The ten sepiroth belimah described in the Book of Shaping (BoS) comprise a list of steps toward attaining mystical states of awareness leading to the activation sacred space and occult accomplishment. The tallies of the list are meant to be addressed in pairs, each of which is balanced by a center of alignment with the supra-mundane (divine). It is a stance or attitude upon which all subsequent accomplishment is built, and is known as the Covenant (BRITh). The condition is mandatory in the BoS if we are to attain results. It represents a frame of awareness ideally suited for meditation practices leading to a state similar to the one-pointed focus of samādhi in Yoga. In the BoS the comparable state is AIN, a term conventionally denoting the negative article- not surprising considering the void state induced in consciousness during high contemplation practice.
QBLH addresses the ten reckonings as a mystical description of divine creation. As representations of the meeting point between divine will and human potential, the macrocosm reflects the microcosm. In our exposition of the BoS, where we address the latter, the text refers to a human agent of mastery as an example of successful practice. From an esoteric perspective- that of the work itself- the two approaches can even complement and support each other. The text distinguishes between the first four reckonings and the last six. The former express four sequential contemplative practices. They involve the grounding of the mystical principle (Elohim Chayim and the consciousness that connects dedicates- sanctifies) through practices described in terms of elemental symbolism. The latter correspond to six additional mysteries regarding the aspirant’s experience of spatial presence.
When practice leads to accomplishment the reality-shaping potential of the host is greatly amplified, likely enhancing psychic ability and magical capacity. The Covenant keeps the balance between the pairs, insuring they form a coherent whole. Contemplative focus toward the state of AIN activates them. The practice of circumcision makes a useful allegory of the sacred alignment the Covenant exemplifies. The foreskin is, therefore, like a veil separating the seeker from their divine source. Removal of the veil denudes awareness in the face of divine revelation. Sustaining denuded awareness empowers will to attain the stance or attitude of creative command. This is the positioning of being from which one forges a seat of authority and empowerment. When the denuding of awareness is operant, the conditioning and pretense of the socially adapted nature is no more, and one enters the state of AIN.
The macrocosm-oriented perspectives of QBLH posit more than a single domain of AIN, which is the furthest removed from manifest experience. One is AIN SVP AVR (“AIN-Limit of Light”) or AIN SVP OLYVN (“AIN-limit of Elevation”). Light in the esoteric sense- of the letter equation AVR– is a metaphor for the causal spark that animates awareness. Similarly, Elevation is a metaphor for the peak Creation at the precipice of the transcendent. As a letter equation of divine presence, OLYVN is also a word equation. I render the letter-by-letter interpretation as “the eye of the impulse of action fertilizing sprouts of becoming”. In other words, it is the core of the creative spark, and in this domain. The next layer of transcendence is AIN SVP, the boundary layer between intellectual conception and the purity of the experience. Beyond the boundary layer, there is the infinity/eternity of AIN, the state to which the aspirant strives.
For accomplishment in this work, the aspirant must also have an understanding of the grades of AIN as subjective experiences progressive contemplative awareness. After all, without the subject (microcosm) representing the macrocosm, creation itself does not come full circle- after the proverbial seventh day. To be precise, the “objective reality” of esoteric conception is a mental model meant to reference the mystic experience. Verbal rendering is always off the mark, but still serves as a useful reference from for the mind to grasp and work with. The bottom line, however, is experience. In that sense, the novice deepens meditative practice to encounter and embody unconventional and often ecstatic states of awareness. Without an analytic map- albeit more metaphor than literal- to help navigate the territory, confusion and the defense mechanisms of the individualized persona (ego) could derail the process. This is true with or without the presence of a personal teacher, who is ideally more like a coach than they are a preacher of dogma.
The QBLH Tree of Life itself- as a two-dimensional construct- maps onto the human form so that the lowest domain is the base of the pelvis and the highest is the crown of the head. The aspirant who experiences presence from within the embodied perspective eventually comes to the threshold of the transcendent. The extension from the top of the tree as the placement of the worlds of AIN corresponds, in the human microcosm, to the extend space beyond the crown of the head. As a transcendent state AIN is neither light nor dark, but a pure transparency beyond any reference. It is the ground of all beginnings. The aspirant strives to channel this into their individual microcosm to activate the sephirot.
Reaching to this power, the aspirant experiences the proximate domain of light (the causal spark of mind). The void-boundary AIN SVP follows as the void of the latent structures of possibility, as opposed to the existing ones of the lower worlds/states. It includes variances and fluctuations of potential emergence with the sense of eternity and infinity prevalent. In pure AIN even possibility dissolves into undifferentiated formless transparency. When the Covenant holds, the void is anything but neutral even though being transparent. The experience of it is most true as a vastness of divine Love. The void-boundary domain itself releases the potential within it the closer to manifestation it gets. That makes it a borderland of existential emergence marked by the distinction of light and dark, active and passive, absorbing and radiating, with flows of purpose (whatever that may be) being all the more prevalent. This is the proximate void of AIN SVP AVR/ OLYVN.
Seeds of possibility transition from the void into manifest experience through application of the covenant in cultivation practice. When the seeds are one with the pure void there is no distinction and really nothing of a seed to speak of in any but the most abstract sense. The existential tension that keeps the seed from its manifest emergence is natural and not an imposition upon the situation. As the self-affirmation blossoms, the tension keeping possibility from reality takes on the nature of the will to be that blends with the energy of self-affirmation. The seed enters an increased state of presence and becomes real to manifestation.
The void is an experience within reach of human awareness, or there would be no point in contemplation practices. The void boundary emerges in an aspirant’s sense of being when the aspirant can trace back the essence of their awareness to its void-immersed seed state. We can liken the experience as activating the beginning of time, which we can term as the first act of the web-seed. The web is the evolutionary potential of the seed. The first act of its seed is the emergence of its indeterminate presence. The successful practitioner experiences the condition in pure awareness as a state of increased existential tension. When the aforementioned seed is present, its liberation from void potential reflects a process of tension release in a compressed spring.
This is the condition of the web seed fertilizing the womb of possibility. The process of ascension is in reverse now, and AIN is being carried into our experience of manifest creation. The aspirant, in this manner, experiences AIN as the womb of possibility rather than an eternal incomprehensible nothingness. The perpetually imploding seed potentials liberated into presence reverse the force of implosion into one of explosion via the transfer of intrinsic existential tension.
The first act of the seed state is its indeterminate presence. The result of the first act is the fertilization of the womb of possibility. The third stage that follows has been expressed in religious literature as the declaration Fiat Lux or “let there be light”. Light is a metaphor for existential causality transforming into evolving presence. The latter is the true otherness that emerges from the void as its creation through the release of the bowstring. Thus, the third stage is the birthing proper of possibility into actuality. Out of these three stages the ten domains of successive primordial becoming can be discerned. The student of evolutionary empowerment can trace the power of becoming through these ten spheres to their own subjective awareness of AIN. In this way the aspirant can understand the void state as their definitive existential boundary.
esothemes 