Shekinah

The kabbalists see the Ehieh-Shekinah as the undifferentiated primal cosmic force, a unity of opposites that is the cosmic consciousness of the divine, or Ain Soph.

Although a unity, we human beings see it as two opposites. Ehieh-Shekinah is both inside ourselves and out there in the world.

Ehieh is cosmic consciousness, and we regard it as the positive, male principle, static and transcendent.

Shekinah is cosmic energy, and we regard it as the negative, female principle, kinetic and present in every day life.

Shekinah can be in two states: active and passive. In her active state she is the creative movement that brought forth the cosmos. She is the driving force of all the manifestations in the universe. When coming down from the Ain Soph she created all the Sephiroth and rests in the last Sephira, Malkuth. This is her passive state. This means that Shekinah is passive on the physical level and lower levels of consciousness. Shekinah is also in rest in the physical body. But Shekinah can be awakened and made active. Then she will guide us up the Tree of life, to be united again with her partner or groom Ehieh.

All this is very similar to Kundalini in the yoga and Tantra system.

Adam Kadmon

Adam Kadmon is Primal Man, the Heavenly Adam, the Original Man. In the strictest sense he is the emanation of the Divine in Atziluth (the World of Emanation, see below), but he also radiates in the other three Worlds. It is man as he originally was, and actually still is although he does not realize it anymore, because his consciousness has split. Part of him is still close to the Divine, while the other part is here on earth. That is why it is said that he has two faces.

The Two Faces

Arick Anpin, the Long Face or Long Countenance. It is composed of the three Supernals: Kether, Chochmah and Binah. It is the part of ourselves that experiences infinity, it is our immortal being. It is also called the superconscious power of will in man.

Zeïr Anpin is the Small Face, or Small Countenance. It is composed of the Sephiroth Yesod, Hod, Nezach, Tiphereth, Geburah and Chesed, and sometimes Daath, the hidden Sephiroth is included as well. Zeïr Anpin is seen as the emotive faculties of the soul. They form the personality of a person, those temporal qualities or psychological characteristics that make a unique person. They are temporal because they are the faculties we got at birth, we will shed them at death. Zeïr Anpin is finite as it belongs to the lesser worlds. It only has finite states of being. Zeïr Anpin is our mortal being.

The Abyss and the Veil are two ‘obstacles’ to overcome when ascending the Tree of Life. There is that much information available and their position on the Tree varies with the writer. I find their position as shown here the most logical as both obstacles form a separation between the three triads.

The Abyss

Kether, Chochmah and Binah form a trinity, the supernal triad, which resides above the Abyss. This Abyss cannot be traversed by man as long as he is bound by his world of intellect and everyday experiences. Only by riding the mercabah (=the wagon, vehicle) of mystical experience, with the resulting destruction of the sense of ego, will he be able to traverse the Abyss and contact the supernal triad.

The Veil

Under the second triad, formed by Chesed, Geburah and Tiphereth, is another barrier, called the Veil. The Veil shields our ordinary consciousness (below the Veil where the next four Sephirah are) from the deeper contents of our soul, above the Veil). The Veil is the same as the veil in the temple, the curtain that shields the mysteries from the profane. Only the initiated can pass the veil. It is also the veil or curtain behind the High Priestess in the Tarot.

Daath, the Hidden Sephirah

There is a lot of dispute about the Sephirah Daath which would be the Sephirah following Binah and situated on the middle pillar, and ‘above’ the Abyss. Some say it is not a Sephirah at all.

Daath means Knowledge, in the first place knowledge of the Divine and the divine expression in the universe. Daath is also the total of knowledge gained by an individual throughout his life or lifetimes, and especially the knowledge about what (his) life is all about.

Daath is also the key to the manifestation of all things. It is a Sephirah of becoming, as after Daath Creation will take place.

It is said that Daath is the child of Binah and Chohmah, the Mother and the Father, not situated on the Tree of Life, but above. That is, Kether, Chochmah and Binah form the (flat) basis of a triangular pyramid (actually a tetrahedron) and Daath is at the top of this pyramid, above the flat plane of the Tree. Why the ancients saw it this way, we don’t know. Maybe they wanted to express a particular insight. I think one can easily fit Daath in the regular Tree of Life as fourth Sephirah.

Ascending the Tree of Life on the middle pillar, passing Tiphereth, we leave the ego behind and cross the Abyss. Daath is seen as entering the mysterious blackness. This void or emptiness receives of and ultimately leads to the Brilliance of the White Light of Kether. The void or emptiness should not be seen as a negative, awful place, but as the underlying nature of all things and beings as explained by Buddhism and especially by Dzogchen. Only by passing through the Abyss can we realize out innermost spiritual nature.

In the human body Daath is situated between the two brain hemispheres, and thus sometimes said to be between the eyes.

The Four Worlds

The Kabbalah knows four Worlds. Although they exist simultaneously, one flows forth from the other. The Tree of Life exists in each of the four Worlds, and at the same time it has four divisions structurally corresponding to each of the four Worlds. First, let us have a look at what those four Worlds are.

Atziluth

Atziluth is the World of Emanation. It is the first world that emanated from the Divine. Emanation means that it flowed forth from the Divine. It is not the same as creation. Creation implies an act of creating, that will take place in the next World.

Atziluth is the World of Primal Concepts, Emanations, Radiations. It contains the unlimited divine energy in the form of primal archetypes. Here the Divine is present and is active. Here is the divine essence of all things and beings, the primal will, and pure consciousness. It is the eternal unchanging world. It is the world of unity.

In this world the will to create is born. Here are the seeds, the essence, of all the worlds to follow.

In man Atziluth brings forth thoughts and concepts, and the will.

Atziluth corresponds to the element of Fire, the element that transforms everything into its essence.

Ehieh and Shekinah, the two poles of our consciousness unite in Atziluth.

Briah

Briah is the World of Creation. The ideas, the concepts that arise in Atziluth now are being clothed with subtle substance. This is the act of creation. In Atziluth the Divine itself is present and ‘acts’. In Briah the Divine works through the archangels who condense the archetypes and prepare them for further creation work by lower order beings.

Leaving the divine world of Atziluth, in Briah duality arises, space-time, male-female and so on.

In man Briah corresponds to the Spirit.

In Atziluth we had non-being, in Briah we get the sense of being.

The condensation of energy in Briah makes this world correspond to the element of Air.

Yetzirah

Yetzirah is the World of Form. It is the world of procreation and movement, of development. Here the Divine works through the Angels. The Angels give form to the energies of Briah. They each specialize in one particular aspect of the creation work.

In man Yetzirah correponds to the Heart.

Further condensation of the energies makes Yetzirah correspond to the element of Water.

Assiah

Assiah is the World of Action. It is the world of happenings, appearances, phenomena, the world of becoming. It is our physical world, crystallized to a state of solidity, making Assiah correspond the element of Earth. With the term ‘physical world’ we also understand the spiritual energies pertaining to the laws of nature.

In Assiah one expresses oneself as an individual being with a self consciousness.

In the human body Assiah corresponds to the physical body.

The four Worlds also correspond to the four letter of the word YHWH (Yahweh): Yod for Atziluth, Heh for Briah, Waw for Yetzirah and Heh for Assiah. Here are some more correspondences:

The Tree of Life and the Four Worlds

The Four Worlds relate to the Tree of Life in different ways. They are all equaly valid and the different system are just different ways to look at the same thing, like a diamond that shows different colors under different angles of view.

One way to look at it is by saying that the Tree of Life exists in each World, thus we have four Trees, an Atziluth tree, a Briah tree… Thus we have, for example, a Tipheret Sephirah in each of the four worlds, each having different qualities according to the World it is in.

Another way is that the ends of the Tree of life overlap when crossing a World. Malkuth of Atziluth becomes Kether of Briah; Malkuth of Briah becomes Kether of Yetzirah; and Malkuth of Yetzirah becomes Kether of Assiah.

Then one can look at a single Tree of Life and see the four Worlds correspond to different levels of the Tree.

When we accept Daath as part of the Tree of Life, then Daath is part of the World of Atziluth, as Daath is situated above the Abyss, some say across the Abyss. Daath is not part of the creation process that takes place on Briah.

Kether is a connection point to the divine, and is usually not counted as a Sephirah when Daath is included. As the Crown, Kether sits both upon man’s head and the Tree of Life but is not actually part of either.

The triads are always regarded as important structures in the Tree of Life. On each level they represent the polar opposites of energies on that level plus the resulting equilibrium. Leaving Kether out as part of any triad we find Atzliuth, Briah and Yetzirah are complete, but then the problem with the traditional tree is that in the potential triad of Assiah, Malkuth stands alone, with the corresponding pair of opposites not shown.

It could be this way: the boundary lines between the four Worlds run through or are placed at Daath, Tiphereth and Yesod, with these three Sephiroth functioning as transformation stations between the Worlds. It is said that Daath is astride the Abyss. In Tiphereth the transformation from the ego to selflessness happens. Tiphereth is also where the old king dies (Osiris, or Christ on the cross) to be reborn in Geburah (as Horus, or the resurrected Christ). Yesod is where the transformation happens of an animalistic consciousness to a human consciousness.