Copyright (C) 2000 by William Mistele. All rights reserved.
In the psychic level of chapter 9 of his book, Initiation into Hermetics, Franz Bardon describes a practice for uniting with God. One of the methods he suggests is identical with those customarily used by Tibetan lamas in teaching tantra. In tantra, you become one with your object of worship.
As Bardon puts it, the meditations enable “him to establish the union with his God which is the sum and substance of this training course.” Bardon’s training system is highly systematic, step by step, and requires rigorous practice over a large number of years. For masters such as Bardon, you do not get results unless you put in the requisite work.
I would like to suggest that, in addition to the emphasis on method and accomplishment, there is also something incredibly exciting and awesome that you can experience as well at the beginning of the practice. After all, the practice Bardon recommends in chapter 9 of his book is in effect the summation of all the religious, mystical, spiritual, and magical practices on this planet put into one meditation. This goal is also a magnificent quest, a quest you can experience and taste every day. You can start with your sense of awe and wonder right in the beginning and deepen this inspiration throughout the course of your life.
To describe this meditation in straightforward manner, you are, as Bardon says, ennobling your psychic “personality to such a degree that the Godhead can live in it.” You seek to familiarize yourself with, study, develop, and finally embody all four aspects of divinity--omnipotent power, omniscient wisdom, omnipresent love, and the immortality and rejuvenation of the body. Your body and soul become a temple so balanced, refined, and developed that, as Bardon says, “the Godhead can live in it.” You unite to God and find God within yourself.
There are obviously quite a few requisites to this practice. Bardon mentions, for example, that you have to achieve a equilibrium between the four elements in your soul. You have to become conscious of the darkness within yourself and refine your personality so that you seek to embody the highest ideals including a commitment to be of service to mankind.
Just imagine that if you are considering uniting with God as a goal, embodying His divine aspects in yourself, there will be all sorts of difficulties and dangers that will confront you. Among these are the typical vices that attach themselves to those with a religious temperament--fanaticism, self-righteousness, feelings of superiority, the elitism concealed in feeling chosen, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, and also self-doubt, dependence on and attachment to external authorities, feelings of being riddled with guilt, acute fear of the unknown, fear of being contaminated or loss of purity, fear of desire, repression, and habitual complacency and conformity, desire for recognition, etc. All of these things will have to be dealt with if you wish to find God within yourself.
There is also a purely psychological problem that is typical with those who emphasize a personal relationship with God. Bardon mentions, “Many religions are talking about the practical connection with God, giving expression to the personal point of view that this connection can be established already by addressing God in the form of a prayer, of adoration, or of giving thanks to God.”
Interaction with God in the mode of a personal relationship is ideal for praying, making requests, expressing concerns, adoring, and thanking. The problem is that in point of fact those who focus exclusively on relating to God in a personal mode invariably, almost without exception, fail to develop their relationship to God so as to embody Him within themselves. They do not prepare for the encounter with God. In a nutshell, they have no spiritual practices that offer serious possibilities of development monitored by quality control.
There is nothing rigorous about their spiritual training that systematically develops the body, soul, mind, and spirit so that these are carefully aligned and strengthened so that God can appear within them. I have included at the end of this essay a slightly humorous and yet also serious discussion between Moses, Aaron, and God over the nature of this temple, whether it is external to the body or internal. In that poem, which is from my book Mystical Fables, I am not addressing what happened historically between Moses and God. I am attempting to go to the essence of man’s relationship to God. See also my stories on Balaam, a Gentile Prophet, and St. Columba, for ways individuals sought to enter the Presence of God.
Bardon also describes several methods for practicing. One of these he calls a magical and active form of invocation--step by step and deliberately you develop the inner, spiritual part of yourself so that it “rises up to God half-way and the later comes to meet him half-way down.” In regard to the details of this method, Bardon says, “The manner of invocation is absolutely individual, because there does not exist any concrete method.”
In this essay, I am simply sharing some of my experiences with invoking God within myself. In Quabbalah, there are ten sephiroth or domains of experience through which God reveals himself and creates the universe. I am describing some of my experiences with the first four of these ten sephiroth.
I was raised a Baptist in the Evangelical Christian tradition. I will limit my comments on religion and use religious examples only to clarify how my point of view and experience differ from positions that are more traditional and more well-known. At all times, however, my emphasis, like Bardon’s, is on direct, first-hand, and personal experience. I am not selling something. I am sharing. I seek to encourage others to experience and to share in return.
Within Evangelical Christianity, for example, there are a variety of interpretations about what a personal relationship with God is. At one extreme is the evangelical who asserts that it is only Christ and the Holy Spirit who are important. God plays no active role in our faith. God kind of got demoted after Christ and the Holy Spirit showed up. God does has an honorary position in the trinity. After all, He did create the universe and He did deal with Israel and the prophets, but now we have moved beyond those things.
At the other extreme is the minister in a Lutheran Church I once attended at a wedding who said, “God is the Beloved.” You do not write off a lover and wave the lover aside as if there is nothing further to get to know about the other. You seek to unite with a lover. I am aligned with this kind of interpretation.
I would also point out that before Christ and the Holy Spirit showed up in the New Testament, David was writing hundreds of years before in a psalm that has enriched the lives of millions of people: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me besides the still waters. He restoreth my soul....” It is quite clear to me from the words of David that David has an interactive and personal relationship with God that is at least the equal of anything I have ever heard any Christian express verbally.
David treated God as a personal guide, protector, inspirer, friend, and guardian of his soul. Yet God did not permit David to build Him a temple because David had too much blood on his hands. It was David’s son, Solomon, who built in Jerusalem a temple to God. What I am saying along with Bardon and what I would asset was Christ’s teaching also is that your body and soul are a far more wonderful and perfect temple in which God can reside than any building, temple, or cathedral made out of wood, brick, or stones. And yet there is still a need to ennoble our personalities so that God can appear within us. This is a life long practice and there is no end to it.
Recall that Bardon states that “The manner of invocation is absolutely individual.” Here is a personal method that I often use. It is my application of the words, “Be still and know that I am God.” There is a simple way to illustrate this method. You imagine your body, soul, and mind to be like a mirror that reflects whatever is in front of it without blurring or distorting the image.
To get a taste for this, you can image a tree, an animal, a mountain, a lake, the sky, etc. And then you relax and make yourself completely still. Your body is motionless, your soul is clear, and your mind is empty. Then you reflect that image into yourself so that it is the only thing in your consciousness.
It is not at all important if you imagine the image inside of your body or, like a hologram, just appearing in empty air. There is no concern about whether the image is here or there, in me, or elsewhere. Or, try it both ways, first visualizing something outside of your body and next inside of your body. The idea is to find what works for you.
After a while, you become familiar with the state of body, soul, and mind that in themselves are no longer attached to physical being, feelings, or thoughts. The point is to be free to receive impressions and intuitions of a higher order without distorting or blurring them. God, after all, is not reflected in any image. This does not mean you can not use analogies and metaphors to express the impressions and intuitions you receive. You just have to make these analogies accurate enough to represent what your individual experience is.
The sentence, “Be still and know that I am God,” is not just about being still. It is also about knowing. If you know something, you should be able to express at least to yourself what it is you know. As I point out in the sephiroth of Hod, communication is absolutely essential when discussing truth. Since God is infinite, we will all have our own individual perspectives and experiences with this truth. In this case, there is something to be said for sharing.
The sephiroth or domain called Malkuth means the kingdom. It refers to the physical world and to the entire physical universe for that matter. With each of the domains or sephiroth, I experience God as a creator. If you enter the presence of God, you are imbued with the power to create according to the themes and purposes of each domain.
In this domain, God’s Presence creates strength, endurance, and abundance--all of life’s experiences are here to be appreciated and fulfilled. When I become very still and focus inward on the Presence of God appearing within myself, I feel these things manifesting in me--strength, endurance, and all that brings about abundance.
The specific test I seek as I open myself to discern God’s Presence is a sensation or an intuition that I am connected to something infinite. No spirit or archangel in the universe has this quality of infinity present in its aura or mind as a quality or emanation, but God very definitely does.
Here are some of my thoughts on this Presence. When God says, “Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth,” He means just that. This Presence grants human beings the ability to attain complete power over this planet in every aspect. This is a creative power. It can accomplish the impossible and it is within our power eventually to master the process by which the planet earth was created. If you touch God’s aura in this aspect, there is no doubt about this.
By becoming familiar and dwelling within this Presence, I notice that I am not only becoming more familiar with these qualities. I am also beginning to emanate them. It is like the Presence of God is reflecting in and through me not just the qualities but the ability also to create these qualities in others. Like I say, if you enter the presence of the Creator you also, like Him, become involved in creating.
Like God, we have within us incomprehensive powers to be hard-working, committed, determined, and inexhaustible in our industriousness. This is the nature of the creative will when it comes to manifesting something that is tangible and real, solid and enduring.
To enter God’s Presence is to unite with God. The Infinite is around you, within you, a part of you, and also moving through you. You unite with it and are a part of it according to your virtue and your strength.
The Presence of God, however, is not silent or still though it takes inner silence and stillness to find it. Like sex, it is an act of creating something new. You unite with God in this aspect because you want to create something new right now. This Presence is creative power in action transforming the physical world.
Some individuals are never fully here in the physical world. They are like lost souls, disoriented, or confused. When you touch the God Presence on this level, you become one of the primary actors on the stage of life. You are not a passive member of the audience. You are the writer, producer, director, and the one who brings it all to life through your actions.
To comprehend this a little more clearly, you might take a few moments and review in your mind some of the great achievements of mankind purely on the level of constructing and building things. Different societies put a lot of work, for example, into building the pyramids, the great wall of China, the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, and so forth.
Carefully imagine a number of individuals who are extremely hard working and industrious, totally committed to their mission, and nearly inexhaustible in their energy.
We will all have our own evaluation of the worth of these various projects. Why take the incredibly fertile river valley of the Nile and, with all the surplus income generated, use that wealth to build tombs to house dead pharaohs? What a great waste of a historical opportunity!
A more favorable point of view on the pyramids is that they represented to foreign nations the great wonder and divinity of the pharaohs. In the old days, if you could impress upon your enemies how great you were, they would not be so inclined to attack you--they would consider you to be superior and protected by divinity. And from the point of view of the Pharaoh, like some Tibetan lamas or businessmen I know, if you keep people occupied with busy work as an end in itself, they are not as likely to have time to complain or think about all the other things they could be doing in life.
But from time to time in the ancient world there were individuals who enjoyed a close association with God and who were also extremely industrious. Joseph interpreted dreams by divine inspiration and was also assigned the task of running Egypt. Similarly, Daniel cultivated and received divine visions and also was placed in charge of running Babylon. Unlike Carnegie and other entrepreneurs of the nineteenth century, these men of old were both industrious and illuminated by God from within.
Returning to our meditation, imagine that you are the source of the inspiration to all those dedicated to getting the job done, whatever that job may be. Sometimes they do not listen very carefully to or understand the purpose behind hard work. Nonetheless, you remain the inexhaustible source of their motivation, drive to work, and commitment.
Imagine that this essence of materializing things though hard work flows through you to all of these individuals now and all through history. Feel that power, that desire, and the satisfaction that comes to those who know they have made something of great and enduring value. If you can accomplish a meditation like this, then you are drawing close to the feeling of the Divine Presence in this domain.
Another aspect of God’s Presence in this domain is that, as a creator, your intent is to guarantee a specific result. As I meditate in this Presence, I can easily imagine pursuing this meditation for the rest of my life. It is inexhaustible and, as I point out over and over, the Presence is infinite.
Nonetheless, in every case that I imagine, this Presence is oriented, concerned, and committed to producing a specific end. If you run a business, you maximize the quality, value, efficiency, and amount of your production. If you run a monastery, even if the monastery’s goal is to produce an enlightened state of mind, you are still oriented toward a specific result.
Under this influence, you become incredibly sharp about how to produce the results that you want--in the case of the above monastery, students whose minds are unshakeable and who possess the qualities of mind that your goal demands. You train the students and you order the activities of the monastery in such a way that these results are inevitable.
In all cases, whether businessman, banker, abbot, priest, poet, or lover, you bring every resource to bear upon accomplishing what you are after. This is the Presence that oversees and inspires the Protestant Ethic--you treat God as a personal resource Who assists you in accomplishing your work here on earth. A Protestant in this tradition goes to church each week to renew his commitment to hard work, to living an upright and righteous life, and to producing something that is of practical and enduring value.
The difference between a Protestant’s conception of God and this Presence is that this Presence of God, besides hard work, is also interested in manifesting God’s Kingdom on earth--that is, manifesting justice, peace between the nations, and affirming the dignity and expanding the opportunities of every person. In my experience, Protestants have special difficulties in conceiving of these things. It is not that they do not talk about it. It is rather that the ideal, the dream, and the commitment to accomplishing them is not in their hearts.
You could, of course, point to the overcoming of slavery, the civil rights movement, and women’s suffrage as examples of changes in society brought about to affirm the dignity of every person. But in many cases, it was the Protestant church that fought against and still fights against these things. The Southern Baptists in the U.S. split with the Northern Baptists because the Southern Baptists were in favor of slavery. It was a necessary aspect of their plantation economy, a necessity insuring productivity.
The Southern Baptists still resist, based on the words of St. Paul, allowing women an equal place in their churches. Paul, you remember, fought for years against racism as he tried to get the church fathers in Jerusalem to recognize his gentile converts as Christians. Paul resorted to bribing the early church fathers with money offered by his churches to gain the support of the leaders in Jerusalem. His timing was incredibly inept and ineffective. He arrived in Jerusalem with his money and was promptly arrested by the Romans. A short period later Jerusalem was besieged and completely leveled by the Romans. God had another plan in mind when it came to convincing the church father’s about the universality of the Christian gospel.
Therefore, there is a danger of trying to accomplish a great purpose too quickly. If you do not take into consideration the full perspective of God but only the part that fits your personal and cultural values, you end up ignoring things like--manifesting justice, peace between the nations, and affirming the dignity and expanding the opportunities of every person. History then turns against you as it turned against Paul and the early Christian leaders who chose to make Jerusalem the center of their political and religious activities.
God is the absolute master of history. As the 90th psalm puts it, “You turn man to destruction and say, ‘Return you children of men.’ A thousand years in God’s sight is as nothing. In God’s Presence in this domain, there is an overwhelming and absolute impulse to create and manifest enduring works of value. But this Presence also entails wisdom.
Rather than becoming obsessed with busy work, becoming a workaholic, and a person of many accomplishments, be sure first that you spend some time learning to see through the eyes of the divine. There are obviously many cases where you have to exert command in order to insure you get the results that you demand. Never doubt that. But it is also outside of most individuals’ imagination that you can accomplish more by motivating by love rather than by fear, by offering understanding and opportunity rather than manipulating and controlling by force of will.
One of the things God is willing to do is to offer you the opportunity to observe both procedures so that you can judge through experience your best course of action. When I say that love is more powerful than hate that is because I study malice and hate every day and I weigh them against the infinite power that is in love. And so I draw my own conclusions about which methods to use in my work.
A Tai Chi Chuan master I know talks about “divine order” when he speaks of his practice. It is a nice phrase to express the result of God’s Presence in this domain. You gain a sense of divine order so that it is expressed in and through your life. To be productive, we have to order our activities. If you order your life attuning it to the Presence of God, then you have divine order. With a sense of divine order, anxiety is gone. Depression is gone. Despair is gone. Insecurity is gone. None of these things can come close to you without being destroyed.
With a sense of divine order, you are conscientious and enthusiastic to use every moment to build something and to make something new that expresses the love that is within you. But this enthusiasm does not translate into being busy. It means that you see a purpose being fulfilled in every activity. You are alert and relaxed, open and yet focused, sharp and also spontaneous. And in every moment you are ready to take the unknown and the difficult and make it into something familiar and friendly.
In summary, God’s Presence in Malkuth, the kingdom, creates strength, endurance, and abundance--all of life’s experiences are here to be appreciated and fulfilled. Under this inspiration, you realize the full value of the material world to capture and to give expression to what you imagine. The task is to make the physical world--our bodies, our communities, our societies, and our destinies--into a temple in and through which the creativity of God appears. (For more on turning the body into a temple of God, see my article on the philosopher’s stone-- http://www.lava.net/~pagios/alchemy.htm ).
In this domain, the Presence of God creates peace and contentment, happiness and satisfaction. The scripture is clear on this. Christ said, “From their bellys shall flow streams of living water.” And also, “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The above examples tell us something about the influence of God on human beings.
When you touch God’s aura or unite with His Presence in this aspect, you become, to the extent you are prepared, a sea of infinite bliss, love, and peace. It surrounds you. It is a part of you. And it flows through you to others. Touched by this Presence, you are the source that is overflowing because it is creating without limit or restriction.
It is as if in a moment you can clearly see an entire human life and every need and desire that this individual has ever or will ever feel. And then, through your creative power, you fulfill every need and satisfy every desire. There is no limit on how much you can offer.
It is like this--as if you could take an individual outside of time and offer him or her a taste of the pleasure and ecstasy that flows through God’s own blood. And then you say, “Return now to your own time and your situation in life. Having tasted this bliss, you now know beyond all doubt what being fully alive is all about.”
Once again, we can work from more familiar human terms toward this Divine Presence through a meditation. Imagine that you are again a fetus in your mother’s womb. You are sentient and aware of being suspended in liquid while a heartbeat continuously sounds. You are safe, at peace, and surging with life.
Now imagine that you are an adult and that another person loves you with all of his or her heart and you also love this person with all of your heart. Hold that awareness of receiving and supporting all that another person is and feeling this in return.
And finally imagine you are a guardian angel who watches over an individual’s incarnation. Imagine a flow of love that extends from you to this person in incarnation and that this flow of love never ends. And when the individual finally dies, you welcome the individual into the greater light and love that ever flows from your heart.
Now bring all three of these meditations together into one. Relax, take some time, and allow them to join. Each supports and embraces the others. They flow through each other like water being poured into water. The Divine Presence is like this except there is no end to it--it embraces everything everywhere throughout the universe.
I asked about what I am missing in one of the subsequent sessions I did while working with this Presence. It was pointed out to me that this vibration is physical as well as spiritual. The fetus in the womb is physical. It has physical sensations.
Christ in Christian doctrine is God in physical form. God’s love manifests physically. It can be felt and touched. In Malkuth, God’s inspiration produces things that are real and solid and enduring. In Yesod, you feel like you are being physically held by a lover. This is not an otherworldly vibration. It is not spiritual in the sense of being non-tangible. It is as real and material as your breath, your heartbeat, and the blood flowing through your veins.
One of the things to note about the sphere of Yesod is that it requires direct experience and immersion in pleasure, bliss, and ecstasy so that you know profound satisfaction and gratification. If you do not have these things and you pursue a spiritual life, then it is very easy to become twisted emotionally and mentally blind. The inner need that is denied exerts control over your mind.
When I focus on the God Presence within myself, I also get the image of the crystal ball I sometimes see the archangel Gabriel holding. I become this crystal ball that is the prophetic vision and also that offers the fulfillment to all dreams, desires, and needs. It is an aspect of Divine Providence that actively assumes responsibility for insuring this fulfillment of all experience through creation. It is the power to insure that your heart’s desire is materialized so that you can experience it until it becomes internalized and a part of you.
The archangel Gabriel seems to be an angelic representative of this domain. He embodies within his aura a prophetic awareness, a crystal clear vision, of the entire history of the human race on earth. His vibration offers not just a vision of your deepest desires and longings. His aura offers the materialization of these things according to your virtue, strength, and clarity of vision. He brings into being what is within your heart according to your ability to receive.
The difference between the archangel Gabriel and God’s Presence in the sphere of Yesod is that Gabriel only brings about what he sees within your heart. He is passive in this sense. He brings about the deepest desires of the heart that have already been revealed by God to you. God, by comparison to the archangel Gabriel, is not so restricted.
God, as you recall, creates out of nothing. With God, you discover what is hidden outside of an archangel’s vision. And with God you become the original source that gives and there is no limit to it and no restriction placed upon it. You learn to nurture, to heal, to restore, to renew, and to grant peace and happiness.
When you look up at the stars at night within this sphere of God’s Presence you almost hear the words, “All of this I have created that you might see, taste, and come to realize the depth of My bliss.”
When the astrophysicist is also a shaman who unites with the object that he studies, when the astronomer also practices star gazing so that he finds the oscillations of light within his own consciousness as well, when the nuclear physicist can sense with his skin gamma, X-rays, gravity waves, and cosmic radiation, and when the meteorologist, volcanologist, oceanographer, and geologist can speak directly with the angels and archangels presiding over physical creation, then the human race will be in a better position to appreciate God’s Presence in this domain.
Another way to say this is that you learn to feel all the feelings within another human being and then you transform them so that they overflow with peace and love. It is far more subtle and not at all repressive like a conversion that gets someone to turn away from their vices and mistakes. It is more alchemical and accepting--it receives all that a person is and, through the power of love, raises the vibration so that instead of the pain of separation there is the joy of union. In this domain, the act of creation is very nurturing and, without effort, purifying.
In the meditation I described earlier involving a fetus in the womb, a lover in the arms of another lover, and a guardian angel greeting a soul as it departs from physical form--in all three cases, an individual is enfolded with a love that saturates every cell and part of their being; every memory is seen from the within the light of love. From the trauma of birth, the separation from one’s love, and letting go of one’s life, there is an experience of terrible loss. But God’s Presence in Yesod overcomes this loss and heals this trauma.
In this domain, you become the oneness that heals every wound. It joins with another and enfolds them with love. This Presence has always been weak with the human race. The experience of infinite peace has not been well taught or received. As a result, for eons humanity has suffered terribly, haunted by a loss and confusion it has been unable to overcome.
When a man appears who is united with God from within, an individual conceived under the agency of the archangel Gabriel, this man is forced to say to his disciples, “There are many things I would teach you but you are not able to bear them.”
The fetus can not remain in the mother’s womb. There comes a time when lovers go their separate ways. The guardian angel is limited in the love it can give by the love a soul is able to receive. Nonetheless, in each case the love given was enfolding of the other, enabling a high level of growth and creative activity.
Each man and woman has his or her own way of finding peace. In this regard, even the archangel Gabriel, a representative sent by God, has actions that are misunderstood and his intentions are doubted. Zacharius and Joseph do not understand the message conveyed. Harod twists the meaning and then finds the idea so threatening that he sends troops to kill children in order to prevent it.
Only Mary and the three wise men comprehend it and the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before envisioned this will of God manifesting. The twelve disciples, so excited with the prospect of founding a new religion, never found this Presence within themselves. And so the church, denying pleasure, bliss, satisfaction, and gratification, never had a chance to conceive of much less experience an infinite peace where all desire comes to rest.
Based on my experience, if you meet the archangel Gabriel or enter God’s Presence in this domain, you discover that sensuality and spirituality are not separate. They are inextricably joined to the extent that they have the same taste and express themselves in the same way. (See my poem, The Beloved, that was written under the influence of the archangel Gabriel.)
In the Mahabarata, it says, “Happiness is inevitable.” Let me say this another way. There comes a moment in the course of time when each individual is free to put aside doctrines, traditions, and even the voice of angels and archangels. In this regard, even the prophets and sacred scriptures can not guide you, for you are seeking the source of the inspiration of which they are but a dim reflection. And so you turn in another direction to find God’s Presence within yourself.
There is no being or spirit capable of guarding the gates to this Presence. It is infinite and there is no way to stop it or hold it back from manifesting if you want it. God’s Presence renews or makes new anything, rejuvenating and sustaining it. In my experience, God’s Presence also will set up a specific flow of energy through you that renews you from within. It surrounds and encompasses you with a healing and soothing vibration. It gets inside of you offering purity and reviving power.
A second meditation, therefore, is to open yourself to receive impressions about the specific nurturing and healing energy of God’s Presence as it flows through you. If you can sense this, it may help to imagine then, as in a Bardon exercise, that the entire universe surrounding you is filled with this one energy. Imagine yourself as a universe of nurturing and healing energy. This type of imaginative exercise helps to loosen up the blocks and rigidity within oneself so that the energy has a chance to flow through you and to be fully experienced.
A lot of lovers who really love each other encounter a difficult problem if they are deficient in the energy of this domain. They love but they still lack inner contentment, happiness, and peace. And so they may strive to give this to or get this from each other, knowing it is an essential part if not the heart of a loving relationship. And then because they know not how to offer or find this gift, they fall victim to doubts. They begin to suspect that their love is defective in a way they do not comprehend.
In other words, if you can find happiness and peace in yourself before you seek to join with another, then you do not burden the relationship with a liability neither of you has the resources to pay off. Inner peace, contentment, serenity, and happiness are distinct and separate from uniting with another in love. They are two different things at least in terms of themes and purpose and certainly in terms of the inspiration offered by God’s Presence.
And so a third meditation relating to sensing God’s Presence in Yesod is to imagine as before that you are a sea of infinite peace, contentment, happiness, satisfaction, serenity, pleasure, and bliss. But add to this the sense that you offer all of this to the world in which you live. Whoever is receptive to your energy receives these gifts. This is the way God is in Yesod, the Foundation. Make no mistake about it and never underestimate its importance. It is the vehicle and foundation of all other manifestations of God. It is the virility and nurturing capacity that insures their stability and empowers their perfection.
Individuals who are strong in the energy of Yesod, that is, who have an inner contentment and their own happiness, are remarkable independent. They can tell immediately if something is right or not for them without having to think about it. They know intuitively if they want another’s inner soul to flow through their own and so they do not overexpose themselves or become easily entangled with the wrong person.
One of the virtues of Malkuth is discrimination. You know through experience and worldly wisdom how to respond in different situations. You know what works and what does not. You understand the world as it is without trying to make your own illusions and false assumptions work within or upon it.
But there is an exception to this virtue of discrimination. There is a time when discrimination does not work. There is at time when it does not matter how worldly wise you are or how much experience you have. And this is when your inner desire or need grows so strong that it blinds you to all that your mind tells you is wrong. This character flaw then becomes your fate.
In order to be successful in Malkuth, you also need the inner peace of Yesod. “To everything a time and a season.” If you know yourself and that specific desires must be fulfilled during this life, then you look for the situation which enables that to happen in the best way possible. In this way, you avoid the nightmares, suffering, and entangling relationships which result from tying to satisfy a need or a desire within a situation or with a person through which it can not possibly happen.
As I meditate here, I recall very clearly memories in which my inner peace was severely shaken and also the opposite--the best of times when my sense of home, family, and contentment were the greatest. I think about what home meant to me as a child. It was a state of being cared for and guided so that my needs were fulfilled, my growth was optimum, and I was led to freedom.
This caring and nurturing is something the Presence of God in Yesod teaches us to do for ourselves and for others as well. From this vantage point in Yesod, the other nine sephiroth are means for attaining this end--the ability to nurture, protect, and fulfill ourselves and do the same for others. The home of childhood with its sweetness of innocence, its natural happiness, and its promise of fulfillment becomes a dream we hold in our hearts for others and for the entire world.
When the prophet Isaiah says, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore,” he is saying, “Let’s make the entire world into one family, a home, a place where people love and care for each other.” This kind of statement and dream is absolute nonsense unless you have access to infinite power. The power in Yesod is the power within inner desires, needs, and dreams. The Divine Presence in Yesod teaches how to gaze at the entire evolution of a planet, to stand outside of all time and space and to embrace all of life and all the experience of the human race from a place within your heart of love and peace.
And so, like a well of divine dreams, with ease you go yourself or you take anyone else back in time to a place of innocence and sweet love or forward in time, like the ghost of Christmas future in A Christmas Carol, who shows you the final end waiting for you if you follow a certain course of action. You are gently led to the source from which the soul attains its greatest peace and happiness that is also the source of its greatest freedom and independence.
There is no wound here that can not be healed. There is no vice or obsession that can not be transformed into its opposite of pure love and light. Fail to listen to this voice, close yourself to this stream of life and darkness will always cloud your vision and sorrow will always be there to greet you during any great life transition.
So I ask, “What am I missing?” And I am taken into a dream in which I am holding another person and sharing with this woman the feeling of infinite peace, of being in a state of inner peace with the universe. Pretty basic stuff, really. Yesod is also about family and sharing.
If you are involved in some great cause, if you have some great wrong to right, some great injustice which needs to be brought back under the principle of law, then you most likely are not going to be looking within yourself. You are most likely not going to be concerned about the treasures of life you are leaving behind amid your quest for social justice.
But if you want to avoid exhaustion or the mistakes you will make from being hasty or motivated for quick results to reassure yourself you are getting something accomplished, then the Presence in Yesod will remain in your consciousness. Different relationships can take us into different sephiroth. One relationship may lead us to the power of Gevurah in which any obstacle in life can be overcome. Another may lead us to Binah, to perfect enlightenment, not the kind that frees you from individual suffering though that is well and good. No, this enlightenment leads you to take responsibility for the world.
I seem to have a need for a relationship which celebrates this inner peace with the universe, an infinite peace, which through the human embrace also embraces all of life and all that is to be experienced in time and space. The value of sharing is that it is a way that helps to turn the world into a home. The outer world comes to reflect the inner and the inner and outer worlds are then joined.
The Presence of God in Hod or Splendor
In this domain is found the mind of the scientist. It is completely detached, extraordinarily observant, and analytic. It is driven by a relentless will that seeks to master every aspect of an area of investigation.
The spiritual aura of the planet Mercury is associated with this vibration and it does not stop with external knowledge. It has the intuition and commitment to truth to join its awareness with whatever it is studying. It comprehends its area of research from a state of oneness with it. This leads inevitably to comprehending the subject matter in terms of the wider, universal laws that govern the universe.
One of the characteristics of mature magicians is that they do not fall into bias, prejudice, or ideologies. They are not argumentative, self-righteous, narrow minded, or attached to specific beliefs. They are not insecure, paranoid, or defeatist. They are not alarmist. They are not scared by anything because there is nothing they can not change when they put their minds to it and act in accordance with universal and cosmic wisdom.
They will not corner you at some unexpected moment and harangue you because you do not agree with their beliefs about feminism, the liberation of some country, some injustice, about being a vegetarian, or whatever. They will not treat you as inferior or be suspicious of you or question your motives in order to compensate for their own insecurity. You can use this as a test of whether someone understands the intelligence and illumination of this sephiroth--they speak for both time and eternity so you can count on every single one of them to place any discussion, issue, problem, or conflict within a universal, cosmic, and illuminated, enlightened context.
The other thing about them is that they love what they are doing. They radiate enthusiasm and a sense of wonder and awe before the beauty and mystery of the universe. Even their critics and enemies will turn to them on occasion for encouragement and a chance to improve their understanding of their own work and best course in life. You can count on them to give you a clear understanding of what the issues are in your life and what your best decisions are.
In this domain, God’s Presence creates whatever you need to fulfill your purposes-- specifically, this is the perfection of intelligence forming and shaping the world. God’s Presence in Hod gives a direct awareness of the nature of anything from within. That is, you can sense directly the inner essence of anything or any being.
At the same time, you can also express the essence or nature of anything externally using formulas, concepts, and various disciplines or systems of knowledge. In other words, you have an intuitive understanding and you are able to verbalize or express your understanding with such precision and clarity that others can understand your intuition as well.
These two go together--truth and the expression of truth that is persuasive and clear. Within this Presence, there is nothing that can not be understood and no problem that can not be solved. There is nothing that you can not learn to make, remade, or recreate.
In a nutshell, God’s Presence in this domain creates perfect clarity, concentration, and perception. Under such divine inspiration, there is no limit on these things. Knowledge of the outer world and science, intuitive knowledge of the inner worlds of psyche and spirit, objective and subjective, external and internal--you encompass all of these opposites in one awareness.
Conviction and faith are also created in this domain. This is not faith in God’s existence. When you enter into God’s Presence, you do not have to struggle to believe in Him. His Presence is immediate and obvious, if only due to the powers that you are granted as a result and the level of creativity you then embrace.
The conviction and faith created here relate to envisioning something you wish to bring into being. Your conviction is that what you will can be made to happen and that what you envision will come to be. You sense intuitively how this can be done and you gain certainty that the skills you will need in accomplishing these endeavors will come to you quickly.
The net effect of this contact is that you become curious, objective, detached, and tenacious when studying any subject. At the same time, you possess a real feeling for your subject matter and you feel inspired that you can quickly overcome any confusion and resolve any difficulty.
There are all sorts of major hurdles to overcome when working with God in this domain. There are the usual blocks that interfere with understanding and wisdom such as fanaticism, narrow-mindedness, self-deception, presumption, arrogance, fear, insecurity, attachment to fixed ideas, and clinging to prejudicial ideals.
These can be overcome and put aside as you develop a love of clarity and a pure delight in the process of discovery. Any obsession fades away and any vice is dissolved as you fall in love with direct, personal, sensory perception. You come to understand and appreciate above all else that experience is the greatest teacher that sets you on a course toward wisdom.
The Bible states that Solomon was the wisest of all men on earth. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon explains his method as a social scientist. He tried first hand different kinds of experiences. And then he stated simply and directly what he had observed and learned as a result. Solomon had a great gift from God but he did not penetrate into the Presence of God. You can possess wisdom without searching for the source of that wisdom.
The difference between Solomon’s wisdom and that offered by the Presence of God is that Solomon did not understand that clarity, concentration, and perception as well as faith and conviction are themselves acts of creation. You can employ them passively, using what you have and taking them for granted. Or you can realize that in each moment what you think, feel, perceive, and what you experience are creative acts. You can find new wisdom, gain new experience, and acquire new insight in accordance with the purpose you seek to fulfill. In regard to knowledge and wisdom, The Presence of God holds nothing back.
If in Malkuth God’s Presence makes things of great value that endure through time, in this sephiroth God’s Presence is the intelligence that insures that the design of these forms employ the highest standards and that the workmanship is of the highest attainment. Obviously those who invent, innovate, and who bring new things into the world are under this inspiration. When you give all of yourself to your work so that your work is perfected you are acting in harmony with this inner light. The Presence of God in this domain is like being in the presence of the scientist, architect, engineer, and builder whose work produced the universe.
A meditation. A simple way to approximate or get a taste for this Presence is that when you have something you wish to accomplish, imagine that you have absolute faith that you can accomplish this, that you have perfect certainty that whatever skill or knowledge you need to acquire will come to you, and that your commitment is also absolute--that your commitment will rise to whatever level (extraordinary, superhuman, or divine) that is necessary to bring about the result you intend. These three things--faith, certainty, and commitment--are created in accordance to your needs when you enter God’s Presence in this domain.
In God’s Presence, your level of concentration is amplified to the extent that your body and mind become a temple, a place where the sacred names of God are spoken according to the purpose you seek to fulfill. You can feel the power, like the angels of the Schem-Ham-Phorus, gathering and circling around you. They await your command. It is as if they are asking, “What glorious task do you wish us to accomplish on your behalf to celebrate the Presence that is within you.”
However, you can imagine that if some individuals were to get even a faint taste of this Presence, they might go temporarily insane if they have not prepared themselves for the encounter. Or they fall into arrogance, self-righteousness, bigotry, and fanaticism thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong. They imagine themselves to be pure and that everyone else is impure. They see the light and everyone else dwells in darkness. Oh yes, human beings have a penchant for exaggerating and a weakness that inflates their egos. Consequently, you have to be careful with this sephiroth.
In the next sephiroth of Netzach, the experience of oneness is the goal. In this sephiroth, the goal is to produce something that is so well-designed and expressed that it is impossible to miss that its origin is divine. Truth is not friendly to those who are unable to express it adequately. And it is openly hostile and will destroy those who seek to destroy it. You can not hide it and you can not hide from it. But you can seek it in your own way and in your own time and give expression to it as you discover it within yourself.
Faith has many levels and degrees. In God’s Presence, you become the level and kind of faith that celebrates the holiness of God. And this holiness is nothing else than the oneness that underlies everything in the universe and to which everything is joined. Ultimately, its fire is like the fire that gave birth to time and space and countless galaxies. It is always wise never to underestimate the intensity of this faith and this commitment to celebrating the oneness and love that underlines and joins all things.
If there is an absolute truth, you are entitled to find this truth first hand through your own experience. But this truth is not static. It is dynamic, infinite, and forever new so it requires communication between those who seek to know it and to express it. We all have our own point of view when it comes to perceiving and discussing truth.
In the ancient Hebrew religion, no image was permitted to represent God’s Presence. And only once a year did the high priest enter the holy of Holies in order to speak the secret name of God aloud. When you enter the Presence of God in this domain, you are entering this holy space in your own body and soul. God is present as a nothingness. But this nothingness is not empty. Rather, from this nothingness the entire universe was created, it is so full and yet it is infinitely more.
The angels and archangels are in awe of it realizing that all their power and ability are as nothing when compared to it. Yet there are themes and purposes that this Presence takes an interest in. These are first and foremost--truth, knowledge, and wisdom. And above all else, the perfection of communication.
It is fair in summary to say that the 72 spirits of the sphere of spiritual aura of Mercury, the Schem-Ha-Phorus, are teachers who exist to help prepare us for the encounter with this Presence. They also serve this Presence including when and where it appears in a human being who has made his body and soul into its temple. That is, when your consciousness is penetrating and intense enough to stand within this Presence, this Nothingness, and to offer it a home here on earth, then these angels serve you as well. In one word, the angels can tell instantly by the level and intensity of your faith that God is within you.
Again, this is not faith in God. This is a faith that stands within a Nothingness, a void and an abyss, that has no reference points or things to hold on to. It stands here without fear knowing it will not be annihilated or dissolved. It can do this because it knows that this is the place from which the Creator creators, the Creator whom it freely embraces.
You could call this “primary faith” and all other forms of faith secondary and derivative. This primary faith is based on a willingness and absolute commitment to join with God and to do as He does which is to create. The faith in God or the secondary forms of faith imply that God is out there and I am here. It assumes that faith forms a relationship to God that, as the Apostle Paul pointed out, allows you only “to see through a glass darkly.” Paul’s faith places great restrictions both on the human being and on God.
The primary form of faith is not so restricted. God’s will is not something you must bring yourself to accept and to embrace out of obedience and respect. God’s will is not separate from your own. It is the will you discover at the core of your being when you bring your consciousness into the Nothingness that called the universe into existence. Its very essence is to design new things and to create according to the order and the purposes it originates.
This form of primary faith is not characteristic of the twelve disciples of Christ. It is much more characterized by the Prophet Isaiah who could speak to God in any moment and tell you what He says. It is seen when Isaiah called upon God to destroy Sennacherib’s army that was besieging Jerusalem. (See my article on the cosmic letter K). And it is seen in Pope Leo who alone and single-handedly persuaded Genghis Khan to turn back and not invade Rome.
This primary faith is the power upon which all other forms of power are based. It is not secondary, derivative, dependent, a faint taste, or a blurred vision. It is the original source that continues to unfold creation. From my point of view, this is the power toward which all genuine magicians strive to embody in their will--the purpose and the essence behind all hermetic training. But whether you train as a magician or not, should you enter and become a friend of this Presence in this sephiroth you will begin to understand the way the invisible and the visible worlds function and operate.
The
Archangel Michael.
Outer Aura. What
the archangel Gabriel is to prophecy and inner vision, the archangel Michael is
to power and to solving problems.
Gabriel perceives the entire history of the human race on this
planet. The unfolding of divine
purposes through the events and ages of history are his area of
specialization. In a similar manner,
the manifesting on earth of divine will and power are the areas in which
Michael excels.
In regard to accomplishing a
purpose or solving a problem, Michael is extremely fastidious, attentive to
detail, and has a level of concentration astonishingly resolute and
joyous. In the movie, Michael,
the archangel Michael says words to the effect, “Since the beginning of time, I
have never lost a battle.” It is hard to imagine anything that could oppose
this archangel and succeed against him.
Inner Aura. With the archangel Gabriel, it is typical that on the astral plane the entire sky before me is filled with heavenly choirs singing indescribably beautiful songs in praise of God. I have the distinct impression that this is what materialized for the shepherds when Christ was born. In a similar manner with the archangel Michael, the sky fills before my inner eyes with angelic armies that stand ready to serve. There is a depth of power and command that it is hard to comprehend or imagine. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the presence of any archangel. But with Michael, there is definitely a sense of being able to accomplish any divine mission.
The difference between the archangel Michael and the Presence of God is that the archangel serves the primary faith I have mentioned, that is, the will of God. The archangel serves and furthers original acts of creation. When you find the Presence of God within yourself, you are creating like unto your father, the Creator. But you are doing so not as a clone or carbon copy of God but as an independent and free agent.
If you observe many kinds of individuals who practice with magick, I think you will find that some individuals will avoid encountering the Presence in this domain because deep down in their hearts they enjoy or else they want to be slaves. For them, freedom is terrifying and something to avoid. And so in many ways they refuse to open their minds in a way that leads to enlightenment. They make doctrines, traditions, and arcane knowledge their final authority.
By contrast, the Presence of God does not demand that you bow down to His sovereignty or His authority. This sovereignty is within yourself. It certainly does not make you a slave to a tradition of doctrines designed and enacted by men fighting for the survival of their religion. Instead, the Presence of God empowers you and makes you free. As the Dalai Lama has said concerning the theme of this domain, “The taste of truth has one taste--the taste of freedom.”
Netzach relates to the spiritual aura of Venus in our solar system. The mysteries of Venus are ecstatic and filled with bliss because they celebrate the experience in which all barriers, boundaries, and limitations that separate one from another are finally dissolved.
From my perspective, the major religions and wisdom traditions on earth have goals that encompass compassion, enlightenment, universal service, attunement with nature, the evocation of the lunar goddess, etc. But, though there are traditions of Sufi and tantra that use the imagery of love, it seems to me that the Venus sphere itself does not have very many, if any, great teachers on earth. And as is typical of Western psychology there is an emphasis, even in marriage counseling, of being adjusted, happy, and completely successful. But the idea of love as a sacred space, as a way of being, and a path leading to the highest wisdom and the highest magick is not taught in a practical and challenging manner.
The sphere of Venus integrates the three previous spheres, the earth, moon, and mercury and the sephiroth of Malkuth, Yesod, and Hod as the personality in each of us integrates our body, emotions, and mind. Franz Bardon mentions that the spirits of this sphere are crazed with love. Contact with them evokes states of bliss, happiness, peace, ecstasy, and the perfection of love. Their typical range of competency encompasses art, music, love, poetry, healing, and the many forms of ecstasy both human and divine.
As I am sure you can imagine, we do not need to travel to the sphere of Venus to become enthralled with love or to become ensorcelled by the powers of bliss and beauty. All around us are examples in our communities of those who surrender their rationality and their own will thinking that by falling into the arms of love they will be fulfilled. But instead, they are often ensnared by illusion since they imagine love is a shortcut to their dreams.
The Presence of God in
Netzach
The Presence of God in this domain creates oneness, personal beauty, harmony, and love. This Presence grants or creates the ability to become one with anything. Under this influence, you increasingly become aware of what inner union is and the degree to which this oneness is possible. Love can overcome every barrier and every obstacle. God’s Presence enables, inspires, and grants the ability to become one with God, with any other being, and even experience oneness with the entire universe.
One of the great difficulties about becoming one, for example, with another person is that you may go too deep too fast into the depths of yourself during this act of joining. To become one is to go past, bypass, renounce, and dissolve the barriers that maintain your separate identities. These barriers are in place for a good reason. They sustain your capacity for objectivity, for reason, for intelligence, for making sense of anything you experience. They protect not just your ego identity but also everything that helps define who and what you are as an individual.
Over the years I have heard a great many complaints by those who feel their lovers have betrayed them. Having been in love, the love caused them pain and made them vulnerable in ways they could not accept without turning against the other and assigning blame for the pain. I know individuals who have hated each other for decades because they could not accept the loss of the relationship. The former partner provided so much support to their identity that in losing the other’s love, they remain wounded and somehow still lost--as if as partners they strayed together into a strange, unknown land and then the other abandoned them without hope of finding a way back. It feels that the feelings of abandonment and the failure of the relationship must be the other person’s fault.
If this experience of abandonment and loss of identity are not so unusual with lovers, then imagine the danger in entering God’s Presence in this domain where oneness is the theme and the essence to attain. When I say dangerous, I mean it will take you beyond anything you know or have ever dreamed. Is there anything, for example, that you can still cling to or use to define who you are after you begin learning how to become one with another as part of God’s Art?
This question is worth pursuing. Many individuals spend decades if not their entire lives carefully defining who they are by the work they accomplish, by the ideals to which they are committed, by the purposes that they serve, and by the traditions that govern their actions. And then in a moment these things become nothing because none of these things touches or reveals what is at their core.
The love that joins as one takes you to the core of your being bypassing all obstacles and obstructions. Are you then in a kingdom of the soul beyond all definitions? Do you then turn back desperate to reestablish what was once familiar? Or is the kingdom of the heart so deep that in its depths it simply accepts everything that exists? There is nothing in such a place that is so strange or unknown that it can not be encompassed by your love.
Put another way, oneness requires an expansive imagination, for imagination furthers creativity. As I enter God’s Presence in this domain, there is no longer a Bill Mistele. Or rather, he is one book on a shelf in a library that contains all books that ever have or ever will be written. In the Presence of God, I become the librarian of this library. I see myself as part of something far greater.
Or, to pursue other analogies, I become a drop of water falling from the sky and I am the ocean into which I shall dissolve. I am one photon of light sailing through the void and I am all the stars and galaxies as well as this photon and the space through which it travels. In God’s Presence, I sense that my love is everywhere and within everything and there is no end to it.
I should point out that this oneness is not static. It is not as if once you enter it it then becomes a possession. It creates itself continuously new in each moment and expresses its beauty and harmony in ever greater ways. And certainly, if you enter into this Presence, part of it may stay with you when you leave the Presence, but that depends on you, whether you wish to work with it further and make it part of your self.
Furthermore, if you concentrate then on another person, seeking to become one, it is somewhat as Mother Teresa says, “I see Christ in disguise in every person.” It is not just that you become one with the other so that you feel all separation is overcome. It is more that you find God’s Presence within this person as a new expression and revelation. That is, the other individual is also a source or means for contacting this Presence.
Since this Presence creates, you are creating beauty and love through this oneness. Again, this is not passive or static. I get the image of a thunderstorm as I concentrate on being one with another person. There are these different polarities and different experiences each of us possesses. But like a thunderstorm, there is a continuous arcing of energy between our different polarities illuminating and offering insight. There is a wildness of passion like the winds racing through a storm, but also as in a storm, the rain nourishes and brings new life.
A meteorologist can view a thunderstorm with detachment, curiosity, and interest. But the meteorologist does not imagine that he or she is the thunderstorm in all its wildness and passion. If you work with God’s Presence in this domain, get used to this idea--you become the forces of attraction and the primal energies in nature and you find beauty and harmony in their expression. In the same way, in any relationship you learn to celebrate the conflict and the differences and overcome them by cloaking them in beauty and uniting them to love.
In regard to Malkuth, you become one with what you seek to accomplish--it is a part of you inside. With Yesod, you become one with nature, the beauty of the universe, and infinite peace. With Hod, you become one with truth. You embody it so that you are able to express it and insure that it exerts its appropriate influence.
In Netzach, oneness itself is your art. You enable it to be expressed. You insure its on-going presence as love and artistic endeavor. You embody the ecstasy that enables it to appear on earth.
There are degrees to this creative ability. You want to be able to become one totally and completely so that all feelings of separation are overcome. It is like the five elements of Divine Providence are within the oneness creating and sustaining it.
These five elements are different from the elements of the philosopher’s stone that I discuss in my article, The Philosopher’s Stone. The air element is total understanding so that nothing is missed. The earth element is so solid that there is no separation. The water element is so sensitive you sense everything. And the fire element is so powerful, like the cosmic letter K, that it dissolves every obstacle and objection. The akasha is one undivided oneness so that two of you become one consciousness.
In this sephiroth of Netzach, the polarity of opposites are utilized to produce the level of ecstasy and consciousness of coming together and joining that enable you to embody this Presence. It is a different emphasis and mode of operation than what we have seen in the previous three domains.
In summary, then, my experience indicates that entering God’s Presence, the “Be still and know that I am God,” leads to experiencing the infinite power to create in accord with the themes and purposes of the different domains. Again, you can sit down with the president of a college, the President, e.g., of the United States, or Bill Gates for that matter. But when you shake hands and talk, it does not mean that this encounter grants you a college degree, the right to command the armed forces, or the ability to write a simple program using C++ computer language.
It does mean, however, that you can ask questions and get answers from individuals who have responsibility for and who exercise oversight over their respective disciplines, nations, and industries. Likewise, when you enter God’s presence you understand that the entire universe is an on-going creation of infinite love and beauty. There is infinite power open and available for celebrating this wonder. What you can do with the Presence of God that you can not do with a president or CEO is that you become a friend, a lover, and one who participates with God in the act of creation in accordance with your virtue, your love, and your strength.
In my experience, these sephiroth or emanations of God’s Presence are like ten gates. I do not find anyone, any spirit, or being guarding these gates. No archangel embodies even one per cent of God Presence. No created being is in a position to say, “This is where God is or this is the way in which God is active.” This temple of God’s Being is found within each of our hearts. Each of us has the freedom and the prerogative to seek this Presence, this creative power, in our own way, in our own time, and to give expression to it according to our own unique vision.
There are six other sephiroth. These can be described in this way:
In Tipareth: It creates integration, unity, full consciousness of all aspects of life and the universe--a cosmic harmony and union. The entire universe exists in a state of oneness yet who is conscious of this? This is an ecstasy imbued with great power, for it is the ecstasy from which the Creator creates. It envisions, calls into being, grants life, nurtures, inspires, awakens, oversees, heals, restores, renews, fulfills, and grants power like unto its own power.
In Gevurah: It creates the will and the power to overcome all opposition and obstacles. There is personal power and will. There is also cosmic power and will. In this domain, we learn to join the two focusing first on a level of self-mastery that enables the individual to contain within him or herself and also consciously direct the powers of creation to designated ends.
In Chesed: It creates opportunities for new experience, for fulfillment, and for wealth on every level and in every area of life.
In Binah: It creates justice, order, balance, and responsibility--that is, responsibility for everything that exists.
In Chockmah: It creates new destinies, new paths of life. It lays the foundations for new civilizations. It makes all things new by the power of its voice.
In Kether: It is within everything, a part of everything, and it is the source from which all things arise. It creates visions, dreams, intimations, and prophecies of what can be that reveal the depths of life and of the mysteries of the heart. All of the sephiroth are contained and interwoven as one here just as all of the sephiroth are manifested in some concrete, physical, and distinct manner in Malkuth.
Once again, the following poem is not a description of historical significance. I am seeking to express the essence of man’s relationship to God.
Moses and Aaron
And God looked upon Moses whom He had chosen
To lead his people from out of bondage and into freedom.
And God spoke and said:
Build me a tabernacle in space and time
That My Presence might be known and celebrated by mankind,
For I would hold nothing back
But would reveal all That I AM.
Make gates in the four directions
Where men and women may enter and leave
The first to the North
The path leading through the element of earth
Here the Mystery of Silence shall shine forth--
There is nothing hidden nor concealed
That is not revealed
To those who seek
The darkness beneath the stone
The silence beneath the mountain
I reside in both
The most distant reaches of outer space
Shall such hearts easily embrace
For every heart quiet enough to hear My Voice
All the stars and angels shall rejoice.
And Moses, having struck a stone to yield a stream
Having climbed Mt. Sinai alone
Having spent a lifetime in the desert,
Moses replied--
Though I have heard Your Voice in the burning bush
And in the pillar of flame
Even I have trouble finding this Silence within my heart.
Then God said:
Though the children of Jacob shall be as the sands of the sea
Even as we speak in this moment
There are many who come forth and taste My Mysteries
I give you the Earth
She, with Her Infinite Beauty,
Shall teach Her children to listen
I have placed My dreams within her heart
Those who search out Her secrets
Shall be reborn as Spirit
Then they shall see through the eyes of the stars.
Then God said:
Build the second gate to the South
Here the element of fire which does rage and roar
The Mystery of Will I shall reveal
Imploding and exploding at the star's core
The light at dawn, the moon's reflection, the fire of the hearth
For from fire--light
From will--power enough any destiny to fulfill
For in both the raindrop and the tear
The rainbow and the broken heart
The candle and the star
The spectrum of My desire shines forth
Beauty shall entwine equally
Suffering and love
Separation and reunion
Death and rebirth.
And Moses said:
When I came down from Mt. Sinai
From my face Your Light did shine
Still, I have never dreamed of a will
Forged in the heart of stars
Or even in the volcano's fiery caldera.
And God replied:
Each moment of life contains an abyss
The same that separates one heart from another
Sing into being a path of Light
Cross over
For where two complete this journey
There My Heart appears
And there My Voice sings
For My Mystery can only be encompassed by your will
Through an Act of Creation.
God said next:
Build the third gate to the West
This gate shall open to the Mystery of Water
Let those who Dare enter here
This is where empathy equally
Sees the world as it is
And as it can be in a dream
Those willing to risk all to find what they seek
As the Lover seeks his Beloved
They shall be as fountains
Overflowing with streams of living water
Their hearts shall contain Eternity
That sea that has no shores
Whose winds are bliss
Whose waves are ecstasy
And in whose depths are Divine dreams and visions.
And Moses said:
Across the reaches of the desert
Across the waves of rolling sand
Is found an occasional oasis
The waters that flow through the soul
Often turn bitter or dry up
Love is so rare and precious men die for its touch
How can you ask for so much?
Is there no end to Your Divine Yearning?
Would You make the entire planet into a school for prophets and seers?
And God replied:
Every breath is a path of Love
Every tear, drop of blood, every rain drop
Proclaims this secret: the path leading between opposites
In each moment My Love is everywhere
Sustaining the universe
And everything within it
Dare to enter here!
And God said:
Build the fourth gate to the East
The element of Air and the winds shall walk there
And here the sky so clear
The mind luminous
To Know Who I AM
That the universe is My Craft
To know the Notes with which My Voice Sings
To enter My Divine Workshop
To train in My Arts
Knowledge such as this have I hidden
In the winds and within your breath
Which flow through your blood and every cell of your body.
And Moses replied:
I have sought to guide Your people in the paths of righteousness
To teach them to honor what is sacred and holy
Yet even if I were to command the hurricane and the thunderstorm
The whirlwind and the mist
Even if the twelve winds were to obey my will
Still my voice would not contain a trace of Your Glory
Nor would my songs even hint at Your Beauty.
And God replied:
The stars and the moon that shine in the sky
The mountains you see in the distance
The islands upon the sea
All of this exists to reveal my Mystery
Day unto day, night unto night
The whole world is full of My Glory
But you are My finest Work
Even the Archangels and Lords of Creation
Know not the Bliss I have hidden in your hearts
Learn to speak with your Voices of Wonder
Nature is the training ground
Where the paths of Spirit are found
The elements contain the notes with which My Voice Sings
In air is openness of heart as vast as the sky
In fire is will power--the same that drives the stars
In water--empathy and love that join as one with another
In earth is endurance and stability--
The backbone of time and Eternity
Build these four gates
Within your soul and within your heart
Then you shall speak with My Voice
See with My Eyes
Hear with My Ears
And Love with My Heart
Then your Songs shall recreate the universe anew
My Beauty is not separate from you
Come forth. Hold nothing back.
Shine with the light of all the stars.
Moses was hesitant to share God's words with anyone else.
So he went to his brother-in-law, Aaron, and spoke God's words.
Aaron said in response, “Perhaps you should write this down, seal it
in an urn, and put it in a cave to be found in another day
when the world is more willing. For the tabernacle I would
build would be made of acacia wood with pillars overlaid
with gold, curtains of fine-twined linen and goat's hair,
held by clasps and rings of gold also. You see Moses,
God appointed me to speak with your voice, to make sense
to kings as well as people what your visions and dreams mean.
To put it simply, we all need something we can see and touch
and grasp with our minds. A vision should be made so real
so you can walk inside of it and know it is part of our world.
Then there is peace of mind.
“But since we are discussing God, there is something
you could help me with. You know how it is, I have this
problem with images, calves and the like. And so many
folks round about have goddesses in their religions. You
know Moses how you have gotten even God to change the law,
to amend and add addendums concerning widows and such.
Could you ask God to clarify this point: Is He male,
female, or something else? It would put to rest so many of
my doubts.”
And so Moses on his next trip up the mountain presented
to God Aaron's request.
But this time God spoke in reply not through the
burning bush, nor from within the mountain, nor from the
burning cloud, the pillar of flames, nor the whirlwind.
God's Voice spoke through Mose's own heart.
And God said: “I can neither speak, appear, nor may My
Presence be known except through Her Beauty and Love. What
She decrees I Myself can not overturn for She and I are
One.
“The universe have I created to celebrate My Love for
My Beloved. The stars and galaxies are the garments I have
woven into being that Her Beauty might be seen. I invite
all: Come. Enter the Celebration of Our Love. For where
one heart seeks another and finally joins there do She and I
appear and celebrate Our Love also in an ever new form.”
And when Moses heard this Voice speak within his heart
he fell down, his face upon the ground, and he wept bitter
tears--hot, salty streams flowing down his cheeks, across his
mouth, and dripping from his chin into the dust.
Then Moses said: “Oh God, let me now die. For who can
endure such Joy?”
And God replied: “Only those who Love.”