10.2: "What is the Abyss?" cont.
Description
This article is from the magicK kreEePing oOze FAQ, by tyagi nagasiva tyagI@houseofAos.abyss.coM with numerous contributions by others.
10.2: "What is the Abyss?" cont.
What does crossing the Abyss mean?
Many things. I associate it with the path of ascetic denial of feelings
and exhaltation of the intellectual, objective state of consciousness.
At least this is the first manifestation. The ego blows up and the
mage falls into the pit of their own corpulence. Surrounded by what they
take to be 'reality' and is only their illusory imaginings, they become
what our culture calls 'psychotic'.
Compare with this the adventure of 'diving into' the Abyss, the path of
euphoric engagement of feelings but denying of intellect. These are but
shadows of the real, successful passage. In this the ego is lost in the
rainstorm of emotion and pain. Disoriented and despairing, they become
what our culture calls 'suicidal'.
The successful passage of the Abyss (over or through) involves something
between these, balancing the intellect and the emotion in a sort of
transcendental weave. Having accomplished this, the ego and the non-ego
come to a final and lasting resolution. There is no longer a distinct
and separate 'self', nor is this self destroyed in its essence with the
passage completed.
Those who say 'nobody makes it to the Other Side as an ego' are correct.
Egotists will tell you 'I will endure to the end' and slave-gods will tell
you that 'the ego must perish', but neither is speaking without a forked
tongue. ;>
I am I!
Frater (I) Nigris (DCLXVI) CCCXXXIII
"_______________________________________________________________"
Colin Low had this to say regarding Da'ath and the Abyss:
Firstly, the quantity of traditional material on this subject is,
as far as I know, limited. This means that although we all know the
title of the song, nobody knows the verses, and we can make it up as
we go along.
The problem isn't that of trying to establish a consensus about a
standard terminology; the problem is that words exist (Daath, Abyss),
the words are overloaded in that they already have a number of normal
meanings, and there are hints that the words refer to states that most
people haven't experienced. Not the best place to begin a discussion.....
I'll start by discussing the map. We can at least discuss the map.
Whether the territory exists and whether we can agree on our experiences
of it I'll leave until later.
The Extended Tree model of the Four Worlds (as presented by Halevi)
with overlapping upper and lower faces is the most useful model I have
come across. In this model there are 4 Daaths and 4 Abysses. There is an
Abyss between Assiah and Yetzirah, between Yetzirah and Briah, between
Briah and Atziluth, and between the seven lower sephiroth of Atziluth and
the three supernals. There is another Abyss between the Kether of
Atziluth and the En Soph.
The Abyss of Assiah is relatively easy to talk about. Can a cat read
and comprehend Wittgenstein? No. Using the terminology of Kabbalah,
a cat has a Nephesh (animal soul) but not a Ruach. There is an absolute
and uncrossable abyss in Assiah that the consciousness of a cat cannot
cross.
According to Kabbalistic tradition, every person has a Nephesh but not
everyone has a Ruach. The Ruach can be acquired, but it isn't standard
issue. If we take this as an assumption, then there may be people for whom
the Abyss is the Abyss of Assiah, and for whom all further Abysses are
largely irrelevant.
For people who are capable of inhabiting both Nephesh and Ruach, the Abyss
does not go away, but it can be viewed from either side. I don't know what
"crossing" means; it is a spacial term, and I don't find spacial terms
to be useful in describing changes of consciousness. "Flipping" or
"toggling" seem to be closer; it's like double-clicking an icon and
instantaneously getting a new window. Breakthroughs in consciousness
tend to be instantaneous, like a light going on.
The next Abyss is the Abyss of Yetzirah, the divide between Ruach-
consciousness and Neshamah-consciousness. Vocabulary becomes an
obstacle at this point. A view of this transition is that it is a change
from a viewpoint limited by the assumptions and limitations of human
identity to something bigger and more general. Just as a cat can't
understand Wittgenstein, human beings don't now how to stop acting
and thinking and classifying the world from a parochial human viewpoint.
This transition means giving up human identity, means giving
up all ego-centred goals, and can be experienced literally as a kind of
death. The Golden Dawn Vault ritual can be viewed as the sacrifice & death
of the King in the Tipheret of Yetzirah and the birth of the Child in the
Malkuth of Briah.
I've nothing to say about the Abysses beyond this.
The essence of this model is that consciousness isn't continuous;
it is discrete, it is quantised like electrons in a potential well.
We don't talk about electrons "crossing" from one state to another;
physics is much more sophisticated than that. An abyss is any
discontinuous change in consciousness. There can be lots of abysses
and there can be lots of lights going on, from little birthday candles
up to huge stadium floodlights. This makes it hard to talk about
"The Abyss" and what it might mean to "cross" it; I think it renders
the whole discussion meaningless.
Where does Daath figure in this? I can't answer this question from any
other base than an interpretation of personal experience; in other words,
I'm not talking about "The Daath", as if such a thing could be discussed
objectively, but "my Daath", the thing I experience and label as such.
There isn't just "one" Tree, a linear figure running from Atziluth to
Assiah. The trunk of the Tree is the Tree of Atziluth; the Tree has several
branches running through Briah, each with its own Tree. There are billions
of twigs in Yetzirah, each with its own Tree, and billions*squared leaves
in Assiah, each with their own Tree. Daath is like a vertex from which a
multiplicity of Trees are suspended, a junction point between one world
and the next. I have my Tree hanging there, and you have yours.
From the Daath of Yetzirah, Yetzirah is viewed as the multiplicity of
Trees suspended from that point, the union of every perpective, and as
those on the net will know, the union of every perspective and every point
of view is a kind of nothingness, because they all cancel out. Every
statement is annihilated in its opposite, every thesis meets its
antithesis, and in attempting to know everything by assembling and
assimilating all knowledge, one knows nothing.
In Briah, Daath becomes Yesod, and whatever truth there is in the noise
is perceived directly. The sum of everything you can know in Yetzirah
doesn't get you to Briah. Briah can't be approached by any form of
discussion, argument, definition, or dialectic because they all annihilate
in Daath, and a vast emptiness opens up to swallow the ego and recycle it
(as a friend used to say) as Jaffa cakes.....
[And further:]
The 10 sephiroth have clear descriptions. Even tricky sephira like
Chokmah and Kether can be described by the intrepid - just waffle on
for several pages about "blinding white light", "pure being", "Union
with God" and the reader comes away with the impression that this
is terra cognito, and it will all come clear when he or she reaches
the third level of soul development.....
Daath, on the other hand, is like the door in the cellar marked "Do
not Enter. There is Nothing In Here". We all know what's behind the
locked door in the cellar, don't we? We've all seen the film. It's the
most horrible.....well, it may not be the most horrible thing I can
imagine, but it is always the most horrible thing the film director
can imagine.
Now let's back up a little and take a look at the idea of "most horrible
thing". Why is something horrible? Some examples: because it threatens
survival, because it repels, because of a completely visceral sense
of shock. The "threatens survival" example doesn't stand up to
inspection because things are usually perceived as "utterly horrible"
with absolutely no regard to their intention - my sister will climb
walls when I produce the kiddies' rubber spider. I'd like put
forward the idea that things are horrible because they have an alien
quality, a quality of "otherness", and the visceral reaction comes
about because the "horrible thing" is *just different*. Each one of
us has a built in sense of identity which excludes most of the creation,
and apart from those familiar exceptions we are prepared to live with
(e.g. the S.O. ;-)) we try to ignore or exclude "the horrible".
Let's take a look at the Tree of Life. The first 3 sephiroth represent
the Macrocosm, the transcendent Godhead. The next 6 sephiroth represent
a microcosm. Note that I didn't say "the microcosm". In the Golden Dawn
notes it is written quite clearly that there are many microcosms - people,
animals, plants, elemental and supernatural beings etc. Every thing which
has its own identity and free-will is a microcosm, so instead of the
standard Tree diagram you should imagine the 3 supernal sephiroth, and
underneath, billions and billions of examples of the sephiroth from
Chesed to Yesod, each a microcosm. Where do the billions of microcosms
connect? Obviously, in Malkuth if they have a physical existence, and
also at the point where identity (or at least personality) vanishes, in Daath.
(Technically, the Ruach is centred in Tiphereth and embraces all the sephiroth
from Daath to Yesod)
What I've tried to do is approach the same point from two different
directions: the instinctive reaction to Daath as "the door in the cellar",
and the image of Daath as the connection point between microcosms. I
don't think it is a coincidence that Daath is dumped in the abyss along
with all the evil forms of the Qlippoth - Daath is the place where
we encounter all the ghastly "otherness" in creation, and if approached
without "requisite initiation" is bound to produce some strong reactions.
I've seen several horror films using the same images - horrible, evil
creatures coming through a vortex in space and time. The occasional
attribution of Sothis to Daath, and the extra-solar nature of its influence,
is another hint.
I think it would be a grave mistake for someone to attribute a positive
symbolism to Daath other than that of a gateway or hole. The Tree works
because its symbols mean something at many levels, and Daath works as a
symbol precisely because it has no correspondences - it isn't a sephira,
nor is it remotely like one - it is the locked door in the cellar.
All of this should be prefixed by several levels of IMHOs - it is my
way of relating my personal experiences to the Tree, and some may
find it useful, and others will think it's crap. But then, what do you
think sustains the Tree of Life? It's all the bullshit raining down
from Malkuth.
Colin
"_______________________________________________________________"
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