Birth of the Book ZOHAR - Pt. 5

The Qabala was and is considered a second revelation from God. It was of the greatest importance to unlock and then understand, the greater meaning within all things, as all things themselves were some from of creation by God.

In the Shebaic/Solomonic Qabala it is clear that a human can repeatedly encounter God - the Supreme Being, Who can even transcend His own Existence while continuing to remain and exist within His own original condition as well as exist within and without of any and all contradictions.

Later in time, the Israelite rabbis insisted that God had no tangible form and occupies no specific spatial area. In Genesis Rabbah 68:10, God is refered to as Place. All creation, all universe, all omniverse, exist within God. "The Holy One, praised be He, is the Place of His Universe, but His Universe is not His Place." However, this encounter with God, does not allow for a human to understand the ultimate essence of God, merely to experience the dynamics and manifestations of God.

The universe is seen as living, growing, and dynamic:

The universe is pervaded by the might and power of God...
He formed you and infused into you the breath of life. He stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth...
He causes the rain and the dew to descend, and caused vegetation to sprout forth. He also forms the embryo in the mother's womb and enables it to emerge as a living being.
Exodus Rabbah 5:14

Unequivocally, the Talmud responds to all of humanity as one single group.- all related to the First Man known as Adam. God created people so that they might glorify their own Creator through their ability to further their own virtue, compassion, and daily behaviour, and to do whatever was necessary and correct in order to perfect their own soul.

Why did the Creator form all life from a single ancestor?
It was so that:
The families of mankind shall not lord it over the other with the claim of being sprung from superior stock...that all saints and sinners alike, amy recognize their common kinship in the collective human family.
(from the Tosefta Sanhedrin 8:4)

There is the belief that not every person is ready for divine revelation (thus prophets, etc), but at the same time, it was considered imperative to make the attempt to turn all of one's own mundane activities into existants of spirituality. There is very subtle humor and sponteniety.

The Written Qabala and its tradition is not known to be preserved in the Afrikan tradition, but is preserved to a small degree in Israelite writings , and to an extensive degree in rabbinic and pseudo-rabbinic writings.


Actual Structure of the Qabala

Ein Soph:
Ein-Soph is Absolute Perfection. There are no distinctions and no differentiations. Some qabbalists say also that here there is no volition. It does not reveal itself in any way which would make knowledge of its Own Nature possible and is probably transcendent to and inaccessible by way of highest thought. Ein-Soph is the First Cause of Infinity and is itself the very maintainer of this paradox. The qabbalist author of Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut propounded the idea that the entire canon of Hebraic texts and the Oral Law did not reference Ein-Soph and that perhaps some mystics had experienced a very small aspect of Ein-Soph.

In the writings of the Gerona qabbalists, there are a series of terms which try to deal with the beyond-concept concept of Ein-Soph:
ha-ta'alumah = the concealment of secrecy

ha-or ha-mit'allem = the concealed light;

yitron [=translation of Greek hyperousia] = superfluity;

mah she-ein ha-mahshavah masseget = that which thought cannot attain;

ha-ahdut ha-shavah = indistinguishable unity;;

ha-mahut = the essence.

Ein-Soph has been identified with Aristotle's Prime Cause and the Neoplatonic Root of All Roots.

From Ein-Soph there are Nine Lights of Thought and Manifestation which shine forth, ending the primal concealment. During the 1770s, the qabbalist Baruch Kosover observed that: Ein-Soph is not His proper name, but it is merely a world which symbolizes His complete concealment. It is not correct to say "Ein-Soph, blessed be He" or again; "may He be blessed because He cannot be blessed by our lips". (Ammud ha-Avodah; 1863; 211d).

The exact form of conceptualization of the single source of creation used by both the Sufis and the kabbalists shows a strong Neoplatonic influence.

Moses ben Jacob Cordovero known as Remak (1522-1570) mentions that the first active and passive steps in which Absolute Divinity goes forward to make itself accessible to human contemplation take place within God Himself and do not leave the category of the Divine. Cordovero wrestled with the question of whether the first "movement" of the Divine was towards the "outer world" or whether it was a "movement" inward of Ein-Soph, into the depths of itslef. His answer was that of Divine movement fowards the outer world. On the other hand, Isaac Luria held the view that the Divine's first movement was inward and augmented this answer with the further belief that all created things returned to their source in God and that God returned into Himself prior to all creation.. Further, Luria said that within Ein-Soph were Spledours (zahzahot) which were higher than any emanation.


Qabalistic Emanation: What is it?
The emergence of God from being within Himself into an Active Creation is the foundation of the Sepheroth. Early qabbalists tended to believe that all creatures and creations below the level of the Sepheroth, were created beings, who were archetypally preexistant in the Sepheroth, and by necessity of their creatiob by God, maintained a personal existence separate from Divine Existence.

Abraham of Cologn (fl. 1260-70 AD) in his Keter Shem Tov, totally rejects the idea that there is an impersonal hidden aspect at the highest level of Kether. He denies that there is any impersonal aspect to or of God and identifies Ein-Soph directly with Kether and finally, that the Sepheroth actually pray to God.

Asher ben David's description of Sepheroth lend agreement to the idea that Sepheroth were vessels for the activity of God-As-Emanator and Sepheroth in essence are identical with God.

The Gnostics in Castille, Spain manitained that emanation had potencies based upon name and color.

The tradition of Rav Solomon ben Adret and David Meser Leon, Meir ibn Gabbai, and Joseph Caro, the later 16th century followers of the Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut propounds that the Sepheroth are not an beings intermediary between God and sentient and physical life, bu the Speheroth are God Himself; therefore Emanation is Divinity and Divinity is Emanation. In the Sepher ha-Zohar, it is stated: He is They and They are He (Zohar:3:1b, 70a)

Menahem Recanati in his Ta'amei ha-Mizvot states that the Sepheroth are not seen as the essence of God, but are only vessels or tools, but the Sepheroth are not separated from Him and should not be considered as we consider a working person's tools as being completely distinct from the working person him/her self.

In the writings of Joseph Ashkenazi (Pseudo-Rabad), he propounds and further develops the original of Moses de Burgos, by stating that, as they are definitely intermediaries, the Sepheroth actualy are unable to perceive the nature of their Emanator and pray to God, Himself

The author A. Franck said that the Qabbalah was a complete emanatist system in which emanation was an actual going forth of God's Own Substance and not merely as God's Demonstrated Power.. He drew his conclusions from his own higly sensitive readings and interpretations of The Sepher ha-Zohar and the writings of Isaac Luria.

D. H. Joel said that the Zohar and early qabbalistic writings said nothing about emanation and that God in His Absolute Freedom Created from nothing (the creatio ex nihilo attitude)

Gershom Sholem adds that the Sepheroth subsume the archetype of everything created outside the world of emanation. They are contained within the Godhead and impregnate every sentient being outside of the Godhead.

Obviously among qabbalists themselves, there is much disagreement on this subject.


Ayin:
Ayin is considered either part of a complex that includes Ein-Soph, or a creatio ex nihilo preceeding Ein-Soph, or the first true emanation of Ein-Soph. A traditional theological view was that the first Sepherorth was the first effect; that cause was absolutely separated from effect.

Perhaps the best definition of Ayin is that of David ben Abraham ha-Lavan in his Masoret ha-Berit (late 13th century AD) as having more being than any other being in the world, but since it is simple, and all other simple things are complex when compared with its simplicity, so as in comparison, it is called "nothing".


The Three Hidden Lights:
In a responsum attributed to Hai Gaon, it is stated that above all emanating powers, with the Prime Cause, there are three hidden lights which have no beginning and no end.. There is the primeval inner light and the two other lights are called mezuhzah or simply zah. This ne'lam as le-ein sof is a kabbalistic trinity. It preceeds all sepheroth.


Kether:
Most qabbalists believed and believe that Primal Will is eternal and thus part of Ein-Soph. This being accepted, Kether is seen as being externally Kether while being internally Ein-Soph.

Isaac ibn Latif (fl 1230-60 AD) talks of the Divine Will in his texts Ginzei ha-Melekh and Zurat ha-Olam:The Primordial Will is not totally identical with God, but is a garment clinging to all substance of the wearer on all sides...and was....the first thing to be emanated from the only preexistent being...

Communion with the Divine Will was considered the ultimate aspect of prayer.


Hokhmah:
The highest aspect of Hokhmah or Wisdom is a concept called Haskel which is derived from Jeremiah 9:23. Haskel is divine understanding and the activity of Sekhel which is divine intellect. Further, it is believed that this divine understanding can crystalize into wisdom specifics in Hokhmah. Gershom Scholem points out that these conceptualization was used one hundred years later by Meister Eckhardt who called it intelligere.


The Interrelation of Sepheroth to Itself and to Other Sepheroth:
Each Sepheroth comprises all others sucessively and these Sepheroth are infinitely reflected within themselves.There are aspects of each Spheroth that contain millions of worlds. Therefor, within each Sepheroth are other Speheroth and an inifinte number of aspects connected with each Sepheroth (behinot).

According to Cordovero, there are six aspects in each Sepheroth.

1.) The concealed aspect before its manifestation in the Sepheroth which emanates it.

2.) The aspect which is manifest and apparent in the emanating Sepheroth.

3.) The aspect which in which the Sepheroth itself, becomes manifest in its proper
interdependency in the Sepherothic emanation process.

4.) The aspect which allows the preceeding Sepheroth to give the appropriate power to
the Sepheroth in question, itself, and to then further this process through the emanation
and empowering of the subsequent Sepheroth.

5.) The aspect by which the Sepheroth acquires the appropriate power to emanate the
Sepheroth hidden within it to their manifest existence within its own essence.

6.) The aspect by which the following Sepheroth is emanated to its own place; completing
and rebeginning the entire cycle.

Each Sepheroth descends into itself. This process is infinite. Nevertheless the Sepheroth is finite as it has limits. The three zahzahot = three hidden behinot of Kether in Ein-Soph. Therefor, there is no natural boundary between Ein-Soph and Kether and there is a behinot of Kether within Kether within Kether infinitely, but never reach an identity with the Emanator.


The Two Symbolic Modes of Sepheroth Reaching Light to Other Sepheroth:

1. Reflected Light:This is a light which is reflected back from the lower Sepheroth to the higher Sepheroth and this reflected light can reascend from any Sepheroth to any higher Sepheroth. It stimulates differentiation of a greater and greater number of behinot in each Sepheroth to which it reflects back and in doing so facilitates consolidation of potencies and consolidation of behinot of judgement, through its ability to create contraction.

2. Channels: There are specific relationships of radiated light between certain Sepheroth. This is considered a channel (zinnor). This channeling of light is entirely different from emanation. Here there is a process which reverses and counter-reverses cause and effect. There can be "breaks" in the return flow of light from below which has been called breaks in the channels (shevirat ha-zinnorat).


Schematic Order of Sepheroth:

O

O O

O O

O

O O

O

O

The Intellectual Sepheroth (ha-muskal):

Kether Elyon ( The Highest Crown): Zero. Primordial Aura

Hokhman (Wisdom): Primordial Point; the intermediatary between nothingness and being. The Supernal Mother. The Palace is the Womb which through fertilization brings forth the children.

[Daath (Knowledge of the Abyss)]: An "invisible Sepheroth, which was added to the original system of ten Sepheroth during the 13th century.

Binah (Wisdom): The Point Expands Itself Into a Circle

The Psychic Sepheroth (ha-murgash):

Gedulllah (Greatness) or Chesed (Love):

Gevurah (Power) or Din (Judgement)

Tiphereth ( Beauty) or Rahamin (Compassion)

The Sepheroth of Nature (ha-murtha):

Natzach ( Lasting Endurance)

Hod ( Majesty)

Zaddik (Righteous One)

Yesod Olam (Foundations of the World)

Malkuth (Kingdom) or Atarah (Diadem)




Isaac Luria -aka- Isaac De Loria -aka- Isaac Ashkenazi of Luria (1534 - July 15, 1572);

Isaac De Luria's father was a member of the Ashkenazi family which originally came from Poland or Germany. His father emigrated to Jerusalem and married into the Sephardi Frances family. His father died when he was a child (probably about the age of 7 years) and his mother took him to Egypt, where he was brought up and educated by his mother's brother, Mordecai Frances, a well-to-do tax-gatherer. Luria studied under David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra and Bezalel Ashkenazi. With the latter, Luria collaborated on a book, Shitate Mekubbezet and a tractate, Zevahim, (which almost two centuries later in 1735, was burned in Izmir.)

Luria retired to of the island Jazirat al-Rawda on the Nile near Cairo. This island was owned by his uncle, who was, also, his father-in-law.

Generally, Isaac Luria did not publicly teach, but we know that he had at least 30 students. In the neighborhood of Safed, he would take long walks with his closest students. He was known as a holy man who possessed the Holy Spirit and had been given the revelation of Elijah. He taught orally, instructing his students in his own system of theoretical Qabbala and how to communicate with the Zaddikim or The Community of the Souls of the Righteous through a process of unification of the Sepheroth and specific tantric-like exercises of meditative concentration on certain divine names and certain combinations of these divine names, and by means of Kavvanah or the creation of meditation and reflection within the act of prayer.

Luria did not teach in any specific sequence of thinking. Whatever came to mind at the time was what then was taught. He died during an epidemic in Safed.

The main chroniclers of Luria's teachings and ideas were:

1.)Moses Jonah of Safed in his work Kanfei Yonah;

2.)Joseph ibn Tabul who divided Luria's teachings into derushim or disquiisitions, which still exist in manuscript;

3.)Hayyim Vital rendered all of Luria's ideas in great detail and according to his own system of classification: Ez Hayyim (The Tree of Life) He, himself wrote four variants of this book. It contains Lurias teachings (as remembered) from 1573 to 1576.

A.) All material written in Luria's handwriting.

B.) Sha'ar ha-Derushim: the systematic presentaion of Luria's Qabbalistic thinking and ideas.

C.) Sha'ar ha-Pesukim: Explanations of Biblical passages in the same sequential order as the Old Testament.

D.) Sha'ar ha-gilgulim: The mystical doctrine of metempsychosis (Gilgul);

E.) Sha'ar ha-Kavannot: An in-depth explanation of the mystical practices and meditative states within and for prayer (Kavannot ha-tiffilah).

F.) Sha'ar ha-Mizvot: The forms of reasoning within religious precepts.

G.) Tikkunei avonot: The doctrine of atonement of sins.

H ) Yihudim: Instructions for creating one's mystical "unifications" (transmitted individually to each student by Luria himself).

Other versions proposed other "Gates" and categories and there has been much disagreement over what is genuine Lurianic Qabbalism.


Lurianic Qabbalism:

Luria believed that the primal action of Ein-Soph was not emanation and revelation, but instead, it was the action of limitation and concealment. The true essence of Ein-Soph leaves no place for creation, because it is impossible to visual or mentally construct any area or place which is not God, because to do so would place limitations upon God's own Infinity. Thus an any primal act of creation is only possible through "the entry of God into Himself" or Zimzum in which He contracts Himself and socreates the possibility for something, not Ein-Soph (Itself) to exist. This retreat of the Godhead, preceeds any emanation. From Gods point of view, one would try to imagine God merely contracting from a small point, while from a human view, God would be contracting from all levels of existence, both spiritual and material.

According to Luira,before Zimzum,all the forces of God were contained within His Own Infinite Self; completely in balance and without separation. When God's Primal Intention to create the Universe began, Ein-Soph came together with the motions which create Din or Judgement, and God's first known activity was that of judgement and self-limitationand this process was to continue through progressive extraction and catharsis of Judgement (Din) intermingled in an ununderstanable pattern with the remnants of light of Ein-Soph which had remained like drops of water in an newly emptied vessel. . This is the hylic aspect of the future universe. In this condition, ther descends Yod, which contains a "cosmic measure" (kav ha-middah) which is the power of organization and formation. This power is part of the attribute of overflowing mercy (Rahamin).

Creation is a double activity; the Emanator acts as both receptive substratum through the light of the Reshimu and is a form-giving force which descends from the essence of Ein-Soph to create order within its own non-order. Thus both subject and object on all planes, all times, and all things, and more beyond thought itself have their origin in God, but were differentiated by Zimzum. This process creates recepticals or vessels (kelim) in which the Divine Essence that remained in primordial space is precipatated out; First this takes place hylically in the Container of "Primordial Air or Avir Kadmon; next this form of Divine Essence become "clearer" in the Container of Primordial Man or Adam Kadmon.

At the beginning of the text Ez Hayyim there is a description of a process whereby an absoulute vacuum was created within Ein-Soph, into which emanated a ray of light which filled this vacuum with Ten Sepheroth. Since the Zimzum took place equally on all sides, the vacuum had to be circular, or more properly spherical. The light which had entered this vacuum, entered it in a straight line and arranged itself as both concentric circles and as a unilinear structure.

This unilinear structure and concentric circles is the form of Adam Kadmon le-khol ha-kedumin or The Primordial Man Which (or Who) Preceeded All Other Primordial Anythings. This double rhythm of concentric circles and unilinear design is necessary for the creation of all things. This is how our universe works. And it is a gift of God's Mercy. This process is given rhythm by the ascent of Ein-Soph into Itself and its partial descent into Zimzum; the expanding outward of Ein-Soph and its desire to return to Itself; Hipashtut or Egression and Histalkut or Regression.

Within these Containers is an Inner Light and around these Containers is a Surrounding Light.. In his fascination with the struture of the spiritual world, Isaac Luria speaks of Kelakut or the structural totality of the forces of emanation and Peratut or the individuality of each power active within the overall structure.

At first, Luria did not differentiate between Ein-Soph and Light. Later, he argued that there was subtle differentiation between Ein-Soph and Light in that Light was the Will of Ein-Soph and thereby possessed Zimzum, whereas Ein-Soph possessed Light.

Zimzum was preceeded by even more subtle processes. In the beginning, Ein-Soph took pleasure in its own autarkic self-sufficiency. This Pleasure created a Shaking (Ni'anu'a) which is the movement of Ein Soph within Itself. This movement or Shaking "from Itself to Itself" aroused the still-indistinguishable root of Din (Justice) still combined with Rahamin (Mercy). This Shaking or these Shakings caused Primordial Points to be "engraved" in the power of Din and becoming the first forms to be within Ein Soph. The shapes of these engravings was primordial space or primordial spaces, which came into being as the end result of this process. The Light of Ein Soph, obviously "outside" and "around" these "engravings" acted upon these "marks" as "points" and the Ideal World came into existence. The "Hidden Law" which is within the "engravings" which produce reality, is active. It expresses itself, in some way through all things, through the power which went into Yod. The World of Points is known as Olim ha-Nekudot. At this stage, this World of Points is without definite structure and describes out beautifully in the descriptive symbolism of atomic physics and Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

The 10 Sepheroth, when seen only as structure or a diagram of both regidity and fluidity, confirm this. Obviously, ther are higher and more spiritual and complex levels of understanding, the 10 Sepheroth, and we should pursue the high aspects of religion and spiritual richness which they offer. Still, it is very instructive to gain and maintain a base-line awareness of these structures as structures, for by doing so, we can begin to understand how we can learn and study our own apparent awareness, and how, under certain circumstances, it works. With the 10 Sepheroth, we can also perceive the human mind as both monomorphic and polymorphic.

The 10 worlds of the Sepheroth, evolve from highest to lowest, but they also exist in simultaneity, and can exist (all together) in a varied single paradigm or in a series of consecutive and simultaneous paradigms. One might ponder as to whether in our 20th century, the 10 world of the Sepheroth, have been beautifully and publicly represented by the General and Specific Theories of Relativity as formulated by Albert Einstein and have been childishly and egotistically represented by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, especially his Being and Nothingness.

During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the Israelies migrated in large numberrs into the Sahara Desert, the West Afrikan Coast, into the Bantu tribes of Southern Afrika (today 40,000 members of the Lemba tribe claim Israelite ancestry). There were Israelite and Israelite-related rulers of Mauritania, Senegal, Western Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana.

During the 5th century AD, the people of Yemen through the influence of their king, Du-Nuas, converted to the Israelite religion. A great Berber tribe ruler by Queen Kahina, converted to the Israelite religion during the 7th century AD.

Also prior to the 12th century AD, the Kairites split from the Rabbinic groups, rejecting the Talmud as any form of divine authority and as well, rejecting the entire authority of the Rabbinate. Further, they accepted the idea of greater and more egalitarian religious roles for women. The Kairite influence strongly flourished in the Judeo-Berber communities and the West Afrikan tribal communities of the Fanti, Foulani, hausa, malinke, Peul, Songhay, and Yoruba.

.The famous geographer al-Idrisi (fl. 12th century AD) wrote about Israelite Blacks in the Western Sudan. The famous Arab historian of Berber history, Ibn Khaldun (fl. 13th century AD) refered to the existence of Israelie Blacks. During the 16th century AD, the hiSpash Muslim historian and traveler, Leon Africanus, was raised by an Israelite woman who worked in his family's household. In 1492, he, his family, and the Israelite woman moved to Morocco. Later, he converted to Roman Catholicism, travelling in Western Africa and writing of the Israelite communities which he encountered there.

According to Bubu Hama, one-time president of the Niger National Assembly, during the mediaeval period, Tuaregs has and Israelie queen, and that many people still maintained their original Israelite faith, even while under pressure for conversion by both the Christians and the Muslims.

Historical records exist that show small varied Israelite kingdoms and tribal groups known as Beni Israel and part of the Wolof and Mandinge communities. They existed until the 18th century AD when they were forcably converted to Islam. Some of these individuals claimed to be dewcendents of the tribe of Dan, who originally constructed the legendary Golden Calf. (It is interesting to note that these people were excceptional gold and metal smiths!)

Israelite Berber groups also were in Libya. Israelite traveling merchants arranged the exchange of Chinese silk for Ghanan gold, the Ashanti using the silk for making Kente cloth. Under this influence from trade, several ruling families of Ghana converted to the Israelite religion and for nearly 200 years, Ghana was ruled by practicing Israelites. The influence was so great, that even a Sengalese province was named Juddala. During this time there was a great deal of intermarriage of white and black Israelites. After a series of Muslim massacres, many of these people fled to North Afrika, Egypt, the Sudan, the Cameroons, and Southern Afrika.






chapter eleven
2007:
NOW HOW DO WE EXPERIENCE AND USE QABALA?


Qabala can be used as religiously experienced nostalgia and can be placed into dangerous and self-limiting cultic conditions, but it is more valuable to see it as a contemporary tool which was created, sensed, recognized, and developed over an exceptionally long period of time; a period of approximately 4,300 years. It has been in a complete and solidly coherent form for at least 500 years.

The Qabalistic framework has been explained and its subtleties have been pointed to. The 20th century AD has create an extremely viable context within which the Qabala can be used and this context also, can be used by the Qabala, because the Qabala does not remain totally static in any environment, although, paradoxically some aspects of the Qabala do remain static. The general pool of human knowledge is now great enough to appreciate the value, subtlety, power, and spiritually transmitted compassion of the Qabala. For simplicity's sake, herein this paradigm is called the 20th Century Informational Context. Henceforth refered to as 20CIC.

Elements of 20CIC:

Sense-Data and What it Can Mean
Human beings see and hear. But seeing and hearing maintain meaning beyond the simple idea of one having a special and specific sensory experience with various causal antecedents. Emotionally, consciously, and physically (including evolving changes in physical memory), and in the memory of pure mind, the individual experiencer has achieved one or more specific tasks and has succeeded in some way, however, simple, understood, misunderstood, or ununderstood.

Next, immediately exist, questions of the individual's technique and questions of causal-conditioning [this is not controversial] and simultaneous non-causal conditioning [this is controversial]

Causal antecedents may be born from physical, physiological, and pyschological events and strutures, but may be born, also, from some very sudden (and with or without previous cause) slight change or difference in a single emotional and intellectually experienced moment or nano-moment, experienced in present time as present time or experienced in present time as past or future time, or experienced in present time as past-present-and future time combined monomorphically, combined polymorphically and static, combined polymorphically and kinetic, or combined polymorphically and pulsing from static to kinetic to static to kinetic, etc, in what can be called both a discontinuous and continuous pattern.

Causal antecedent may be layered separate distinct patterns, layered separate indistinct patterns, layered nondistinct patterns, and layered separate patterns which escape distinctness, indistinctness, and nondistinctness. And they may be perceived, not perceived, or partially perceived within an almost infinite number of individualities.

These layered patterns as structure of a causal antecedent may be invaded, penetrated, intersected, surrounded, compressed, and/or merged with by one or more other layered patterns as structure of a causal antecedent. This situation then creates a new causal antecendent with the previous causal antecendents still existing on the level of former existence (which still exists) and no longer existing of the level of new creation (its past existence and moment of formulation existing as both indeterminate possibility and distinct possibility on the level of former existence.

All of these situations are Living Situations. They are, themselves, alive.

There is no reason to assume that a developing process of causal antecedents moves only in (normally perceived human) linear time and cannot exist in some other construct of time currently known or unknown. There is no proof which can be offered to refute this.

Sense-data has been refered to as "idea", "impression", "phenomenon","quale", "image", "quale", "sensum" and yet this provides no real help to our understanding. Sense-data has been described as a conscious barrier within human mentality which separates us (the"I' or the sensing individual) from the actual object of perception, and/or that sense-data creates the conscious human condition of "I and Other". But if this were true how could the Other be correctly perceived as either it does not and never did exist because the sense-data created it or the sense data in directly being the power of the separating the Existent Perception into I and Other would be the expression of its own power assume an independency of existence which would maintain the ability to directly create or perceive Other while remaining within the I, and by doing this would automatically (through its injection of its own self-existence) would automatically skew, distort, or falsify the status and perception of the Other by the I?

Sense-data has been described as being only products of experience within physical process which have no existence apart from the very processes themselves. If this is so, what determines the experience within physical processes as a form of awareness, knowledge, or even sensory lunacy? If the Watcher is Watching Itself as Watcher and the Watcher is only Physical Process, then Consciousness exists as a specific energy within Physical process. But not all Physical Process contains Consciousness and there is no way to prove that Consciousness must require any Physical Process to exist. Further, it can be argued that Physical Process is merely the creation of Consciousness creating a perception of I and Other which may be totally false or may be a false perception of another process otherwise unknown.

Can sense-data exist without being perceived? If we formulate Unconsciousness or Nonconsciousness as holding within itself Consciousness, then sense-data cannot exist without being perceived, because outside of Consciousness is Nothing At All Perceived because this is the definition of Nonconsciousness in the first place. However, if we formulate Consciousness as holding within itself Nonconsciousness, then unperceived sense-data can exist because the primary situation is Awareness controlling Nonawareness. And with Awareness controlling Nonawareness, we can understand that a pulsing (and perhaps growing) pattern or at least a pattern of movement which must exist within any form of awareness, will continue uninterruptedly, although its pattern may continuously or variously change. If Awareness were controlled by Nonawareness, either the situation would immediately reverse, because Nonawareness would not be aware of the movement within Awareness and Awareness would automatically move to control Nonawareness. If, on the other hand Nonawareness became aware of Awareness, then Nonawareness would self-transform into Awareness Itself. Awareness perceives Nonawareness. Nonawareness does not perceive Awareness. Nonawareness is a subset of Awareness. Nonconsciosness is a subset of Consciousness. Nonawareness exists only to provide movement for Awareness through the creation of Mental Space. Unconsciousness exists only to allow the movement of Consciousness. Unconsciousness cannot exist as a primary existent value, it is a secondary condition used for movement and modification in a growing living universe which is alive to Itself.


What Is the Monad:
Monads are the smallest points of divisibility where consciousness and matter cease to be defined separately. Being the smallest units in a sub-universe contained within and without our universe, Monads would be intelligible, non-spatially ordered and reordered by means of the sense-fields which they (the Monads) themselves create. And all these Monads taken as a whole would be continually in this process individually, in combination (as Combineds) and combined reactivity (as Separates) with part of the whole Monad Community, all of the Monad Community, and with and without Indeterminacy and Determinacy - all in a riot of cominations and variabilities which would make any number followed by 100 pages filled with zeros and commas, seem idiotically small.

Certainty and Descriptions of Perception:
Can all descriptions of a human perception contain an absolute certainty of precise truth? No, of course not. Perceptions are not ordered in the same manner as human language. A human language makes its statement all at once, in some form of perceivable order, and according to certain locally, geographically specific, time specific, and/or specific via tribal totems and taboos.

Direct perceptive experience can happen suddenly without a preview (in language, the description of something is usually connected to some earlier sentence, paragraph, or usage of the same language). Direct perception can occur in greatly varied orders, be overlaid onto other perceptions, and can come into consciousness piecemeal, with "empty gaps of varying amounts of time in between the various bits and pieces of the perception. As time goes by, we often revise or radically change our perception of our perception. Ordinary language says its meaning and stays that way. Human perception is an experience, which is then remembered and secondarily perceived and reperceived. Any given human perception, no matter how completely perceived, is in a continual state of change.

This state of change may be unperceptable, barely perceptable, or consciously obvious. Language does not perceive itself, it remains the same. We have developed techniques for using language in such a way that we replicate some percentage of the actual fluidity of our perceptions. This form of language is often called poetry, liturgy, mantra, surrealism, and surrationalism. Nonsense rhymes also should be included. Perhaps what is most difficult to intuit, grasp, or understand is that certainty and uncertainty coexist within the structures of all answers and all information. Further, certainty and uncertainty co-exist within all fields of truth. What the religious mystic often calls Certainty, is in fact, the experience (for a moment, a day, a lifetime, whatever) of actually transcending the connected Certainty-Uncertainty, which is the transcending of what we rightfully call the truth. In other words, being personally beyond the truth, and yet using the truth with efficiency and skill. One can be in the world, but not of it.

Does our own perception self-perceive? We have noted that it appears to do so in some cases and that this appearance can not be given any satisfactory and fully supported explanation. Does our perception perceive its own evaluation through the filter of the other consciousness qualities of emotion, memory, intellect, and intuition? Again, we have noted that it appears to do so in some cases and that this appearance can be given any satisfactory and fully supported explanation. We do note that our perception can be very specific and very vague, leading us to believe that human perception does not follow any mechanistic model, but can perfectly mimic any mechanistic model. Further, we note that human perception can evaluate the relative values and importance of different sub-aspects within any normal perceptive moment. In cases of extraordinary perceptive moments, human perception evaluates all aspects of the experience as of equal and most important value, then notices (in some way) that it has done so, and then for an undefined, unknown reason, further evaluates this experience as the most important experience or the most important kind of experience.

Supreme Creator and The Issue of Enclosed or Open-Ended Systems
According to Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) in his Hylas and Philonous: Third Dialogue, the issue of spirit and matter (or perceiver and perceived). At the same time he writes a dialogue which shows the growing awareness in the human mind of the issues of sense-data, causal antecedents, and perception:

"...the manner how two independent substances, so widelydifferent as spirit and matter, should mutually operate on each other?What difficulties, I say, and endless disquisitions concerning these and innumerable other the like points, do we escape by supposing only spirits and ideas? Even the mathematics themselves, if we take away the absolute existence of extended things, become much more clear and easy; the most shocking paradoxes and intricate speculations in those sciences, depending on the infinite divisibility of finite extension, which depends upon that supposition. But what need is there to insist upon the particular sciences? Is not that opposition to all sciences, that phrensy of the ancient and modern sceptics, built on the same foundation? Or can you produce so much as one arguement against the reality of corporeal things, or in behalf of that avowed utter ignorance of their natures, which doth not suppose their reality to consist in an external absolute existence? Upon this supposition indeed, the objections from the change of colours in a pigeon's neck, or the appearance of a broken oar in the water, must be allowed to have weight. But those and the like objections vanish, if we do not maintain the being of absolute external originals, but place the reality of things in ideas, fleeting, indeed, and changeable; however, not changed at random, but according to the fixed order of Nature. For herein consists the constancy and truth of things..."


copyright 2001 by Caiyros Verree