I recently attempted in Maitreya II to give in a couple of pages a bird's-eye view of the revival of Qabala.
I focused it partly on "Cain-and-Abel": an ancient, deep, and disastrous psychological complex. My view of Cain --
and of other such complexes as Adam, Eve, God, the Lord, etc. . . -I can only justify by means of the reading of
the Bible according to the original code whose secret is hidden in the schemata that have become the Hebrew alphabet.
I gave that code in a book, The Cipher of Genesis,1 but not to my entire satisfaction, because I had to use a phonetic
transcription of the Hebrew characters for the benefit of the readers who do not know them.
In Tree 2 further information was given, including the use of the Hebrew letters and an abridged explanation of the
fundamental textbook of Qabala: the Sepher Yetsira.
A third important cabalistic text -- the most important of all -- The Song of Songs, erroneously said to be
"The Song that is of Solomon" in its canonical version; is now published by Shambala with the complete Hebrew text,
and an English version that will appear to every reader as most surprising, and, it is
hoped, as a revelation. That text is verified verse by verse with the use of the code and a study of its relation
to the roots of the Hebrew idiom. Here is an example of this method.
An important postulate of the Yetsira is: Aleph with everything and everything with Aleph: Bayt with everything and everything
with Bayt (or Vayt). Aleph being the timeless, unthinkable, eternal, or explosive Energy (or whichever word we wish to use
for what evades all mental concepts) and Bayt (or Vayt) being any container in whatever form, shape
vibration, undulation, ray, etc. . . that postulate means -- if I can use an obsolete. inadequate. but convienient set of words --
that everything that is, in whatever realm, is both "spirit" and "matter", or that there is no explosive Energy without
compressive Energy, and reciprocally no structural drive without the opposite disintegrating drive. Thus everything that is,
is considered by the Yetsira in terms of two co-ordinates, Aleph and Bayt. Where Bayt prevails powerfully, as in a piece of iron,
Aleph is hopelessly in bondage; it cannot be active; in the biosphere Aleph operates; in the exalted mental emanation of a man
made perfect, Aleph operates through time and space by means of so subtle mediums that they evade perception. So both Aleph
and Bayt exist in different ranges from the inert to the very active. If by any chance one could have in oneself and be made
of Aleph alive and Bayt alive, one would be in touch and commune with Aleph wherever it is and with the Bayts, whatever they are,
therefore with everything that is.
Aleph alive would be Aleph-Hay (Hay: 5 is the sign for life; when Abram is given the life of Aleph he becomes
Abraham, with the corresponding added Hay -H in our writing) and Bayt alive would be Bayt-Hay. Therefore Aleph-Hay-Bayt-Hay
would be in that person and that person would be in that schema, would be that schema in very truth. That schema, pronounced
Ahavah, means LOVE in Hebrew! Its idiomatic meaning is desecrated, as is desecrated the word love everywhere in the world.
The stupendous AlephHay-Bayt-Hay was originally a cabalistic opening towards being at-one with all that is.
Another fantastic shortcut across every legend and myth is Moses'
famous revelation where an imaginary deity is supposed to have said, in Hebrew,
"I am that I am," or some such stuff.
Ahieh Asher Ahieh simply means: Aleph alive, Yod alive.
Yod, as it has been abundantly explained in The Cipher of Genesis and elsewhere, being the existential projection in
time and space of the One cosmic Energy, that revelation is an authentication, fully understood by Moses of the fact that
everything is alive. Period!
Now the question may arise: if everything is alive, what about death? We have a bad habit of opposing life and death,
whereas the beginning and the end of the journey are birth and death. We must consider death in its relationship to birth,
and when we do so, we cannot but realize that birth is death: as it is obviously true that one is born to die, death is
included in birth. So, if along the journey one knows how to live one's permanent death, one knows how to live. It is that simple.
And it brings us back to Cain and to Vanity-Hevel (pronounced Abel, for no reason that I can imagine; I refer here to my text in
Maitreya II where I pointed out that in Ecclesiastes' well known quotation, "everything is vanity," the word vanity is a
translation of his word hevel; why is the same word, in Genesis, thought to be a man, murdered by his brother?).
*************************
The schema Cain (Qof-Yod-Noun: 100.10.40/600) is one of the most difficult to grasp, one of the most complete and unsolved
equations of the penetration of the cosmic energy into the human psyche. It expresses and symbolizes the projection of cosmic
Aleph (Qof: 100) upon its opposite pole of Energy (YodlO) and therefore contains the complete scale of timeless and factual life.
This is apparent in every detail concerning Cain, beginning with Esha's assertion: Qaneetee Eesh Et-YHWH, that, read with the
code, gives a full description of Cain's nature, and amounts to much more than the generally adopted versions, all meaning:
"I have acquired a man from the Lord." Eesh originally meant the Breath emanated from both Aleph and Yod. It is Eesh who
aggresses Jacob, and whose blessing Jacob receives. Eesh is, in terms of the code, the archetype of the perfect
manhood. However, and with all allowances to the profane canonical versions, it is a fact that when Hevel is born Eesha says
nothing and when Shet comes as a substitute for Hevel, he is acknowledged as only a seed, not brought by YHWH: by Elohim.
Cain's quality and structure are further described when Cain moves away "from the face of YHWH" and goes East of Eden where
is the Tree of Life, into the land of Nod. But the most illuminating developments of the schema Cain is in what is said to be
Cain's posterity as compared to Shet's. Cain's begins with YHWH and Shet's begins with Elohim, and Cain's constantly permeates
and enlightens Shet's. Cain's is in the abstract. His so-called son and all the following sons of sons, down to Lemekh,
do not exist in flesh. Of none is it said: and he begat. . . and lived so many years. . . and died. Shet's is the symbolic
description of the generations in flesh. When both posterities are read according to the original code, their parallelism is
illuminating. Poor absurd old Mathusalem and others disappear in the discovery of an extremely beautiful and exalted
metaphysical poem. It cannot be explained. It has to be read in its Hebrew characters with full knowledge of the code.
Serious students who go into it, letter by by letter, and understand the full significance of every detail of that double
posterity, have no doubt left as to their option: they can no longer be Hevel, it would be too stupid, they full-heartedly
become Cain! They then understand what mutation the human mind must operate in itself so as to be no longer sub-human as it
generally is today, but really human.
All the important "sacred" texts describe the interplay between Aleph (or Qof: its concept as cosmic) and Bayt, Dallet, Yod,
Raysh or Tav. . . etc. . . according to the point of view of our meditations. Our difficulty, obviously, is in the fact that
Aleph and Qof are beyond the capacity of the mind to understand them. More often than not we only perceive their explosiveness
as a big bad wolf knocking at the closed shutters, walls and ceilings of our psychological shell:
We therefore only perceive the reactions of our protections against them, which are the opposite of what they are.
That is why the Bible is read so as to mean the opposite of what it says.
*************************
The explosive and compressive qualities of the One Universal Energy are apparent everywhere in their relationships ranging
from the totally prevailing explosive thrust in those galaxies that rush at almost light-speed towards their annihilation,
down to the fantastic substances compressed to a density of thousands of tons per cubic-foot detected in some astral bodies.
In every metal, rock, living cell, blade of grass, tree, insect, animal or human being, the cabalist looks, sees, observes,
learns and knows what the relationship is between the explosive and compressive qualities of the One, and what its process is.
He therefore can name being the thing, in terms of Energy. That is th nature of the sacred language. Cain knows it inherently
because the two-in-one Energy is alive-or are alive-in him-or through him.
There is nothing mysterious in that knowledge. When you consider the explosion of springtime in the vegetation, you realize
that you do not see it, but only the shapes that capture it. The memory of eve blade of grass, shrub or tree imprisons
that explosiv Energy in pre-established shapes, moulds it accordin to patterns established through many centuries.
All those memories are so powerful as to compel the explosive Energy to surrender to their compressive Energy. and to be
used by it in order to perpetuate the species. The species evolve in time by adaptation to
modified factors, but only within small margins. The new varieties are adapted specimens. The non-adapted go extinct.
Nature is rampant and cruel, a constant battlefield where the strong destroy the weak.
When not attended to, nature leads to chaos. Its "harmony" is a romantic idea based on no real fact.
In the animal world, memories capture the constant flow of vital Energy in amazing complexities. They build physiological and
psychological structures. They react to and act upon the environment. They react to and on the environment.
The resulting species have occasional possibilities of mutation or disappearance. They eat each other. The balance is between
the eaten and the eaters.
The world of insects is a horrible illustration of what happens in the biosphere when the compressive power prevails.
Its memories are so strongly built that the termites will survive any other living thing until the planet dies. In that
society, the function for function's sake is supreme.
In the mineral, says Cain, Aleph is fast asleep. In the vegetation it slumbers. In the animal kingdom it dreams with
occasional nightmares. In the insect world it is murdered. What about yourself?
"What about Aleph in me?" asks X.Y.Z.
"What about Aleph in you."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. You do."
"Aleph is a name."
"Of course. What about the thing? Is it fast asleep in you? Dreaming? Or are you murdering it?"
"How can I know? Did you not say it is timeless, unthinkable, beyond thought, perception and understanding?"
"Of course it is."
"So how can I know?"
"You can't. You can. Who are you, anyway?"
"X ... Y ... Z ... "
"Those are names. What about yourself?"
"I am American. . . French. . . Russian. .
"Those are names. What are you?"
"Black. . . White. . . Yellow. .. Red. .
"Those are names. What are you?"
"I see. I am an engineer. . . a student. . . a docker. .
"Those are names. What are you?"
"I see. Episcopalian. . . Jewish. . . Catholic. .
"Names, names, memories! Whatever life is in you you have captured, imprisoned in pre-established shapes, molded according to
patterns. Are you humans or a vegetation?"
"We have a sense of belonging."
"Of course you do. You don't."
Cain in the open tries to talk to Hevel, to all the Hevels, everyone the image of a particular world of mistaken evidences.
False, erroneous, mistaken evidences: that is what it amounts to. Each and every one enclosed in a dream surrounded by nothing;
from childhood on, established in the obvious unchallenged evidence of surroundings. Even before birth senses respond to impacts.
Human bodies, unlike the vegetable and animal, are brought into being with innumerable genetic informations, with an
immeasurable margin of indetermination, and fill that space of freedom, choke it with memories.
"Brer Vanity," says Cain to Abel, "you remember perhaps, don't you, the first time we met? And your metamorphosis to a bag
of blood? And its disappearance? Again and again, throughout history, I stood facing your disappearance while trying to develop
your cortex or whatever you have inside your skull."
"I heard about the first time a man called Cain killed his brother. You frighten me. I hate you. I worship the Commandment
thou must not kill."
"That story was the beginning of our myth, we are the end. Wake up! This is Doomsday! As to thou must not kill,
no computer of yours could calculate the number of tortured, maimed, murdered, driven to madness and utter despair in your
historical era. You know that."
"We all know it. But that's how we have survived."
"As a sub-species. By now you are three and billion. With your rate of proliferation you'll soon be seven, fourteen,
sixty billion, whilst rapidly coming, destroying, polluting the planet's reserves. This is Doomsday, I say! Wake up!
It's the end!"
"We are all called to die, anyway. If it's the end it's the end. And so what?"
"And so what? That's the point. Here I am, cosmic Aleph alive and calling for its crop, for its harvest of an era.
Here am I actively in flesh, in a state of indetermination and freedom. And here you are, alive only organically,
in the vanity of your transient identifications. I came in the beginning as a forewarning. My impact was too strong
for you. Your sleeiping Aleph fell out of you and you desintegrated. Is yourintent, now, towards entropy or
towards Aleph?"
***************************
Hevel: Hay-Vayt-Lammed, is nothing but life in an organism, an organic life, nothing more. Qa-een, carrying the totally
awakened cosmic Aleph in flesh, tries to talk to him, but Hevel does not hear him. So Qa-een stands facing him, trying to
stir his sleeping Aleph. The outpour of timeless Energy from Qa-een is too powerful for Hevel: he reacts to the shock and
drops his Aleph instead of arousing it, thus becoming Dam (blood in Hebrew) instead of Adam (Aleph in blood).
The schema Adam is infinitely vast and deep. When Jesus declared himself to be Ben-Adam he meant something tremendous.
****************************
"I don't know what you mean, go away, you murderer!" says Hevel to Qa-een.
"I am not a murderer," says Qa-een, "I set Aleph free wherever I succeed in destroying the psychic structures that
imprison it in their memories. Yet such destruction is a death of a sort, a psychological death and resurrection."
****************************
In some detective novels, at a point similar to this, the author sometimes challenges the readers. They have all the clues.
Can they find who the murderer is? The question here is somewhat different: can the reader guess what the author thinks
he can murder him psychologically with?.. (There are two kinds of deaths: the dead death and the death of resurrection.
I do not care to know whether it is possible or not to resurrect dead bodies. It is irrelevant.)
Of course the reader will only find here words, words. He will not die psychologically unless he plays the game.
If he plays the game he may or may not, at his will.
****************************
Here is the game.
"Have you in mind any basic fundamental question, really vital for you?" asks C.S. to a friend.
"I have," says X.Y.Z., "three fundamental questions: What is living? What is death? What is life?"
"I've heard them already and am sorry to say they are not basic. When you ask: what is living? that question stands upon,
is supported by, your notion of living. That notion is not fundamental: it rests on the. concept "living" as opposed
to "non-living". Dig into it and you will see that the concept "living" is a conclusion, an abstraction, a projection
of the mind. When you ask "what is death?" you complicate the matter still further. As I already said, you oppose
arbitrarily death to life. When you ask "what is death?", you are implicitly and unknowingly asking "what is birth?"
Do you want an answer based on biology, ethnology or natural history? And of course, when you ask "what is life?", you
are sure to receive innumerable answers. Scientists, metaphysicians, mystics, or anybody around the corner, will tell you
"what life is". Everyone has his notion of what life is. This question is anything but fundamental."
"But I have no idea of what life really is. My question is really fundamental."
"It isn't. You have in mind, again, the distinction between that that life is and that that it is not.
Do you consider it to be a state of ceaseless change, a functional activity peculiar to organized matter?
Or is it a mental projection resulting from such assertions as "I am life," etc. . . supposed to have been
uttered by some deity? Whatever you mean by "what is life" has an enormous background of knowledge, observation,
creed or faith. It is not a fundamental question. It is based on a qualification and a classification resulting
of an inner feeling of "being" and an outward superficial observation of things that are considered a priori to be alive."
"All right. So what are the fundamental questions?"
"Not the questions: there is one and there can only be ONE fundamental question; don't you see?
Two questions would not be basic: they would arise from two different points of view, concepts or
perceptions, hence they would contain a cause unknown to you, for being two. They would be effects of
that cause. An effect is not fundamental, nor is the cause, because a cause is always the effect of another
cause. By definition, the basic question is based on nothing. It arises from the nature and structure of
thought in its clearest perception."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"Of course you don't. You do. I have formulated the fundamental question in every one of my books, lectures, articles.
You have read it a number of times in the last twenty years. I always declared it to be basic."
"You mean I skipped it and it is fundamental?"
"No. You skipped it because it is fundamental."
"Let's drop your rigmarole and come to the point. What is it?"
"We've gone a longer way than you think towards it. Will you now, please, keep in mind everything you know,
believe in, think about; everything you feel to be obvious, every certainty, such as the simple fact that
we are both here, talking together. . . or, reader, the obvious fact that you are reading this. Now, if you
came to play the game, keep in mind everything, conscious or unconscious that is in your mind, and even the
fact that you exist, keep it all under your scrutiny so as to be sure that you will not use any part of it,
absolutely not. Shut your eyes, open them, make a statement. State something."
"I see something."
"Wake up! You are not playing the game. Discard the I and the seeing."
"Well! There is something anyway."
"Correct. There is something. And if you are honestly playing the game, you are not satisfied in totally containing,
limiting, classifying the things you see as: this is a book, a room, or anything else. The immediate causes for their
being what they are and for being there do not explain away how it is that they are there at all. You know nothing about
that. Your consciousness is in a state of waking up to the blunt, absolute unchallengable fact that there is something,
period. This statement is so simple that it is already difficult to come to it. Any average mind, dreaming
its childish dream, would say: of course there is something! And to prove its point, it would describe the outer world with
the notion that every element it is obvious because it is perceived and recognizable through some equivalence. That
obviousness of things acts as a screen to the fact that everything is included in the unknowable nature of time and space.
We have now gone a long way towards the statement there is something, because on the way we have acquired the capacity
of knowing that we don't know fundamentally what it is that is. So what is the basic question that arises?"
"What is it that is?"
"No, no: you are falling asleep again. Your question is an appeal to link something that you cannot think about to
something that belongs to one or othe of your memories. You want to exchange the unthinkable for the thinkable.
You are trying to draw upon the provisions stored in your mind. As I said a while ago: think. Think with the naked
intrinsic nature and structure of thought. Thought is made of time and space and cannot understand time or space:
thought does not understand itself. So think!"
(Please reader, this is vital: Think!)
"Well.. . there is something.. . I do not allow myself to recognize any part in it, because, of course,
I would not be thinking: I would only be searchings concepts in my repertory of classified words.
I am therefore compelled to state that I simply don't know how it is that that that is is here at all."
"We have come at last to the fundamental question; how is it there is anything at all? Can you answer that?"
"No. I have already seen through the texture of thought. Its nature is time, its structure is measures.
So I cannot think how it is that anything is."
"That's it! I can think five billion light-years or one billion's part of a second, but I cannot think a beginning of time,
or a time that has already always been. I cannot think a something created out of nothing-and anyway a nothing pregnant
with a future something would already be something. I cannot think an always, always, and when I go deeper and deeper in
it I feel insanity awaiting. An always always before and an always always after. . . always always
go into it. . . If you tried to go into it, to feel it, to mean it, if you could for a single moment try to live with
the notion that the something that you are compelled to assert has never begun and will never end, you would soon have
your thought declare itself at its end. You have discarded as being already something the erroneous alternative of a
nothing-out-of-which-something-was-created. So only the unthinkable is left."
****************************
That is the end of the dialogue. The weapon for your psychological murder and resurrection is in you. It is up to you.
It is up to you to allow it to go through you.
During one whole day keep it in mind. Do whatever job you have to do. Meet whatever people you have to meet.
During one whole day keep on saying to yourself:
I do not know how it is that anything is.
I meet a Christian, a Jew, a Moslem
They say God-Elohim-Allah.
It is irrelevant
Would deities be something?
I do not know how it is that anything is.
Some say there is a liberation
A transformation
From irreality
A facing oneself,
It is irrelevant
Would such things be something?
I do not know how it is that anything is.
Some say: who am I?
I am not this gross body
I am this gross body.
What is the nature of awareness?
What is the self?
Is there a self?
There is a self.
There is no self.
The world is to be removed
It is not to be removed
What is the nature of the mind?
There is a path to inquiry.
There is no path
I must practice
I must not practice
Everything is the Siva, the Self.
Give yourself up to God
Do not.
Do.
Whether such things are or are not
It is irrelevant
I do not know how it is that anything is.
****************************
I do not know, I do not know. I do not know. In your religions, philosophies, wisdoms, paths, no-paths;
in your self-knowledge, your assertions, no-assertions, in whatever you say, not say, do, not do; in your
petty exalted minds; in your seif-centredness non-centered; in your conflicts peace; wherever you are,
however you blend with the All; you are satisfied in evading the fundamental devastating question; you stop at
some point; you do not go far enough; you do not enter the dangerous zone; you cling to erroneous evidences,
you do not go through.
I cannot go through
My consciousness is a prisoner
A prisoner in the immeasurable world
However large and deep
However exalted
The "is" is a prison to my awakening
I do not know
I know nothing
What is this?
And I am this.
What? What?
And because I cannot go through and because I do not consent to stop asking myself and not being able to say how it is that
anything is, the question hits me right in my solar plexus; it causes nausea; I feel sick; I feel in my blood my psyche dying.
Yes. It is driven to its death because every element of what once was its structure is dissolved in the fundamental enigma,
in the unfathomable mystery of the fact that something is.
****************************
If you are not afraid to "lose your mind", if you play the game with great purpose and vigor, you will discover that what you
are doing is obeying the Aleph's impulse in your psyche to free itself from all the memories that capture it, anaesthetize it,
or, alas, more often than not, annihilate it. Your psyche becomes the empty dwelling of the Explosive Energy, whereas your
body is more and more cognizant of its conservative, compressive purpose. Psyche and body, "in joint opposition" recreate
in you the cosmic game of the One Energy in two opposite directions, and the human sense of fitness is alive and operating
in and through you.
Be watchful! Never, never lose the fundamental question: Your fitness is no answer! Let not the restablished order in you
trap you into any certainty. You know, yet do not know that the Cosmic Energ is at work in its abode in you. You know yet
you do not know what its process is. You understand yet you do not- understand the words Explosive-Compressive Energy.
You no longer hear what so many people have to say about spiritual experiences, seif-realization, good and evil, irreality
and reality, being in a dream, being awake. You don't know. You don't know what the ultimate reality of a person, a flower
an object is. Therefore you are free to look, to see, to respect, because, after all, there never is any murder.
"Because I respect everything," says Cain, "I am only an orderly craftsman. Because I respect the psyche I do not want it
to give itself, to prostitute itself to every false obviousness in which Aleph is lost. Because I respect thought I do not
want it to believe that it can find Aleph, hence lose it. Because I respect words I only accept those that have a real,
understandable meaning, signifying a clear designation. I, because of Aleph alive, am only its humble craftsman.
I want every Bayt I make use of to be as perfect as possible, in its category. I therefore respect my body to begin with.
I want it in good enough shape to do whatever the unknown inner impulse of explosive Aleph in me can do with my abilities.
Because I respect my abilities I put them at the service of Aleph, polishing them endlessly. Yes! I am only Aleph's craftsman."
****************************
Some understand Cain, die and resurrect psychologically. Others don't know what he is talking about: he doesn't exist for
them; they go on carrying the weight of their ordinary existences; they are satisfied to think they are this or that;
they are their beliefs, creeds, opinions, positions, aspirations, habits, customs, memories and all their psychological structures.
Those feel instinctively that Cain's look into them, through them, could dispel their very notion of being.
Those, indeed, kill Cain. Mind you! They kill him in themselves!. . Hence, they remain simple bags of blood, and Cain,
in contrast, is exalted "sevenfold".
****************************
Lemekh, the seventh of the archetypes through Cain, projects its Aleph in two exaltations ( Nasheem,
translated wives!). One, Aadah, gives birth to those who dwell in duration (Yaval: a permutation of
Hevel's life into primitive organic existence) and to those in whom duration is impregnated by Waw,
bence fruitful (Yowal, the musicians). The other, TsiIah, the structured one, gives birth to
Toval-Qa-een, the penetration of cosmic Aleph into the hardest and most strongly structured aspect of Energy:
he isthe forger "of copper and iron". Now you can solve the following riddle: (Gen. IV. 13/14)
And Lemekh said to his exaltations:
Addah and Tsilah hear my voice
Debt owed by Lemekh
Listen to my utterance
For I have slain a man
To my wounding
And a young man
To my scar.
If sevenfold Cain be exalted
Truly Lemekh
Seventy and sevenfold.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Cain is gone out from the presence of YHWH and
settled in the Land of sorrow (Gen IV 16)
And were Jesus' last words on the Cross: Why hast thou forsaken me?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Cain, Jacob, Jonah, Jesus, Judas. . . The carriers of Aleph alive are always alone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 1970: Berkeley, Shambala Publications; London, Stuart & Watkins.
2 1971: Santa Barbara, Christopher Books.
3 1969: Geneve; Editions du Mont Blanc.
4 1972: Berkeley and London, Shambala Publications.
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