“These notions formed a basis for many legends. For example, the legend about Isis and god Ra known today. According to this legend god Ra was bitten by a snake and had to tell his secret name to goddes Isis in order to be cured. And due to this secret name Isis got power over the king of gods.”
“I wonder,” Nikolai Andreevich uttered, “If they paid so much attention to it in Ancient Egypt, we may assume that all this information was based not on emptiness?”
“Surely,” Sensei nodded.
“And which knowledge was its basis?”
“As far as the genuine name of a human concerned… It was considered initially that when the soul appeared in the material world God gave it a name which the soul kept secret during all the reincarnations. God communicated with the soul through this name, and when it rippened He called for it. If someone got to know in some way the genuine name of the human soul, he could use it and influence on the human himself. But as a rule this knowledge is available apart from Boddhisattvas only to highly spiritual people who finish their earthly cycle of reincarnations. It happens seldom among people that the name given to a human from his birth coincides with his genuine name. But as a rule the human himself doesn’t have a slight notion of that. And this ‘coincidence’ happens not occasionally but in especially significant cases.
“Unfortunately nowadays this knowledge is regarded as ‘fantasy’. Though a certain echo of this knowledge about names as an understanding of the first element in a human, of a certain deep innemost essence, what is put into the human essence, exists within different peoples. For example, the Indo-European word meaning the name ‘n-men’ refers to ‘in’, ‘inside’. Or the Russian dialect word ‘voimya’, meaning ‘name’. Hindu, in the Brahmanical concept, believe that the genuine name of a human characterizes the nature of its owner, that is ‘name and form’, ‘nāmarūpa’ are identical (by the way, its Vedic prototype is ’nāman:dhāman’, ’name and form’). There is a habit in many cultural and historical traditions to guess the inner essence of a new born baby in order to name it. For example, Zulus have a popular belief that if a baby cries much, they chosen a wrong name for it. Finno-Ugrs consider if they chose not a proper name for a human, it will cause difficulties in his life. But all of this is just an echo.
“In times immemorial a man of knowledge tried not to disturb and to secure his own name, therefore he took a ‘nickname’ which characterized features of his character, or it was at all some transformation of the name of the honoured deity, so that to ‘find protection’ under his name. But with time this knowledge was lost and people imitated only externally traditions of their ancestors. Therefore when some people with excessive megalomania make attempts to ‘influence’ on other people intimidating them and boasting that they possess magic ‘knowledge’ connected with the name, it’s just ridiculous because present names are just that very ‘transformation’. For example, let’s take the ancient Russian name Svyatogor, or German Siegfried, it’s nothing more that ‘victory + protection’. Or let’s take modern names like Andrew, John, Mary, Kseniya etc, these are the names of Christian saints who were taken in their turn from transformantion of meanings for different qualities of a ‘God’s man’. Thus the loss of genuine knowledge caused in fact the human ‘paranoia’ concerning speculations and manipulations with ordinary names, pretending ‘influence’ on the owner of that name. It came to such a point of absurdity that in that very Egypt later priests unleashed wars between themselves and captured ancient monuments by a such banal reason of human egocentrism as wiping off the names of genuine builders of these monuments and ‘immortalization’ on that place of their own names. Since the ancients mentioned ‘As long as the name lives, its owner is immortal’. In Ancient China it was prohibited to say aloud the name of the ruling emperor so that nobody could harm him. In ancient times Jews changed their names on any occasion so that ‘evil spirits could hardly find the genuine name’.”
“That’s right,” Eugene said with a laugh, “so that they weren’t found by those from whom they borrowed money.”
Everybody laughed sincerely.
“That’s true!” Nikolai Andreevich nodded laughing.
When the laugh faded out Sensei said, “So, all of that are human affairs.” And keeping silence for a while he added. “There is an ancient Indian wisdom written in Upanishads concerning this multitude of names in reincarnations of a human, “All rivers flow and disappear in the sea losing their name and image, the same way a man of knowledge freeing himself from the name and form ascends to divine Purusha’…”
“To Purusha? Does it mean the primeval man?” Nikolai Andreevich specified.
“Yes,” Sensei replied and explained to all of us. “Purusha refers to the primeval man in ancient Indian mythology, elements of universe appeared from him, he is a universe soul… And as far as the secret name of God concerned… It should be mentioned that many ancient people which were called later by Jews as ‘paganic’ had a legend that there was a rare possibility for a ‘mere mortal’ (that is for an ordinary man) to gain power like that one of gods. And it was connected with the knowledge of the secret Word under which the secret name of God was hidden. I should mention that though these legends are deeply covered with a veil of mythology and mysticism, they are based per se on the principle of what is called today as the Grail. I will tell you about it later.”
“It would be quite interesting to listen to it,” Nikolai Andreevich uttered with impatience.
“There is time for everything,” Sensei uttered kindly. “But let’s return to the book Zohar, to the information which was adopted… Let’s take for instance ten sephiroths which kabbalists suggest for attributes of God, ‘rays which bear His creative energy’, whereas the light from these rays is perceived by them not through feelings but through wisdom. Names of the sephiroths are Crown, Wisdom, Understanding, Kindness, Justice, Beauty, Victory, Eternity, Foundation, Kingship. Where did they adopt it from and rewrite? From notions of ancient Egyptians about Ka and its connection with gods. Ancient Egyptians believed for example that a baby is taken care by its protective magic forces, that is by male deities which were indicated by the sign of Ka (the sign of hands risen upwards) and female deities which are called Khemsut (‘nurses’) and bear the sign of an arrow on their heads. As a rule there were seven pairs of them (and seven is a sacred figure for ancient Egyptians). And all of them are represented by fourteen names: Force, Power, Flourishing, Food, Worship, Eternity, Shine, Splendour, Glory, Magic (Kheka), Saying (Will to creation), Vision, Hearing, Conscious. 14 Kau and 7 Ba were attributed also to highest God. Make your conclusions yourselves.
“Or let’s take for example how kabbalists give an interpretation to the soul. They repeat what was known long time ago to Eastern peoples that the world of a human is a microcosmos similar to a macrocosmos. Immortal divine substance is located in the middle of microcosmos, and it’s surrounded by external shells. They name these shells as ‘neshamah’ (spirit), it corresponds to ancient Egyptian Akh which you know already, ‘ruakh’, it’s the same ancient Egyptian Ba, soul. But kabbalists included the notion of personality of a human and the place of his will into ‘ruah’. Simply saying they bound into one bunch Egyptian notions of Akh and Ba. And the third shell as to them is ‘nephesh’, that is a body which corresponds to ancient Egyptian Khat. Besides they emphasize that each of these shells has three parts. For example, the very ‘nephesh’ includes not only the physical shell but also an immortal part of ‘nephesh’…”
“Khu Li?” Eugene asked with a cunning smile.
Sensei just