The Qabalah or the Tree of Life
A journey of experience

The Qabalah or the Tree of Life is an ancient Jewish system of spiritual knowledge, maybe even with roots older than that. […] All traditions, cultures and beliefs, like rivers, start from a spring or fountain taking on characteristics that change through time and the layout of the land through which they flow. The Western Tradition sprang from the Qabalah.

Edited from Kate Rheeders: Qabalah a beginners guide, p.1

It is easy to give an explanation of the meaning of the word itself, for its roots is QBL, which means to receive, hence the Quabalah is the received doctrine, the esoteric side of the scriptures, the Doctrine of the Heart, in contradistinction to the doctrine of the eye, the inner Truth as opposed to the outer form.

The Mysteries of the Quabalah p 55

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there HE put the man HE had formed. And the Lord God made all kind of trees grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil

Genesis 2:8-9

In the Garden of Eden, beneath an overwhelmingly intense sun, a naked man and a naked woman stand besides each other in awe. The man is looking at the woman, and the woman is looking at the archangel Gabriel who stands in front of the gate of Heaven. Behind the woman is the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its fruits, the five sense organs. The tree is the ego, which by its very nature is discriminating, splitting in polarities. Behind the man stands the Tree of life with the twelve signs of the zodiac, symbolising the higher self or unity.

Gabriel is spreading out his arms inquiringly, indicating that a choice has to be made. The essence of the card is the choice; will they direct their life energy down and out into the outer world, or in and upwards towards God?

 

Some texts talk about Quabalah, meaning the understanding of development as depicted in the tree of life, other texts seems to use Quabalah as depicting a broader range of texts. We use the terms Quabalah and Tree of life synonymous.

The Blessed Lord said: They (the wise) speak of an eternal ashvattha tree, with roots above and boughs beneath, whose leaves are Vedic hymns. He who understands this tree is a Veda-knower.

The Bhagavad-Gita, chapter XV

 

The bodies of all living things

Trees symbolize the bodies of all living things plants, animals, man possessing their own distinct type of roots, trunks, and branches with their life-sustaining circulatory and nervous systems. Of all living forms, only man’s body with its unique cerebrospinal centres has the potential of expressing fully God’s cosmic consciousness. The sacred Ashvattha tree (the pipal or holy fig tree associated with worship of the Divine) therefore symbolizes the human body; supreme among other forms of life.

Man’s physical-astral-causal body is like an upturned tree, with roots in the hair and brain, and in astral rays from the thousand-petalled lotus, and in causal thought emanations which are nourished by cosmic consciousness. The trunk of the tree of life in man is the physical-astral-causal spine, the astral nadis (channels or rays of life force), and thought emanations of the magnetic causal body. The hair, cranial nerves, medulla, cerebral-astral rays, and causal thought emanations are antennae that draw from the ether life force and cosmic consciousness. Thus man is nourished not only by physical food, but by God’s cosmic energy and His underlying cosmic consciousness.

Paramahansa Yogananda: The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 788-789

 

The Ashvattha Tree - the composite of man

The Ashvattha Tree (holy fig tree) is remarkable for great size and longevity. […]Ashvattha is used metaphorically to describe the mighty, many-branched system of integrated consciousness, life force and afferent and efferent nerves that is the composite of man.

[…] In these Gita verses, the ashvattha tree refers specifically to the creative principles of Prakiti at work in the threefold body of man (physical, astral, and causal), though the analogy itself is equally applicable on a cosmic scale.
[…] This enduring TREE OF LIFE, mentioned in many scriptures of the world, including the Bible is the human body and the human mind. In the light of intuition, yogis behold the inverted tree of consciousness (ideational components of the causal body) within the tree of life force (the nadis of the astral body, channels of energy), these two existing interlocked within the inverted tree of the physical cerebrospinal nervous system. This triple tree has its roots of thought emanations, life-force rays, and cranial nerves hanging upside down from the eternal Cosmic Consciousness above its ideational, astral, and physical spinal trunks; and its triple branches hanging below.
[…] In the human body, the physical tree of nerves is a gross manifestation of the astral tree of life energy within. The two trees of nerves and life force are condensed out of the tree of human consciousness, the elemental ideas in the causal body, which in turn emanate from Cosmic Consciousness.

Paramahansa Yogananda: The Bhagavad-Gita, p.927-928

 

Seraph

Until the time of the prophet Isaiah seraph signified a sacred serpent with three pairs of wings. Isaiah then took over this name for the angels. Since that time Seraph has been the name of an angelic being with three pairs of wings. Sefiroth is a whole host of such angels. In the Cabbala there are ten such creative sefiroth. Sefirah literally means emanation (radiation). In modern scientific terminology the sefiroth would be known as emanating energy fields.

E. Haigh: The Wisdom of the Tarot p. 32 f

Key words for the 10 Sephiras
Their number illustrates their place in the step by step process from God to matter, and thus also from matter and back to God:

1 Kether Pure Spirit
2 Chockmah Wisdom
3 Binah Understanding
D Daath Experience
4 Chesed Compassion
5 Geburah Discipline
6 Tiph-Ereth Beauty, harmony
7 Netzach Achievement
8 Hod Glory
9 Yesod Foundations of Life
10 Malchuth External world

Here from Kate Rheeder:
Qabalah a beginner’s guide p 39

The Qabalah or tree of life is depicted as ten circles, called Sephiras with connecting lines, called paths, and organised in three columns, together appearing almost like a tree.

The ten Sephiras connect to each other in a certain order, depicting how the soul gradually moves from unity with the Divine, and into identification with matter. The first Sephira is the source. By analogy it can be represented as white light. If the white light of the first Sephira is projected through the other nine Sephiroth it is divided into its component colours and shades, just as light is refracted by a prism. The Theosophists call this phenomenon the seven rays of creation.

The Tree of Life as a translation of the aura
The images describe the energy in the journey

If we understand the paths that the creation follows as movement and direction of energy from sefirot to sefiroth, and bear in mind the basic law in physics that state that change or movement is only possible where there is an energy difference, then it follows, that there is a difference in the energy between two ends of a path and between two Sefiroth on the Tree of Life.

This is happening in the astral aura, and the astral is special in that information is stored as images. It follows that the images describe the energy in the journey. The Sephirats describe the main stations of the journey

Nadi

Nadi refers to points or stars. The word is used as reference to stars as in Nadi shastra. It is also used in the science of Ayurveda to refer to points in the body

Vedic Astrology, Glossary

Working with the secondary chakras is at the same time working with the nadis

The chakras act as energy distributors. The primary energy is channelled from the receiving chakra, to its secondary chakra(s) via nadis, and from there, via nadis, to the nerves and endocrine system and blood circulation in the physical body.
Working with the secondary chakras is thus at the same time working with the nadis.

The descriptions [of the nadis] vary considerably, both in particulars and degree of detail. […] some maintain that the nadis are an intrinsic element of the astral body, because the nadis are composed of subtle matter. Other researchers claim that the nadis are identical with the cardio-vascular and nervous system.
There is no general consensus concerning the number of nadis which exists in the body, figures vary from 1000 to 350.000. The number of nadis that most often is expressed is 72.000.

Out of these, ten, fourteen or fifteen, again dependent on the text, are deemed especially important.
The three major nadis, Ida, Pingala and Sushumna, originate in the Muladhara [root chakra]. These are the most important among the reputedly 72.000 nadis in the body. […].

Motoyama H.: Theories of the Chakras:
Bridge to Higher Consciousness.

Energy-movement and Tarot

The many levels of energy-movement from God to matter will on the astral level be seen as images. These images will have a universal, archetypical content, because they reflect the universalities of what constitutes the human make-up.

These universal images are what the original 22 major arkana tarot cards in a crude way depict.

The illustrations on a major arkana tarot deck are of course an artist’s impression and generalisation of the images, of which each of us have our own inner individualised designs, often showing up in dreams.
The energy in the paths, between the various Sephirots in the Tree of Life, is at the same time the basic building blocks leading creation from the unmanifested divine to the physical and vice versa, and so describing a model of personal and spiritual development.
If we were able to contain the essence of all the paths, altogether, in a consciousness of Oneness (higher consciousness), then the strings holding us to the karmic cycles of rebirth would be gone, we would not need a physical body, we would be enlightened.

 

REMEMBER:

THE TAROT CARDS
DO NOT ILLUSTRATE
THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE,

IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THESE FIGURES AS
THE INNER MALE AND FEMALE ASPECTS EACH OF US HAVE,
REGARDLESS OF OUR PHYSICAL SEX.

Healing and Tarot

We teach you to use the Major Arkana tarot in hands on healing together with the cosmic cards
Tarot used alone, is powerful, but there is a risk, that issues are exposed, without being able to do something about it.
Tarot used in combination with the Cosmic cards, and the contemplations connected to the cards, combine to form a powerful tool of transformation; utilizing energies from the higher order or Dharma embedded in the cosmos. (Patience is as always needed!)

 

The zodiac, planets and tarot affect us on different levels of our being.

The Star signs in the zodiac and the planets are archetypes; they are parts of our blue-print and part of the blue-print that caused us to be who we are.
They interact with us in different ways, roughly describable in this way:
The star signs are our hardware; together the star signs emanate the energy that determines our makeup, our physical and psychical building blocks.
The planets are our software, it is they who provide us with the strength’s or limitations we have in dealing with our reality and life.
Tarot is relating to the astral-emotional level, and is thus closer to our everyday consciousness.

 

About the cosmic cards

Behind the cosmic pictures and exercises is an appreciation of the wisdom apparent in Rudolf Steiner’s teaching, together with aspects of western astrology and Jyotish, the Vedic astrology from the East.

The Sun, Moon and planets are connected to the human body in accordance with, the Guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar’s teaching.
The solar system with its planets starts here with the Earth, and then comes the Moon, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The outmost planet, Pluto, is excluded, because only computer images and no real photos of the planet exist so far.
Pluto is also excluded because it is not necessarily constructive to work with the lower astral realms at this stage in human evolution.
Pluto rules the underworld, which could be translated as "anything that pulls us down", roughly the same as the lower astral.

If we could see through all our projections
Down to the last traces,
Our personality would be extended to
Cosmic dimensions

Marie Louise Von Franz

Myth

Myth makes a connection between our waking consciousness and the mystery of the universe. It gives us a map or picture of the universe and allows us to see ourselves in relationship to nature, as when we speak of Father Sky and Mother Earth. It supports and validates a certain social and moral order. The Ten Commandments being given to Moses by god on Mount Sinai is an example of this. Lastly it helps us pass through and deal with the various stages of life from birth to death. The first function of mythology is to sanctify the place you are in.

Joseph Campbell: Reflections on the Art of Living

REMEMBER:

The myths about the planets and the zodiac do not illustrate the interactions between outer people, It is important to understand the interactions as

THE INTERACTIONS GOING ON IN THE PSYCHE
IN EACH OF US

The Myths illustrate how these interactions
Honour or not honour, kill or rape
Our own inner constituents
Regardless of our physical sex.

 

How to use the pictures

We ask you to organise the tarot-cosmic-cards spread in the 1-3-4 mandala, and this mandala in its totality is a very worthwhile object for contemplation.
Try not to analyse, let your mind be affected by the images, do not understand, just absorb.
The Cosmic pictures are meant as meditative tools, a good technique for meditation on them is the Double-poled awareness:
We recommend you to give this exercise to others with caution…
The most obvious card to use is the Core- card, the zodiac sign that was chosen first.

The technique is as follows:

Focus your gaze in a relaxed way on the picture, at the same time as you in your minds eye connect with the chakra it relates to, and ponder the contemplation that belongs to it.
This is called double-poled awareness, and is a classical technique to enhance meditation (used in the western spiritual traditions for example on Christian Icon’s, in the east for example on mandalas of deities, the Thangka’s)

The idea is that when the two directions of thought - towards the image and towards for example the reference point in your body - when these two directions are of equal strength, a qualitative leap will happen. The mind will be suspended and a meditative state is experienced. This will most likely happen only in fractions of a second at a time, with the normal mind taking over in between.