What Enlightenment Feels Like

The Sefirot

My dear friend Peter has taught me that what I call the Christ energy, the Power of God’s divine Love, can be called the sefirot in the Jewish traditions of Kabbalah.  For reasons beyond me (which I usually describe to my wife as “the Spirit moved me”) I looked up sefirot on the Internet yesterday.  What I found supports my recent assertions that I must be insane because perspectives and interrelations came flooding into my head as I read about the sefirot, and it became impossible for me to absorb what I was actually reading, that information being constantly overwritten in my consciousness through Da’ath, guided by Ima (Mother) whom I usually refer to as Sophia the Holy Spirit, the female aspect of God.

I read that in the Kabbalah, Da’ath is defined as being a kind of non-existence, a nothingness.  “Da’ath is the crown of the Ruach, the Intellect.”  “Da’ath has a dual aspect; on the one hand it is our knowledge of the world of appearance, the body of facts which constitute our beliefs and prop up the illusion of identity and ego and separateness.  On the other hand it is revelation, objective knowledge, what is often referred to as gnosis.”

Even as I read these words they were being redefined in my mind, which is really an odd thing to try to describe.  What the Spirit ended up showing me was that those seeking Da’ath were going to have a difficult time finding it or experiencing it, for in order to touch upon the Intellect – the DIVINE Intellect – one must first discard illusions, the greatest of which is the individual ego, surrender one’s free will, which means surrendering one’s earthly understanding of all things, and stepping into the non-(ego)existence, the nothingness (in a physical sense) of enlightenment (being able to see with God’s eyes). 

It is only this complete surrender which can lead one to True revelation. 

The Catch-22 quality of this process is that anyone who tries, by their own actions, to ATTAIN enlightenment and gnosis is going to be impeded in their desire of attaining True enlightenment because the very act of CONSCIOUSLY SEEKING reinforces the illusional strength of the ego, and is contrary to complete surrender to the Will and Presence of God.

Enlightenment is a gift stumbled upon through surrender, and cannot be tracked down or achieved through intention or action. 

It’s sort of like the Harry Potter conundrum of no one who seeks the philosopher’s stone in order to USE it being able to find it. 

Actions are the opposite of surrender.

I tried to read about the ten spheres and what they supposedly represent, but I kept getting distracted by other relationships appearing in my head.  I was reading about how there were three groups of three and what they meant, but the “mentoring” in my head showed me other relationships, not mentioned in the essays.  Instead of seeing a group of ten, I kept seeing two groups of five, one pyramid formation ascending and one descending, and then they overlapped and turned from two three-dimensional objects (two four-sided pyramids) into two two-dimensional objects (pyramids seen from the side) – the Star of David. 

I searched the Internet to see if this interconnected relationship of the Star of David and the Kabbalah Tree of Life was generally known and found nothing of value.

The Star of David and the Tree of Life, at least in my mind now, embody one and the same thing.  They physically represent the process of spiritual separation, descent, evolution, ascension and completion, which we are all engaged in.  In my mind’s eye I could see the four aspects of God (Hod [Splendor], Rahamin [Glory], Yesod [Foundation] and Netzah [Might]) combining and descending to the physical world (Malkut [Kingdom]), to become incarnate and seemingly separate from God.  This is the descending pyramid or triangle.  While incarnate, the soul yearns to grow, learn and reunite with that which is greater than itself (ideally).  It learns to appreciate and embody Binah (Intelligence), Din (Justice), Hesed (Kindness) and Hochmah (Wisdom), ascends and ultimately reunites as a completed consciousness with Kether (The Crown), after many lifetimes (but reincarnation’s a discussion for another time).

I respect what other people have learned about the sefirot and I’m not suggesting that my interpretations or delusions are any more important than anyone else’s.  I embrace the fact that God can create structures that represent a myriad of different and related Truths at the same time – wheels within wheels. 

I share this merely to suggest that a complete surrendering to God might be a wonderful choice, and lead to understanding things in ways not previously suspected (which is a thinly-veiled plea to increase the crazy club which seems to have few card-carrying members beyond my wife and myself).

And now that I’ve been faithful and typed this all up, perhaps the Spirit will allow me to dump this from the forefront of my mind so I can get back to the less meaningful stuff my physical world employer would like me to attend to in order to get paid.

Just a thought – and not necessarily my own.