Creation is One with the Creator - The Bahir

 

.... "This is to say that Creation is One with the Creator....... The soul is the thought and the body is the Creation. The two are ONE. Why does God bless these two who are ONE ? Because this is necessary for Creation to continue to flow and grow and maintain the same kind of momentum exhibited from this first act of renewal. The Lord God mentioned above references our thoughts above that act to bring to us everything that we would have and therefore cause to be named or come into Creation as a living thing. These living things are the life experiences that we go through. "- The Bahir

Bahir Verse 198

The heart of the matter approached so many times, alluded to in countless Torah verses now becomes clear. The secrets of creation itself are discussed.

Bahir verse 198: Why was she called Tamar and not any other name? Because she was female. Can we then say that [it was something special that] she was female? But it is because she included both male and female. For [Tamar means a date palm, and] every date palm includes both male and female. How is this? The frond (Lulav) is male. The fruit is male on the outside and female on the inside. And how? The seed of the date has a split like a woman. Paralleling it is the power of the moon above. The Blessed Holy One created Adam male and female, as it is written (Genesis 1:27), "Male and female He created them." Is it then possible to say this? Is it then not written (Genesis 1:27), "And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him"? It is only then later written (Genesis 2:18), "I will make him a helper opposite him," and (Genesis 2:21), "And He took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh under it." [We therefore see that the male was created first, and only later the female.] But we must say that the Torah uses [three different words]: "formed" (yatzar), "made" (asah), and "created" (bara). When the soul was made, the word "made" is used. [The word "created" is then used:] "Male and female He created them." The word "formed" was used when the soul was combined with the body and the spirit was brought together. How do we know that "forming" means bringing together? For it is written (Genesis 2:19), "And the Lord God formed (gathered) all the beasts of the field and all the flying things of the heaven, and He brought them to the Man to see what he would call each thing." This explains the verse (Genesis 5:2), "Male and female He created them." It is also written (Genesis 1:28), "And God blessed them."

Commentary: This verse mentions Tamar as a reason for expounding the relationships between male and female in terms of the energy that each represents. Tamar shows us the unity of male and female as indicated by the date palm and the above verse “male female he created them.” Lets approach this from the standpoint of thought which issues from the Creator and then transforms itself into the image of that Creator becoming in effect the response of creation directed due to the action of the Creator. Male is the Creator or the active force of Intention. It is what we’ve been calling our ‘heart’s desire’ all along during these discussions. This is referenced above when ‘he brought them to the man to see what he would call each thing.’ What we call something is our Intention. Everything we see above that has to doing with being formed, created or made out of something is the female counterpart of the male principle. These all are various levels of gestation that take place whenever we realize an Intention in our thoughts. 

Here is the scenario laid out by the above verses. We have an Intention. 

"And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him"

This Intention comes from the Creator. It is placed within us as an image of that which the Creator wishes to see represented in His Creation. How will this come about? 

"I will make him a helper opposite him,"

This is the female aspect or the Creation itself. It is the form of the Image that is being cast by the Creator through the agency of His Creation. What is this agency?

"And He took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh under it."

This is say that Creation is one with the Creator. Ribs are the housing or container of the body. Taking the representation of this container all that is now make takes on it semblance as in closing the flesh under. This container is where our thoughts take form as when the soul is brought into the body bringing both together. The soul is the thought and the body is the Creation. The two are one. Why does God bless these two who are one? Because this is necessary for Creation to continue to flow and grow and maintain the same kind of momentum exhibited from this first act of renewal. The Lord God mentioned above references our thoughts above that act to bring to us everything that we would have and therefore cause to be named or come into Creation as a living thing. These living things are the life experiences that we go through.

There is a Divine Presence below, just like there is a Divine Presence above. What is this Divine Presence?.... "The whole earth is filled with His glory... I will surround you and see you all day long." - The Bahir

Bahir: Verse 170. What is the meaning of "Victory of Victories"? There is a single Victory (Netzach). Which is it? It is the one that inclines toward the west. And what is secondary to it? This is the one that inclines toward the north. And the third one? This is the one that is below. The third one? But you have said that the Chariot has two wheels. We must therefore say that the end of the Divine Presence is also called Victory. This is the meaning of "Victory of Victories." "Victory" is one, and "Victories" is two, giving [a total of] three.

Commentary: The wheels of the chariot or the Ophanim are going in directions at right angles to each other which brings to mind a gear like arrangement. The sum total of both directions turns out to be a third direction. Here we are talking about what is flowing into and then flowing from Netzach or the eighth Sephiroth. Like the Sephiroth the energy of the Divine Presence flows from above to below and then again to the above from below. This is explained further in the next verse 171 but for here the context becomes Netzach as a source of empowerment. What specifically could be happening here at Netzach to make it the subject of this particular discussion tying it into the Divine Presence? We'll delve into this here and expound upon it in the next verse during the commentary there.

First of all take the energy of the Divine Presence. What is this? It is the energy of thought patterns that have linked themselves to unity through Torah. Admittedly this is hard to explain. Once a connection is established within Torah this facilitates the formation of paths of consciousness between Torah and the inner central core of your being tied to your soul and ultimately where the spark of G-d rests. Thoughts align themselves into associations of ideas forming the unseen latticework whereby this connection is able to operate. In any system of transference of energy where there are valves to regulate the flow of energy the rate of egress through the valve usually has a certain point where the valve will open. Too little and the valve remains closed until the threshhold is reached and then the valve opens allowing the energy (water, electricity, mind stuff, etc.) to pass freely through. Netzach then is a nexus it is being pointed out to allow the two way passing of energy flowing downward and upwards along the Tree of Life considered as a diagram of the Sephiroth with the various energy signatures that each Sephiroth has. Victory that is one is the passing from Netzach through to Yod the next Sephiroth. This is the West or to the left of Netzach but still moving downward. The Netzach that is described as Victories is the result of the return flow of energies that is moving upwards perhaps directly to Binah and Chokma in a straight. The third of the Victories that is described is the movement both from Tiphereth to Netzach and to Tiphereth from Netzach. These are the forces working as described by the thought form of the Ophanim and the wheels of the chariot. These wheels also refer to the energy centers within called chakra's in Eastern meditational symbolism.

The central idea to remember here is that thought raised to a vibrational level of unified awareness becomes self aware causing the flowing of what is called the Shekinah which is none other than our sense of the Divine Connection or Presence that we feel as our thoughts align themselves with the Creator blessed be He. More on this in the next verse.

Verse 171. His disciples said to him: From above to below we know. But from below to above we do not know. He replied: Is it not all one ­ below to above and above to below? They said: Our master, ascending is not the same as descending. One can run while descending, but cannot do so while ascending. He replied: Go out and see. He sat and expounded to them: There is a Divine Presence below, just like there is a Divine Presence above. What is this Divine Presence? We have said that it is the light that was derived from the first Light, which is Wisdom. It also surrounds all things, as it is written (Isaiah 6:3), "The whole earth is filled with His glory." What is its function? What is this like? A king had seven sons, and he assigned each one a place. He said to them, "Sit here, one above the other." The lowest one said, "I will not sit at the bottom. I do not want to be far from you." [The king] replied, "I will surround you and see you all day long." This is the meaning of the verse, "The whole earth is filled with His glory." Why is He among them? This is so that He should support them and sustain them.

Commentary: The question concerns what is the below to above that is being explained. The students understand the flow of energy in terms of coming from Keter and flowing through each Sephiroth into Malcuth via the seven earths. What they don't understand is the return flow. What could initiate such a return flow? The answer is given that the King described in the mini parable is always surrounding the centers of awareness watching all day long. When we pray our prayers align themselves according to our merit in various centers of awareness. These centers are symbolized by the glyph of the Tree of Life. Like the example given in verse 1170 these prayers build up and cause the valves to open releasing more energy causing us to feel the Shekinah and then to let go and let this energy pass through us. As it passes through it receives the watchful attention of the holy one blessed be He. This attention is alluded to by the phrase "I will surround you and see you all day long." The reason for this is that these prayers reference holiness and in effect give off holiness. When this holiness is earthed it is then that it sets up the return flow mirroring the reflection of thought producing after its kind the image of that reflection above which then turns it around to begin this process all over again.

Where is the Garden of Eden ? It is on EARTH. - The Bahir

It is written (Psalm 104:2), "He wraps Himself in Light as a garment, [he spreads out the heavens like a curtain]."

Rabbi  Amorai asked: Where is the Garden of Eden ? He replied : It is on EARTH. - The Bahir (p. 12)

עֹטֶה אוֹר כַּשַּׂלְמָה נוֹטֶה שָׁמַיִם כַּיְרִיעָה:



His talmidim (students) said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

Reb Y'Shua said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter
of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the EARTH, and men do not see it." - (113) T'oma (The Twin)

Isha Upanishad - Everything is God

The Isha Upanishad says  ......... the One Cosmic Existence shines through all things.

All manifestation is merely a modification of the One Supreme Whole .... The Whole therefore remains unaltered. - Isha Upanishad

All existence is in the Absolute; and whatever exists, must exist in It; - Isha Upanishad

In the light of true wisdom the phenomenal and the Absolute are inseparable. - Isha Upanishad

The indefinite term “That” is used in the Upanishads to designate the Invisible–Absolute, because no word or name can fully define It. - Isha Upanishad

OM! That (the Invisible–Absolute) is whole; whole is this (the visible phenomenal); from the Invisible Whole comes forth the visible whole. - Isha Upanishad

...so long as man believes himself to be separate from the Whole, he is helpless. - Isha Upanishad

That is the ocean, we are the drops. So long as the drop remains separate from the ocean, it is small and weak; - Isha Upanishad

That which comes out of the Infinite Whole must also be infinite; hence the Self is infinite. - Isha Upanishad

...there is no difference between the Self and God. They are one and the same. - Isha Upanishad

Transcending death means realizing the difference between body and Soul and identifying oneself with the Soul - Isha Upanishad

..when he sees all creatures within his true Self, then jealousy, grief and hatred vanish. He alone can love. - Isha Upanishad

He who sees all beings in his Self and his Self in all beings, he never suffers - Isha Upanishad

We must not divide our conception of the universe; for in dividing it, we have only fragmentary knowledge and we thus limit ourselves. -Isha Upanishad

.... behold the vast, radiant, subtle, ever–pure and spotless Self, the true basis of our existence. - Isha Upanishad

It moves and It moves not. It is far and also It is near. It is within and also It is without all this. - Isha Upanishad

When a man sees God in all beings and all beings in God, and also God dwelling in his own Soul, how can he hate any living thing? - Isha Upanishad

He who perceives the Self everywhere never shrinks from anything, because through his higher consciousness he feels united with all life.

He who perceives all beings as the Self for him how can there be delusion or grief, when he sees this oneness (everywhere) ? Isha Upanishad

He who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, he never turns away from It - Isha Upanishad

It is the innermost Soul of all creatures & It is without as the essence of the whole external universe... Isha Upanishad

It is near to those who have the power to understand It, for It dwells in the heart of every one - Isha Upanishad

"Ein Od Milvado" - Nothing exists except God

When one contemplates things, everything is revealed as one. - Zohar

I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Earth's crammed with Heaven, And every common bush afire with God. - Elizabet Barrett Browning

Ein Od Milvado - There is only God. God is One.





Someday you will hear all things applaud your wonder. Life claps in awe of the Divine's performance. - Meister Eckhart

The only zen you find at the top of mountains is the zen you bring up there - Robert M. Pirsig

To know yourself, to surrender to the truth of yourself, is to surrender to love. ~Gangaji

The Kingdom of God is within you - Yahshua the Nazorean (Luke 17:21)

Carl Jung on the Infinite God / "Ein Sof"

Kabbalah emphasizes the importance of collecting the divine sparks in the world. It also has the idea of Tikkun, the restoration of the world. For Jung and the alchemists, the world the ego are necessary and beneficial. 

Both God and humankind must pass through the world and redeem it in order to realize their full essence.

Lurianic Kabbalah emphasizes the same idea in how it views God. According to Scholem, Luria adopted the earlier Kabbalistic term Ein-sof to designate the primal, all-encompassing "Infinite God".  This God, according to the Kabbalists, was both the totality of being and the abyss of complete “nothingness.” This totality is also the union of opposites.  

The idea that God encompasses both good and evil can be found in Kabbalah’s idea of the left and right side of God.   Carl Jung refers to how Lurianic Kabbalah seeks to restore the world:

"The Jew has the advantage of having long since anticipated the development of consciousness in his own spiritual history. By this I mean the Lurianic stage of the Kabbalah, the breaking of the vessels and man's help in restoring them. Here the thought emerges for the first time that man must help God to repair the damage wrought by creation. For the first time man's cosmic responsibility is acknowledged." 

Jung had a vision that he described as the most tremendous and "individuating" experience of his life. He found himself in the “garden of pomegranates.” This is an allusion to a Kabbalistic work of that name by Moses Cordovero. In the vision, Jung identified himself with the union of Tifereth and Malchuth as it is described in the Kabbalah. Jung describes these visions as occurring in a state of wakeful ecstasy, "as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe in the womb of the universe." He further describes his experience as one of indescribable "eternal bliss." He reports: 

"Everything around me seemed enchanted. At this hour of the night the nurse brought me some food she had warmed... For a time it seemed to me that she was an old Jewish woman, much older than she actually was, and that she was preparing ritual kosher dishes for me. When I looked at her, she seemed to have a blue halo around her head. I myself was, so it seemed, in the Pardes Rimmonim, the garden of pomegranates, and the wedding of Tifereth with Malchuth was taking place. Or else I was Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, whose wedding in the afterlife was being celebrated. It was the mystic marriage as it appears in the Kabbalistic tradition. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. I could only think continually, "Now this is the garden of pomegranates! Now this is the marriage of Malchuth with Tifereth!" I do not know exactly what part I played in it. At bottom it was I myself: I was the marriage. And my beatitude was that of a blissful wedding." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 294)- From : Theosophy and Gnosticism: Jung and Franz von Baader by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

"Whatsoever is, (ie: Everything) is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." - The Ethics

Spinoza said: "Whatsoever is, (ie: everything) is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." - The Ethics 

Yeshua bar Yosef said: " I am the ALL (ie: Everything); the ALL came forth from me, and the ALL attained to me. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there." Gospel of Thomas(77) 

Spinoza said: "God is the indwelling..." 

Yeshua bar Yosef said: "The Kingdom of God is WITHIN you..." - Lk 17:21 

Moses Cordovero said : Do not say "This is a stone and not God." God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity." 



Yeshua taught : "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you ?" 1 Cor 3:16 

Abraham Abulafia said : "Now we are no longer separated from our Source, and behold we are the Source and the Source is us. We are so intimately United with IT, we cannot by any means be separated from IT, for we are IT." 

Yeshua bar Yosef said : " May they be One as we are One, I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete Unity" John 17:23 

Albert Einstein said : "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world...." 

Carl Sagan said: "Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others - for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein - considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws." 

Albert Einstein said : ""A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace ALL living creatures and the WHOLE of nature in its beauty." 

NonDuality - "Ein Sof" or infinite nothingness

According to Michaelson, nonduality begins to appear in the medieval Jewish textual tradition which peaked in   Hasidism : 

As a Jewish religious notion, nonduality begins to appear unambigously in Jewish texts during the medieval period, increasing in frequency in the centuries thereafter and peaking at the turn of the nineteenth century, with the advent of Hasidism. It is certainly possible that earlier Jewish texts may suggest nonduality – as, of course, they have been interpreted by traditional nondualists – 

Michaelson explores nonduality in the tradition of Judaism:

Judaism has within it a strong and very ancient mystical tradition that is deeply nondualistic. "Ein Sof" or infinite nothingness is considered the ground face of all that is. God is considered beyond all proposition or preconception. The physical world is seen as emanating from the nothingness as the many faces "partsufim" of god that are all a part of the sacred nothingness

From :   Everything is God, The Path of Nondual Judaism by Jay Michaelson

Shlomi Shabat - Ein Od Milvado, There is nothing else than God. שלומי שבת - אין עוד מלבדו

שלומי שבת - אין עוד מלבדו

Shivi Keller - Ein Od Milvado in Woodmere

אין עוד מלבדו (God) there is nothing else besides Him.

Ein Od Milvado  :  Hebrew:  אין עוד מלבדו‎, "There is none but Him [God]"

Hashem is God; there is nothing besides Him. (Devarim 4:35)

To remove all opposition… When a person focuses his mind on this fact — that Hashem is the true source of all and there is no other force or power whatsoever — and he completely cancels in his mind all other seeming powers…Hashem will help him by causing all other illusionary powers to be removed and canceled…. (Nefesh HaChaim 3:12)

Bereishis

The Foundation

Parashas Bereishis teaches the fundamental foundations of life and what our purpose is in this world. “Hashem created the heavens and the earth out of nothing” is the basic principle of “ein od milvado” — there is nothing else besides Hashem.

When we see the world around us, we must realize that it does not possess intrinsic being. Everything that exists depends on Hashem’s will to maintain its existence. Hashem is the creator of all; His essence is the only true reality (Rambam, Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 1:4). This is the deeper understanding of “Hashem is One.” He is the One and Only Creator. Everything in the world is His creation.