Resurrection of the Word The Book of Cain

CAIN IS the undetermined Intemporal passing through all extant spheres. Abel, whose real name is Hevel, is an organism conditioned to serve. (Ecclesiatcs says: "Hevel, all is Hevel", translated as: "All is vanity".) When I was born my mother said: "I have conceived the archetype of humanity, a transmutation of YHWH", but when she bore Abel she said nothing. On seeing me she was proud. I loved YHWH and his invisible presence accompanied me everywhere. In the eyes of my mother you were in all your splendour, O Eve, mother of all living beings. But Abel was her son, a son of her flesh, and when she brooded over him I saw the female, not YHWH, in her eyes. I sensed that this attention given to Abel, the way the female looks at its young, came from the flesh's most remote past. Abel, the very flesh of flesh, liked this attention and throve on it, because he belonged to this woman's womb. Flesh and blood, he protected flesh. A shepherd, Abel was not a complete man but what the female had taken back even after being vanquished. He was the water of primordial instincts. Due to me he disintegrated one day, and was no more. At my conception YHWH had taken great pains with my mother in order that the glittering seed should issue from her transformed womb. In the same way I was the labourer so that out of the Earth, deeply wounded by me, deliverance would arise. Heedless of Abel's existence I made the Earth burgeon with fruits and gave them to YHWH my Father. Great was my joy and pure was my spirit, because I was at peace with the Earth and myself. Ah, how heedless of Abel I was! No, not exactly, but I wished that Abel had not been created. I did not want Eve, my wife, to be taken back. I didn't want her continually swinging in a 78 dream from yes to no. Wasn't it quite enough to have begotten a living Cain? Behold, I offered the fruits of the Earth to life and separated from myself my opposite who had been born after me, saying: "Lord, is it not enough for the Earth to give of its fruits, doesn't that suffice? Behold, I have tilled the Earth and it is fruitful. Isn't that enough?" But my question, becoming more and more anguished, remained unanswered. My scream -- how well I know it -- died away in horror. I could not believe that what had been had ever taken place ... and now we were far from the garden; cultivation was insufficient and unfruitful ... I was alive, but the tree of life at the eastern side of the Garden of Eden was gleaming behind an impassable barrier of flaming swords whirling in every direction. As a living person I tried to summon life, but the cry stuck in my throat and I was powerless to raise even its shadow. . . . Nothing. My life, which I knew still be be ebullient, was only barren. I saw Abel, at loggerheads with me. "Hasn't YHWH- Elohim captured man", he said, "and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it? Behold, Cain, the son Of YHWH, cultivates, and I, the son of Elohim, am on guard". I heard him say this while he was dreaming about how things were when man, before falling asleep, was alone and unaware of it, when he became dual, then two in one, then quartered. Then he spoke from the unfathomable depth of mystery, but I saw him creating his delirium, for he was not the son of Breath but the spinning of the dream of time, in Time. In the dream he saw my image offering the fruits of the Earth to the Intemporal. Most certainly this was a new sign, one which man had never madc in the Garden. At that period man was in the two-fold life of the Breath, but quite unaware of it. Now I was aware of it, and for this reason was outside it and offering oblations. Then, in turn, Abel said: "Here arc my oblations!" By offering it to something he did not know he destroyed the best 79 and most alive of what he ought to protect. There was a horrible massacre of the unsuspecting flocks of cattle. All the first-born died there ... for what? Has one to pay so dearly for being protected? I became violently angry and shouted at these flocks -- these fools: "Dupes, you're only dupes, you trust this shepherd who massacres your first-born, while he is hypnotised by his dream, and sacrifices their fat in an exploit that he will never understand". And behold, I saw YHWH look favourably on this carnage, which enraged me the more, increasing my violence. It curdled my blood! "YHWH, traitor", I shouted, "stupid, blood-thirsty butcher! Take to your bosom this unworthy shepherd who massacres the best in his charge -- son of a she- animal. Here he is: bestow your favours on him". While I was shouting and angrily scouring the fields I saw Abel. He was all red with the blood of his flocks. Blood was on his arms and everywhere, all over his face. He wiped his weapon and slowly and methodically skinned these murdered creatures. Then he made a great fire and offered their fat to his God. When the flesh was cooked he awarded it to himself and began to eat it. He was a long time eating. I heard the noise made by his jaws. After this carnage a loathsome smell of roast fat was exuding from Abel: it oozed out from all over him, 'Good is the Eternal", said he, "and my sacrifice" -- he lifted his eyes to heaven when saying this and sighed humbly -- "feeds me well. Let us give thanks to the Eternal." I was very depressed, my face cast-down, my body dejected. I wandered to and fro. Anger had left me. I was too weak to get worked-up again. I was more dismal than a forsaken entreaty -- nostalgic for lost happiness. I wept for my wasted life. My lamentations fell meekly from my bloodless lips. "0 YHWH", I said, "if you have betrayed me why did you let me know it? I saw you looking favourably on Abel. Why did you let me see that? Couldn't you have looked at him more discreetly, so that I wouldn't have noticed? 80 I searched everywhere for you and couldn't find you. I called you, but you didn't answer. You know so well how to hide yourself when you want to. Why did you steal away, and behold, the first moment I saw you, you were looking favourably on Abel? You have never conferred anything on me other than the capacity to notice this glance. You haven't gazed at me and I have scen nothing of you but this stare. I haven't seen the rest of you and I haven't heard your voice. My life is dead without you ... Oh for my tree of Life beyond the whirling swords!" Thus, in my grief, did I speak: I didn't eat or sleep, or toil, but retreated into myself, my head between my hands. With a supreme effort I mustered all my strength. I was worn out. Thoughts tore at my heart. Passion nagged at my mind. Essence struggled with body. Nothing was forthcoming. I went on struggling; still nothing throve. I was sinking, my life was dead, but my power was infinite. Continually delving deeper into myself I went on and on, searching without stop, and in my agony I sought, though it was impossible, for death, for an end to my efforts that never finished . . . I was left without energy, but I did not stop. 'When death arrives," I said, "it will find me toiling." Then there was silence ... after that, great silence. Next, what had been outward became inward: what had been hidden was still hidden, but living, vibrating within me, illuminating my heart, engendered by my mind. ... This voice that I had never heard before! It was weaker and more hesitant than a tiny flame flickering in the vastness of the open sea ... nevertheless, I recognised it without ever having known it. It was mine for ever. It decreed nothing, it explained nothing: it was not as clear and distinct as commands a shepherd gives to his beasts. But because it was vague I was certain, and because it was formless I understood it. Yes, it was the Immanence in me, and I was the Immanence reborn! Hearing this voice I was suddenly filled with an indescribable joy, and a scintillating brilliance superseded my body. In front 81 of all the herds I exclaimed: "Did you hear? This is the voice of YHWH, heard for the first time, and I have heard it. Have you understood, O herds? What can you understand? You understand the voice that tells you: "this is right, that is wrong; go to the right; not to the left; this is virtue, that is sin. But you will never understand the eternal voice which tells you neither how to behave nor how to avoid trespassing, but how to wrestle with Elohim." I arose and ran towards Abel in spite of everything, in spite of the utter impossibility. I took hold of him and shook him, saying, as it is written: "Cain talked with Abel his brother" * "Abel, Abel, wake up! I have heard the voice, Abel, for the first time since the expulsion. Abel! I have heard it but you have not. Life is speaking through my mouth, Abel. It's gushing from its source in me.... Abel, Abel!" He turned round, slightly surprised, as if troubled, and I noticed that he had already changed considerably. He was plump and sure of himself. His garments were white and embroidered. Blood and fat had gone, for he no longer did his own killing: his captains, whom he blessed, killed for him. I saw that he carried in his hands a symbolic cross ornamented with jewels which his slaves had clawed from the earth's belly. He looked at me with slight annoyance, because my blackened hands had just soiled his white robe. I was dirty, emaciated, hairy, and my rags must have been a hideous sight. "Obviously you've come from the desert, my son," he said, "judging by your garb and the fervour you are showing. It is most pleasing to discern the fire of a most lively faith and the sincerest conviction in your zeal; it will count in your favour. But, believe me, this fire is not enough because, my child, mismanaged it will lead you astray . . . how shall I express it? Does it not mislead you already, and your mind which has perceived, I don't doubt it, I don't wish to doubt it, has perceived, I say, I don't know, authentic illumination perhaps. Genesis IV, fl. 82 . . . Who am I to judge the ways of God, which in obedience to his Will assume most extraordinary and heretical aspects? If your mind, I say, had known how to perceive what bewilders it today isn't that, perhaps, who knows, so that it can find the way of Truth through my solicitude?" "Wake up, Abel! This God you are talking about does not exist. Only in the movement of each thing is there a God. And hasn't each thing its own movement, and isn't it firstly its essence and then itself? And isn't the path of each the means by which it annihilates itself? Abel, was not my essence torn apart as long as I was not the essence but its negation? Am I not torn to pieces in my dream as long as I am not fathering its origin, for has it not withered? Am I not Essence, the beginning and the end, not myself? And, Abel, are not images and actions dictated by your dreams proof that, disunited, you become identified, not with your life, but with your sleepiness? The accumulation of the past that you prolong endlessly, Abel, and which refuses to be born, the number of actions you arc responsible for, over the centuries . . . . the disfigurements you inflict on people who think . . . the prescriptions for confining love in prayers! . . . "We have listened to you carefully and Our forebearance will show you your error and its gravity. Firstly you are very unjustified in being shocked by the subject of Our flocks. When we cut the throats of first-born, mothers naturally pour forth their tears for the dead, but in their hearts they rejoice to offer this blood to the Lord. For, firstly, if their sons arc killed, they are not. On the contrary, blood is exciting. From the sight of blood muliiplication of the flesh increases rapidly. Hence the secret pleasure, my son, from monuments to the dead. "Next, you speak to Us most forcibly, with a command that could almost convince some of the exalted ones, about life, eternity and each thing's essence . . . Well . . . I will refer you to these subjects with some works I have in mind ... But, my child, believe me, such notions are subversive. They are an incitement to anarchy. Mind you, I could almost agree with 83 you. . . . Yes, you're a man who can undoubtedly understand ... But look what is going on around you. See these things . . . these clasped hands, these imploring and terrrified figures. Notice, especially, my son, the incompetence of these people. They are feeble. 'They have no discernment. Release them and you will sec them doing the most stupid things, floundering in vice. And that's nothing as yet! 'The aberration of one will be the ruin of all. Being no longer stayed with morals and beliefs the social order will collapse and humanity, after going to so much trouble to establish law and order, will return to barbarism." "Liar, butcher! There is not one of your words that isn't an exact transference of your function as a butcher! Son of a she-animal, your degenerate mind and hardened heart serve your belly! Behold, I see and clearly perceive, as on the first day, everything suddenly arising. I see the man who comes to be born, burdened with a task that is too heavy, for he must overcome the Earth, and the Earth is harsh, arid and implacable. Man must render himself harsher than harshness, dryer than aridity, more implacable than the implacable. He cannot loiter. I, Cain, wished to pause and enjoy the fruits of the Earth, But these fruits are not YHWH's." MAHOYAEL: The fruits of the Earth belong to all the bodies of the Earth, to eat and live. But see what happens: they belong to the owners of the land, so that every oppression of man by man is productive, and every new mass of production brings about a revolt of the crushed. Every revolt creates a new order, and every new order crushes man a little more. Every new repression fertilises the Earth yet more and more! Behold, the vengeance of the victim is seven times that of the victim's, then it will increase to a revolt larger than the whole of the fertilised Earth, and man will awaken, and the time is coming. And that is not all, for there is strife in the sleeping bodies of men and women. They dream their suffering. In every consciousness arises a multitude of characters, who fight and kill each other without ever growing tired of being re-born and 84 killing. But the ineffable seed is born, no deviation of which has set bounds to scepticism and desire. The unstable and plastic seed, insubstantial, without past or future, modelled by the Present, is born from itself at every moment, from its attachment to the movement of the Universe, which is the Word. This is the birth of creation! Ah, birth and the labour of birth are too clumsy. The Earth is hard-hearted, man still more so, and his dreams even harsher. YHWH is the harshest of all. CAIN: As I was speaking to Abel the Voice told me: "You have talked with him but have not made yourself understood, because his dream is permanent, for neither Earth nor flesh is ready and you will not awaken Abel. What will you do, O Son of Yahweh? For a moment your mother was sane, then lost her lucidity and Abel was begotten. Again she will be lucid and again be bereft of it, over and over again. Awakening will not come by dispelling the dream, but in destroying it from within". Talking to myself I said: If I behave badly the transgression will block the threshold of my house and prevent me from getting out of my prison -- and I am the seed. Isn't that so? And if sin bars my route, then what? I shall not go out? What is this sin that impedes my way? "What is it? What does it mean? Isn't sin what I call evil when I behave in a way that I consider to be wrong? What do these desires wish? They flock to me. Where do they lead me? . . . I dare not understand! Is it simply my idea of evil that stretches across my threshold and imprisons me? And do desires come to me so as to liberate me? And if so? Is it my idea of evil that always stays at my door? What stops me? Who stops me? Who sends these desires? What must I do? "What must I do with this sin which thwarts life? And what did he say? He said: You are to have dominion over it. Abruptly, in a piercing flash, this was the beginning and the end, the origin and the fulfilment. I saw good and evil united in one whole in myself, tasting alike. I was not the victim's cry but his revolt. I was in every grieving human cell, not consoling 85 but lacerating. I am what is but has yet to come; I am what is not but which is always present; I lived blinded by the light for I was thc life-spring of every being made fruitful in itself by the oppression of sleepincss. I neither avoided nor summoned thc shepherd; nor was I the dream of the future, but in everyone the eternal assassination of the shepherd, the deed which consecrates the birth of man! Then I stood up to Abel my brother and discovered him not, because he was but flowing blood. I was quite calm because I knew that I had acted well. And I heard the Voice saying unto me: "Where is Abel your brother?" Moreover, it was speaking calmly. I was asking myself "'Where can Abel be? Where can he have gone?" I didn't know where he was. How could I know, I, life, forbidden to the dead sons of she-animals? And how can I know where they go when they are dead? What occupies them there so much? What remains of that which never lived? Who are these people who say "I am"? When one dies how many are begotten? How do I value my rising stature? How can I state that because of me one particular person has awoken and another has not? How many illusions have I shattered? How can I say that I have triumphed to a certain extent but not farther? I have fertilised so much, and not more? How can i know if he whose death I have caused has not already arisen a thousand times more confident than before, or if, on the other hand, he, in turn, has not ceaselessly killed the dead? Nevertheless, my Voice demanded: "Where is your brother Abel?" O Intemporal, fear nothing, for I am not with him. I understand your dread and your question. But if I were to say: "He is here, or there, dead or half-dead, dead here, alive ", I would put a value on both the flocks and their illusionary future, and I would say to myself: 'Those who go there without a shepherd make their way alone, or with some such good or bad idea", and bringing this about I would take the place of the murdered shepherd . . . . sacred Uncertainty, what would ehen become of you? 86 On that account I replied: I do not know: am I my brother's keeper? For the shepherd exists everywhere that someone invokes him. He is engendered by fear, and I am not concerned with fear for I am not a protector. Then the cry Of the Earth increased, piercing me with the curses of the she-animals, in the name of Elohim: What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth out. And now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth. * And I saw that this was true. I saw the great she-animal who had opened her mouth, and the blood which she had swallowed, I heard crying out. Everywhere the Earth had mouths open to gulp down this blood. This blood that it was drinking could not die and did not wish to die, but it cried for vengeance on the Earth and cursed the rebellious woman who did not want to be made fruitful. I knew that this blood had married the she-animal bccausc it had not wished to die. No longer blood but as water it protested its objection. Everywhere the water rose avenging its prolific flesh that had expelled me from its midst and condemned me to death. "This," I exclaimed, "is how the Earth, by refusing to feed me, wishes to take its life, for she has not transformed the blood she has drunk, and, in turn, has not wanted to die to come alive again. It has bccn taken by the she-animal, and see how it clamours for the flesh to be avenged on me". i was in despair, for I knew that the she-animal was powerful and was set upon taking my life. How was I to protect myself from her? I said unto YHWH: My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth: and it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me. ** * Genesis IV, 10, 1 1, 12.   ** Genesis IV. 9. 87 For the Sons of Man were too small and the Earth too rapacious, and I was disheartened. The sky became dark and a terrible crash burst over the Earth, a thunderbolt fell, fire sprang out in all directions and the great Voice of Eternity was poised over the Earth, threatening the power of the Earth with an even greater fiery calamity. The vehemence of its implacable will extended along the four rivers, blowing over the seas and weighing down the forests. Lands, waters and forests heard the great menacing Voice spreading everywhere, and men humbled themselves when they heard it, whispering to one another this great threat: Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken On him sevenfold. * Such was the great threat that proclaimed to all that Cain was glorified. Thus it is written: And YHWH set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. ** I knew I was immortal, and that in spite of the Earth and its curses and the flocks of beings as yet only imitations of men, I was going to surpass them. Behold, all was accomplished. My bodily deed of consecralion had begat the immortality of man as well as the fatality of the dream and the great anguish of its unfolding; and the fatality of the way that must be followed until the end: a will more unyielding than all. Then I knew what I had to do because of the sign which I bore. The great adventure of the night had just begun. I saw down the tunnel of the centuries stretching before me: always were these centuries joined together indefinitely, the upshot of sleep: both the inner man, and Abel reviving at each step while walking in his sleep, and my rising up to assassinate him, tirelessly, and he reviving at each step ... When the extent of the Earth is at its zenith and complete, when woman has the grandeur of man I will be in each of them, still endeavouring to engender the light in head and heart, and no more to begat flesh. Then I shall withdraw from YHWH, as it is written. I shall * Genesis IV, 15.   ** Gcncsis IV, 13, 14. 88 go neither to the north, nor to the South, nor to the west. . . . East of the Garden of Eden cherubims with flaming swords guard the way to the tree of life. There am I and there I wait. The way that I take I am. In my presence the flaming swords are lowered because of the mark put by YHWH on my countenance, lest any one who found me should kill me. I have become the tree of life because, through killing Abel, I have dominion over the dead.                 I am the tree of life in the East                 East of the gardens                 I wield my whirling swords                 To ward off those who fear me.                 My home is everywhere                 The land of Nod, the land of sorrow                 And of exile.                 I am YHWH, invisible to myself,                 Banished, foreign to myself.                 How do I see myself?                 I have no mirror.                 Yahweh, Yahweh!                 Why does my self                 Forsake me? 89

Carlo Suares, Resurrection of the Word, Shambhala, 1974, pp. 78-79

Carlo Suares: Revived Qabala: Lexicon: Qaheen/Hevel Cain and Abel