LIGHT – THE SUBSTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE
by Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Extract from the book, Angels and other Mysteries of The Tree of Life
🌺 Peace, Love & Light
‘Let there be light ! ‘ According to the Book of Genesis, creation began when God pronounced these words. Does this mean that no light existed before that? And how could the divine Word create light? Once more, the Tree of Life can help us to understand.
Before God said, ‘Let there be light,’ the reality that we call light existed only in a form that was inconceivable to us: that which is known as Ain Soph Aur. Also, the ‘Word’ of God has no connection with what we understand by a word. It is simply a way of expressing the notion that, in order to create, God projected something from himself. What he projected was himself, but a new form of himself: that which we call light.
To say that God ‘ spoke’ means that he willed to manifest himself. You are probably thinking that this is very difficult to understand. Not really. Let me illustrate it with an example from everyday life.
Let us say that you have a n idea. Yes, but where is that idea? Can you place it? Can you see it or find it in a particular spot in your brain? No. And you also have to admit that you do not know exactly what kind of matter it is made of. But as soon as you express that idea in words its existence becomes perceptible. And when you eventually put your idea into effect it is actualized and can be perceived. A word is the intermediary between the plane of thought and that of material reality. And this gives you an idea of the process of creation.
Now, if we put this phrase from Genesis, ‘In the beginning . . . God said, “Let there be light”,’ side by side with the opening words of St John’ s Gospel , ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ it will help us to understand better the relationship between the Word and light. Light is the substance that the divine Word, the first-born of God, brought forth to serve as the matter of creation. You will say that when you look at stones, plants, animals, and even human beings you cannot see that they are made of light. True, but that is because the light they are made of has been condensed to such a degree that it has become opaque. The very fact that we generally envisage light as Light, being opposed to matter shows that we do not realize that what we call matter is actually condensed light.
The Cabbalah teaches that God created the world by a process of successive condensations. In order to emerge from that immensity, that unfathomable abyss, that infinite space in which he dwelt,
A in Soph Aur, the Absolute, the Unknowable, imposed limits on himself, and then, overflowing those limits, he formed a receptacle, which he filled with his emanations.
This receptacle is Kether, the first sephirah. Kether is the first manifestation of A in Soph Aur, the unmanifest. Thus one can say that the whole of creation is simply a successive process of the original light pouring out and overflowing from one vessel to the next. Kether overflows and forms Chokmah; Chokmah is, as it were, a vessel filled with the waters of Kether. Chokmah overflows into Binah; Binah into Chesed; Chesed into Geburah. Geburah overflows into Tiphareth; Tiphareth into Netzach; Netzach into Hod; Hod into Yesod, and Yesod into Malkuth.
And as the divine emanation works its way downwards to form new worlds, it becomes more and more dense. But it is always the same quintessence that ceaselessly creates new forces, new colours, new melodies, new forms . From emanation to emanation God created the sephiroth, and life continues to flow from the infinite source.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ‘ In order for Kether to pour forth life, it had to receive it from above, and it received it from A in Soph Aur. A in Soph Aur received it from A in Soph, and A in Soph received it from A in, the absence that was awaiting the moment to become presence.
There is, therefore, an unbroken association between the Absolute and the manifest God, and it is thus that something new is continually being introduced into the universe. The universe is a continuous creation, the matter of which constantly increases and is transformed.
How is this relationship between the Absolute and God established? We do not know.
Indeed, may God forgive me for intruding into such questions, for we must have the courage to confess that nobody knows anything about this. Why talk about it then? Because, insofar as we are created in the image of God, in the image of the universe, something in us that is beyond the realm of consciousness can grasp some tiny particles of this reality. Life is simply a decantation of energies.
This is why we find in the cabbalistic tradition the image of the river of life that flows from the divine source and waters all the regions of the universe. From Kether to Malkuth, the sephiroth are sacred vessels filled by the inexhaustible source of life. Two complementary images, that of a tree and that of a river, illustrate the outpouring and flow of life. You will say that the roots of a tree are down below, whereas the source of a river is up above. Yes, in our material world the roots of trees are in the ground, but the roots of the cosmic tree are in the world above.
Now, let us take the image of a river, bearing in mind that it is no more than that: an image that illustrates one aspect of reality. But as reality itself is far more complex, we need to introduce other elements in order to understand it.
Since the sephiroth are situated on three pillars, it follows that the river of life does not flow in a straight line from top to bottom. As we have seen, on each side of the central pillar are the Pillar of Mercy, polarized positively, and the Pillar of Severity, polarized negatively.
As it flows from one sephirah to the next, therefore, the polarization of the divine emanation changes, and the sephiroth, following on one from another, appear to be in opposItion with the one before and the one after.
Chokmah, for example, which represents harmony and universal love, is followed by Binah, which represents the implacable rigour of divine decrees. Following on the intransigence of Binah, comes the clemency of Chesed, followed in turn by the martial audacity of Geburah, and so on. And as each sephirah corresponds to a divine attribute, a divine virtue, the adjectives used to describe God are not only very different, but they also seem to be contradictory: merciful and terrible, tender and jealous, faithful and vengeful, and so on. All these epithets express the starkly opposite character of the two pillars .
The ‘secret’ to a plentiful life, a life of harmony, happiness and contentment is to have a sattvic mind free from desires and ego and to live in every moment in conscious contact with our true Self (Consciousness).
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
atmannityanada 