"God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." - Matthew 22:32
In order to have knowledge and experience of God, we need life in our temple. Our Chaim must be transformed into life. We achieve this through the Covenant.
Redemption
God created Shamayim ("heavens") and Eretz ("the earth") in the Seven Days of Genesis. This represents many things, primarily, the full creation of the real man. What happens when that man is created? What occurs, when we reach the progression of that light all the way to the seventh letter Zayin and are established there with male and female as separated sexes? They must join to create as happens in every other level of nature. The division of the sexes occurred because it is a step in the process of creation; replication and multiplication by division at every level of nature. To create spiritually, man and woman must unite. It is not possible alone. As a single person, one can prepare to enter that sacrament but it cannot be achieved singularly. The man, Vav, and woman, Zayin, unite sexually to transform the light and return it to source. This is how we respect the Tree of Knowledge, by obeying the Commandments, "Thou shall not fornicate; Thou shall not commit adultery."
Moses explained in Leviticus that "any man who has any emission of sperm is unclean" and walking on the path of death, Rah, impurity. To walk the path of Tob, purity and cleanliness, requires harnessing these forces and returning them to God. The union is called Chavar in Hebrew and begins with the letter Chet. Chavar translated to English means "to join or unite."
The letter Chet has much significance in relation to sexuality, yet it is not enough merely to unite sexually. Humans have been uniting sexually for millennia, yet observe the state of mankind. If the way we have been conducting ourselves sexually during that time had been correct, we would not be in the sorry state we are in currently. If the way humanity is proceeding sexually is the right way, why is life on this planet so miserable?
Sexual power is the greatest power available to the human organism, both to create and to destroy. Through the sexual act we can destroy our lives but also we can regenerate our lives.
We know that we were created by sexual union and our entire development from being a baby through childhood and adolescence to adulthood is rooted in the sexual force, the hormones, which fully elaborate us as a person until we begin to abuse this energy. When we begin to abuse the sexual act, we begin to suffer, and the more we abuse it, the more we suffer. If we were to take that force and use it properly, the opposite would be true: instead of destroying ourselves, we would create or regenerate ourselves. This is why throughout history all the great messengers always taught sexual transformation. In every scripture and religion it is taught, not openly, but it is there. In the Hebrew Bible the teaching is symbolic, represented in many ways. Gnostic Radio gave a series of lectures on the subject entitled The Sacraments of the Gnostic Church. These lectures demonstrate how a couple or single person can take the light and transform it in a process of regeneration to a spiritual birth.
The synthesis of all of this is in the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Today's lecture has focused on Chet, the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The next lecture will deal with Teth, the ninth letter. These two letters must be studied together. As with Vav and Zayin, Chet and Teth cannot be separated. These two combined have their result in the tenth letter, Iod. Iod represents the covenant. A covenant is a binding agreement, law or contract. We need a spiritual covenant to re-enter Eden. That covenant is symbolized in Iod. How do we know that? Because in Hebrew life (chai) is spelled Chet Iod. Life emerges due to laws. Life is sexual (Chet), the law is Iod.
The letter Iod is a small symbol, but is highly significant. You may have observed that we mention Iod in every lecture on the Hebrew alphabet. The reason is that every letter is a Iod, expanded. Every letter includes Iod, organized differently. Iod is the law itself.
This is why the eighth day is the day of circumcision. In the Bible it states,
"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman (isha) have conceived seed (zara), and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised." - Lev 12:2-3
On the eighth day a circumcision must be performed on the child to cut away the foreskin from the penis as a symbol of removing power from the serpent. This is explicit in the Zohar:
"This secret, on the eighth day, is a universal obligation to all the holy people, as written, "And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised." The eighth day is the sign of the holy covenant, which is the eighth among the Sfirot. The purpose of the circumcision of the holy covenant to remove that foreskin from before the covenant."
Physical circumcision is not the issue here, as Paul states in the New Testament. In ancient times, circumcision was required for a particular reason, explained in a previous lecture. What is important here is a spiritual process. Spiritual circumcision represents cutting away animal desire. The foreskin is removed to prevent loss of energy and to save and transform it.
Life is a great energy force that we observe in the Tree of Life flows downward. That downward flow of energy is how all levels of nature have been created until we arrive in Assiah, the physical world and the physical body, yet mere physical life is not the reason for existence. We are not simply here to have children then die. That would be pointless. We are also not here to sing praise to God so he will feel good. Some say that when you die you will spend eternity singing songs of praise to God. Is God so vain as to need humans singing to him constantly? There is probably a greater plan about which we willfully ignore because we do not want to face the truth. By thoroughly investigating scripture, religion, and the Hebrew alphabet, you will see that life is a polarized current, a great force that descends. When Adam is created, the heavens and hells tremble, because they know that so much depends on how we behave in Assiah, the physical world, as this affects everything else. It is here that all the forces converge. Malkuth, the tenth sphere, is at the juncture of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death, the place they fight each other, because ultimately, this is where the force of life is polarized: either to descend downward into darkness or to ascend to the light.
A simple observation of planet Earth reveals the direction of this humanity. This humanity wallows in darkness, embroiled in lust, pride, envy, greed, etc like caged beasts scrambling over each other for crumbs, competing with each other for everything, cheating and stealing from each other over illusions, pointlessly. This has nothing to do with the purpose of life.
The purpose of life is not to accumulate money, gain fame, or sing praise to God. The purpose of life is to become a God, to become a fully developed soul, to become Adam and beyond; a perfect human being like Krishna, Buddha, Moses, or Jesus. These are human beings who were once like us, trapped in suffering, ignorant, and in pain. They did not set out to dominate the planet or to convince everyone to follow them, or try to control the minds of others to believe one thing or another. They all taught the same principles: to become perfect human beings, we must purify our minds, cease harmful action, and help others. This had nothing to do with belief, theories, or membership. This was a plan for action as a consciousness, not tomorrow, now, continually, from moment to moment. That effort harnesses the forces that descend from above and bring life into the soul.
What happens then is quite magical, but can never be put into words, because conscious experience is not in Assiah. Conscious experience is not physical; neither can it be transmitted by language or trapped in a teaching or a book. It is a living thing, like a flower, or a cloud in the sky, dynamic, and so beautiful, if you learn to see it.
If we make the effort to awaken our consciousness, to pay attention in our heart and mind and do what is right, we will be amazed, because all the forces that awaken accumulate to rise up through the soul. New worlds open, a new life is begun, not physical, but spiritual. When this occur, we face many dangers and pains, because we must pay what we owe, repent our sins, and pay the Karmic debt. The energy current emerges in us, and we decide to harness it and direct it upward in order to develop our own Tree of Life, our soul. The waters that emerge within to give life to our Tree are extremely powerful, they must create a flood. All of the impure ones, the sinners in our minds, must die, but do not want to die. Our mind does not want to die, especially our pride. Our pride wants to be worshipped in Heaven, as it is.
We do not realize what psychologically filthy creatures we are; so much so that we would want to have others worship our ego. We do not see ourselves for what we are.
When the Tree of Life, our soul, begins to be enlivened, it can produce fruit, light, and we sustain ourselves with that gift from God, a reward for our effort. To achieve this is painful, because in order to return upward, the light within us must be purified. The light of our being, of Christ, the fire, cannot return with impurity. This is why the stars rain hard upon us, why God has in his hand the threshing rod, as Jesus explained.
Solomon stated,
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth." - Proverbs 3
"And reproofs of instruction are the way of life" (Mishlei 6:23). There are two ways, one is the way of life and one is the opposite of it. What is the sign of the way of life? It is "reproofs of instruction," for when the Holy One, blessed be He, wishes to guard the way of life, He places over it one who smites and makes reproofs of instruction for the people of the world. Who is he? He is that of which is written: "And the bright blade of a revolving sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life" (Beresheet 3:24). Therefore, "reproofs of instruction are the way of life," for one who receives reproof, is surely awakened to walk that way of life, for there dwell reproofs of instruction." - Zohar
We need chastening in order to free ourselves and be purified. We must pass ordeals and endure suffering to become like Job, willing to die, to give everything in order to merge with the light. All of this is explained in the letter Teth, the focus of our next lecture.
Questions and Answers
Audience: Does sin exist only in Assiah?
Instructor: No. Sin is any modification of the light that is out of balance with the law. Sin has nothing to do with "good and evil" because even the saints, who are "good," made mistakes, or what can be termed "a sin" or wrong transformation.
Assiah is the physical world, related to physical matter. There are many ways to transform physical matter and energy to create suffering; our lives are full of this. Much of the material things we buy and accumulate come to us through the process of wrong transformation of energy and the same is true psychologically. We commit sins in our hearts, minds, and with our willpower. These sins can manifest not only in Assiah but also in the worlds of Yetzirah and Briah. Sin in the broadest sense is any transformation of light modified incorrectly.
Audience: What is the Karmic effect of legalizing pedophilia in certain countries?
Instructor: Anything that happens in the physical world is due to cause and effect. Pedophilia occurs because in the psychological worlds the practice is already happening. Because people have been conceiving this in their minds, it descends, solidifies, and occurs in the physical world. The same is true for any crime. If we indulge in violent thought, that violence will eventually emerge in the physical world. We might think that we can restrain these thoughts within our minds and conceal them from the outside world, but eventually there will be a physical manifestation, perhaps not in this life but without doubt at some time in the future.
As to the legislation governing that type of activity and other forms of degenerate behavior, this is the result when a world descends into Klipoth, such as what is happening now to this planet. Fornication, adultery, rape, and paedophilia are normal in hell. Because these activities are occurring physically on Earth, this shows that our world in descending into hell. Our psychological Karmic weight is so great that these behaviors are emerging physically and becoming increasingly widespread in society. There are degenerate activities accepted today that a century ago would have incurred severe punishment, even death. Degeneration will become worse on this planet because people want it, since desire rules this humanity, not God. Humans have empowered these desires so they continually grow stronger. It is simple physics. Therefore, if humanity were really moving towards a superior level of being, life on this planet would be improving, becoming more like Eden, a state of bliss and happiness. That is not happening anywhere on this planet.
Audience: What is the significance of the floods in the Bible?
Instructor: The flood of Noah is symbolic of historic and psychological events. There are also stories of a flood in the life of Buddha Shakyamuni, the Greeks, and many other great heroes. The flood represents the waters of life, the Mayim that must rise in order to raise the soul, which is the Ark upon the waters. It is through the Ark or Aron that Noah, the soul, is saved and perpetuates life spiritually on Earth, Assiah. That is a process of three factors; birth, because the sexual forces in us are saved, multiply and replicate so the waters increase. It is death because all of the impurities that are in the waters must die, and it is sacrifice, because we sacrifice those desires and will in order to place ourselves in the Ark and submit ourselves to the will of God. This is comprehension, transmutation, and death. If you remove one factor, nothing happens.
Audience: Can you elaborate on the significance of the number eight in relation to the letter Chet?
Instructor: The Latin symbol 8 rotated 180 degrees is the symbol of infinity. This relates with Chet, life, because in the symbol is the entire process that we have been describing. It is a continual flow of division and joining. Observe the two parts of the symbol joined sexually. The energy that flows through the symbol separates, moves around and rejoins continually, infinitely. The flow of life and death is a symbol and that is Chet. Chet specifically demonstrates the relationship between masculine and feminine principles, Vav and Zayin. Chet is empowered by the marriage, the union of male and female. This is why it is absurd to teach that being single and abstaining from sex is how to reach God. That completely contradicts everything else in nature. Nowhere in nature do we find an organism capable of creating on its own. Even if an organism appears to create in itself there is still a hidden process like cellular division. The two sexes were created for that purpose: to create. We have demonstrated many times in the Hebrew symbols how the names of God are always representative of both polarities, male and female; Elohim, Iod Hei Vav Hei.
Audience: Does the accelerated degeneration on planet Earth relate to the end of this subrace?
Instructor: Yes. It is evident throughout history that when a civilization begins to celebrate degenerate behavior, that civilization is approaching its end. It is undeniable as this has occurred in every culture across the planet. We have the arrogance to presume that we are stronger or better than that, but we are not, we are worse. Contemporary humanity is the worst ever on this planet. The degeneration we see accelerating on planet Earth is primarily being stimulated by 'the West', Europe and North America. When we understand how the history of races and subraces show us the transformation of light on a planetary scale, the process of humanity, we can see that this is ending in North America. It has moved around the planet through different subraces. The degeneration is occurring worldwide, but socially, politically, economically and culturally 'the West' has been the main proponent of this degeneration for some time now. This is a reflection of the light. The global degeneration is the polarization of that, because humanity is receiving light but modifying it through desire, downward. This is also a reflection of what is happening in us individually because society is an extension of us as individuals. If we were all saints, this planet would be heaven, but rather than saints, we are devils, and we must realize this and change.
This planet is at the precipice of passing through a great transformation. As can be seen in the symbol of infinity, life and death are intertwined. For a new life to emerge and a new age to unfold, there must first be death. This culture will die. That is not something to be afraid of. That process is normal and always happens. Our role in this process is up to us. Whether we are caught in the flow of the waters as they descend into hell or whether we swim against the current and rise up is in our hands.
