Starbridge CentreTranspersonal Counselling

Lesson #13 The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life

The Qabalah or the Tree of Life A journey of experience

The Quabalah or tree of life is depicted as ten circles, called Sephyrots with connecting lines, calledpaths, and organised in three columns, together appearing almost like a tree.The tree columns represent the tree main nadis, the central Susumna and Ida and Pingala on eachside.

The ten Sephyrots connect to each other in a certain order, depicting how the soul gradually movedfrom unity with the Divine, and into identification with matter.

The Sephyrots, the paths and the movement between them are all archetypes

Jung identified identical, primordial, inherited images, or modes of perception in the collective unconscious.

The structures manifest strikingly similar in dreams from people of different creed, sex, religion andculture, and are ideas, images or ˜chords,which regulate perception itself.

These images also appear in world mythology, and Jung concluded that these archetypes?represented absolutes? in the human psyche.The archetypes are both linked to the instincts and to spirituality; they are charged with intensityand works automatically from the unconscious.

Archetypes can be the father, the mother, the wise old woman, the magician, the fool, the devil, thetrickster, the lover etc.

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There is a clear parallel here between the layout of the Quabalah and that of the Greek myths andtheir connection to the zodiac; they all attempt to describe the ladder from unmanifest unity with

God, to individualized Man.

The first Sephira (the name of the circles) is the source.By analogy it can be represented as white light. If the white light of the first Sephira is projectedthrough the other nine Sephiroth it is divided into its component colours and shades just as light isrefracted by a prism. The Theosophists call this phenomenon the seven rays of creation.

If we understand the paths that the creation follows as movement and direction of energy, and bearin mind the basic law in physics that state that change or movement is only possible where there isan energy difference, then it follows, that there is a difference in the energy between two ends of apath, between two Sefiroth on the Tree of Life.

The Sephyrots describe the journey understood psychologically, which largely is the same as astral.The astral level is special in that information there is stored as images. The energy difference willthus be reflected as images? on the astral level. The actual essence of the Sephyrots are causal in nature, but will be perceived as images in theastral. The Causal are usually not conscious until it creates images in the astral.

The ten concepts presented to us by the Sephyrots are ideal organising principles for the MajorArcana pictures. They too are a ladder from God to matter.

In Jungian language, we would say that both the Sephyrots and the Major Arcana are archetypes,absolutes? in the human psyche.The path represents the movement between the concepts, the hero™s journey, describing the ascendto God or the descend to matter; they too are archetypes.

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The quabalah, the science of God, of the nature of man, and of all the relations which exist betweenthese. [¦] For the first manifestation of the Logos, the first, very highest divine frequency whichstreaks through infinite space [¦], setting Creation in motion, is the tone, the sound, thus the letters.These first manifestations of the creative will, the vibrations of the tone, form the entire creationaccording to mathematical laws, divine ideas and thoughts. They act as an animating energy inevery creature, be that a universe, sun, planet, crystallising stone, plant, animal or man. The greatinitiates knew the basic elements of the creation and the link between the creative vibrations of theletters and numbers which act as mathematical laws in the creation and realise creative ideas at thelevel of matter. From these basic elements and their relations they created pictures eachrepresenting a creative idea, thus a concept, a letter and a number. These pictures are the GreaterArcana of the tarot deck

Elisabeth Haigh: The Wisdom of the Tarot p 20f “It is easy to give an explanation of the meaning ofthe word itself, for its roots is QBL, which means to receive, hence the Quabalah is the received?doctrine, the esoteric side of the scriptures, the Doctrine of the Heart, in contradistinction to thedoctrine of the eye, the inner Truth as opposed to the outer form.”

The Mysteries of the Quabalah p 55

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there HE put the man HE hadformed. And the Lord God made all kind of trees grow out of the ground “ trees that were pleasingto the eye and good for food. In the middle were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of goodand evil

Genesis 2:8-9

In the Garden of Eden, beneath an overwhelmingly intense sun, a naked man and a naked womanstand besides each other in awe. The man is looking at the woman, and the woman is looking at thearchangel Gabriel who stands in front of the gate of Heaven. Behind the woman is the Tree of theknowledge of good and evil with its fruits, the five sense organs. The tree is the ego, which by itsvery nature is discriminating, splitting in polarities. Behind the man stands the Tree of life with thetwelve signs of the zodiac, symbolising the higher self or unity. Gabriel is spreading out his armsinquiringly, indicating that a choice has to be made. The essence of the card is the choice; will theydirect their life energy down and out into the outer world, or in and upwards towards God?

The Qabalah or the Tree of Life is an ancient Jewish system of spiritual knowledge, maybe evenwith roots older than that. [...] All traditions, cultures and beliefs, like rivers, start from a spring orfountain taking on characteristics that change through time and the layout of the land through whichthey flow. The Western Tradition sprang from the Qabalah.

Edited from Kate Rheeders: Qabalah a beginners guide?, p.1

Some texts talk about Quabalah, meaning the understanding of development as depicted inthe tree of life, other texts seems to use Quabalah? as depicting a broader range of texts. We

use the terms Quabalah? and Tree of life? synonymous.

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The Blessed Lord said: They (the wise) speak of an eternal ashvattha tree, with roots above andboughs beneath, whose leaves are Vedic hymns. He who understands this tree is a Veda-knower.?

The Bhagavad-Gita, chapter XV

The bodies of all living thingsTrees symbolize the bodies of all living things “ plants, animals, man “ possessing their owndistinct type of roots, trunks, and branches with their life-sustaining circulatory and nervoussystems. Of all living forms, only man's body with its unique cerebrospinal centres has the potentialof expressing fully God™s cosmic consciousness. The sacred Ashvattha tree (the pipal or holy figtree associated with worship of the Divine) therefore symbolizes the human body; supreme amongother forms of life.Man™s physical-astral-causal body is like an upturned tree, with roots in the hair and brain, and inastral rays from the thousand-petalled lotus, and in causal thought emanations which are nourishedby cosmic consciousness. The trunk of the tree of life in man is the physical-astral-causal spine, theastral nadis (channels or rays of life force), and thought emanations of the magnetic causal body.The hair, cranial nerves, medulla, cerebral-astral rays, and causal thought emanations are antennaethat draw from the ether life force and cosmic consciousness. Thus man is nourished not only byphysical food, but by God™s cosmic energy and His underlying cosmic consciousness.

Paramahansa Yogananda:?The Bhagavad-Gita?, p. 788-789

The Ashvattha Tree - the composite of manThe Ashvattha Tree (holy fig tree) is remarkable for great size and longevity. [...]Ashvattha is usedmetaphorically to describe the mighty, many-branched system of integrated consciousness, lifeforce and afferent and efferent nerves that is the composite of man?.

[...] In these Gita verses, the ashvattha tree refers specifically to the creative principles of Prakiti atwork in the threefold body of man (physical, astral, and causal), though the analogy itself is equallyapplicable on a cosmic scale.?

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[...] This enduring TREE OF LIFE?, mentioned in many scriptures of the world, including the Bible“ is the human body and the human mind. In the light of intuition, yogis behold the inverted tree ofconsciousness (ideational components of the causal body) within the tree of life force (the nadis ofthe astral body, channels of energy), these two existing interlocked within the inverted tree of thephysical cerebrospinal nervous system. This triple tree has its roots of thought emanations, life-force rays, and cranial nerves hanging upside down from the eternal Cosmic Consciousness aboveits ideational, astral, and physical spinal trunks; and its triple branches hanging below.?[...] In the human body, the physical tree of nerves is a gross manifestation of the astral tree of lifeenergy within. The two trees of nerves and life force are condensed out of the tree of humanconsciousness, the elemental ideas in the causal body, which in turn emanate from CosmicConsciousness?.

Paramahansa Yogananda:?The Bhagavad-Gita?, p.927-928

SeraphUntil the time of the prophet Isaiah seraph signified a sacred serpent with three pairs of wings.Isaiah then took over this name for the angels. Since that time Seraph has been the name of anangelic being with three pairs of wings. Sefiroth is a whole host of such angels. In the Cabbala thereare ten such creative sefiroth. Sefirah literally means emanation (radiation). In modern scientificterminology the sefiroth would be known as “emanating energy fields”.

E. Haigh: The Wisdom of the Tarot p. 32 f

Key words for the 10 Sephiras Their number illustrates their place in the step by step process fromGod to matter, and thus also from matter and back to God:

1. Kether Pure Spirit2. Chockmah Wisdom3. Binah UnderstandingD. Daath Experience4 Chesed Compassion5 Geburah Discipline6 Tiph-Ereth Beauty, harmony7 Netzach Achievement8 Hod Glory9 Yesod Foundations of Life10 Malchuth External world

Here from Kate Rheeder: Qabalah a beginner's guide p 39

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The Qabalah or tree of life is depicted as ten circles, called Sephiras with connecting lines,called paths, and organised in three columns,

Together appearing almost like a tree. The ten Sephiras connect to each other in a certain order,depicting how the soul gradually moves from unity with the Divine, and into identification withmatter. The first Sephira is the source. By analogy it can be represented as white light. If the whitelight of the first Sephira is projected through the other nine Sephiroth it is divided into itscomponent colours and shades, just as light is refracted by a prism. The Theosophists call thisphenomenon the seven rays of creation.

The Tree of Life as a translation of the auraThe images describe the energy in the journey

If we understand the paths that the creation follows as movement and direction of energy fromsefirot to sefiroth, and bear in mind the basic law in physics that state that change or movement isonly possible where there is an energy difference, then it follows, that there is a difference in theenergy between two ends of a path and between two Sefiroth on the Tree of Life.

This is happening in the astral aura, and the astral is special in that information is stored as images.It follows that the images describe the energy in the journey. The Sephirats describe the mainstations of the journey

NadiNadi? refers to points? or stars?. The word isUsed as reference to stars as in Nadi shastra. It is also used in the science of Ayurveda to refer topoints in the body

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Vedic Astrology, Glossary

Working with the secondary chakras Is at the same time working with the nadis

The chakras act as energy distributors. The primary energy is channelled from the receiving chakra,to its secondary chakra(s) via nadis, and from there, via nadis, to the nerves and endocrine systemand blood circulation in the physical body.Working with the secondary chakras is thus at the same time working with the nadis.The descriptions [of the nadis] vary considerably, both in particulars and degree of detail. [...] somemaintain that the nadis are an intrinsic element of the astral body, because the nadis are composedof subtle matter. Other researchers claim that the nadis are identical with the cardio-vascular andnervous system.There is no general consensus concerning the number of nadis which exists in the body, figuresvary from 1000 to 350.000. The number of nadis that most often is expressed is 72.000.Out of these, ten, fourteen or fifteen, again dependent on the text, are deemed especially important.The three major nadis, Ida, Pingala and Sushumna, originate in the Muladhara [root chakra]. Theseare the most important among the reputedly 72.000 nadis in the body. [...]

Motoyama H.: Theories of the Chakras: Bridge to Higher Consciousness.

Energy-movement and TarotThe many levels of energy-movement from God to matter will on the astral level be seen as images.These images will have a universal, archetypical content, because they reflect the universalities ofwhat constitutes the human makeup.

These universal images are what the original 22 major arkana tarot cards in a crude way depict.

The illustrations on a major arkana tarot deck are of course an artist's impression and generalisationof the images, of which each of us have our own inner individualised designs, often showing up indreams.The energy in the paths, between the various Sephirots in the Tree of Life, is at the same time thebasic building blocks leading creation from the unmanifested divine to the physical and vice versa,and so describing a model of personal and spiritual development. If we were able to contain the essence of all the paths, altogether, in a consciousness of Oneness(higher consciousness), then the strings? holding us to the karmic cycles of rebirth would be gone,we would not need a physical body, we would be enlightened.

REMEMBER:

THE TAROT CARDS DO NOT ILLUSTRATE THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN OUTERPEOPLE! IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THESE FIGURES AS THE INNER

MALE AND FEMALE ASPECTS EACH OF US HAVE, REGARDLESS OF OURPHYSICAL SEX.

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Multiple Choice questions for Week 10The Tree of LifeMultiple Choice Answer 1: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): The Quabala is an ancientsystem of central archetypes, provoiding a step by step model of the students return back to God.

Multiple Choice Answer 2: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): The journey through thequabala is obviously intellectual, with difficult mental concepts at the core of the system.

Multiple Choice Answer 3: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): By contemplating the tarotcards we are attracte to, we will reach higher consciousness.

Multiple Choice Answer 4: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): The tarot depicts in ageneralised fashion the main aspects of what it means to be human, so a spread of cards is a goodbasis for fortune-telling.

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