Kabbalah uses another name for the highest of God’s qualities, a name that does not appear in any Scripture. It is Ein Sof, which relates more to God beyond the Creation. This is God transcendent (ad le-ein sof). Gershom Scholem (December 5, 1897 to February 21, 1982), widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah and the first professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, taught that Ein Sof is the emanator of the emanations (sefirot). Sefirot are God’s energy and consciousness emanating throughout creation and found in the Kabbalah Tree of Life, which we will study in a later chapter.
Let’s continue with God, ourselves, and the evolving changes in the name of God.
As the Creation progresses, the name of God is changed. Changing the name of the God reflects changes in our relationship to God, not God’s changing condition. God is unchanged. Originally, we were created in God’s image, in Elohim’s image. (Genesis 1:26) Then, in chapter two, Yahweh Elohim (often interpreted as “Lord God”) creates us out of the dust of the earth and breathes life into us. (Genesis 2:7) In chapter four, Yahweh (Lord) is used during and after the birth of Cain and Abel. As the Bible story continues, God is called Adonai (Master), El (Mighty One), El ‘Elyon (Most High God), El Shaddai (God Almighty), El ‘Olam (Everlasting God), El Hai (Living God), and Avinu (“Our Father,” as found in Isaiah 63:16; Jeremiah 31:9; Psalms 103:13; and 1 Chronicles 29:10). In the New Testament, Jesus continues the Jewish concept of God as Father, using Abba (“Father” in Aramaic and in colloquial Hebrew at the time of Jesus).
All of these names reveal our shifting relationship with God as we grow away or toward oneness with our Creator. Consider how God identified Him-Herself to Moses on the mount when answering Moses’s question about His name: “I am that I am.”
And Moses said unto God, “Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?” And God said unto Moses, “I AM THAT I AM”; and he said, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”
Exodus 3:13–14
We may read this as indicating that the collective cannot possibly be separate from the Creation; therefore, the sense of self that we feel in our expression “I am” is a portion of the Great I AM in whose image all of the little “I am’s” were created and exist. Edgar Cayce expressed it this way: “This is that portion of the lesson as is to be grounded into the inmost Self until all come to know that not only God is God but the self is a portion of that Oneness.” (EC 900–181)
Why the Lower Levels of Being?
In the Garden, after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve hid from God because they felt naked in God’s all-knowing presence. Now there was no way they could be outside of the Whole or beyond God’s all-knowing consciousness, but out of love for them, God developed the illusion of time and space and privacy. In this way they would feel that they had time to become comfortable in God’s presence; they would have a sense of their private realm of imperfection until they could become cleansed and perfect again. The projected, lower, outer mind and being was this opportunity. It was symbolized by God making clothes for Adam and Eve and by their leaving the Garden of God’s immediate presence. The lower divisions of our being gave us the time and space to use our wills to choose life over death, good over evil, and eventually feel comfortable in the All-Knowing’s presence. The separation that we sought eventually becomes a thing of the past as we resolve our discomfort in the presence of the All-knowing. That which had become separated is thus united again.
CHAPTER 4 PLANES OF EXISTENCE
The universe we know is not the first one to have been created, but it is the longest lasting, according to Kabbalistic tradition—and for a good reason. The Creator desired to create companions, companions that chose to be so, thus they had to have free will. These potential companions would also need to grow into their role, gradually becoming fully aware of the life forces flowing through all of creation as well as all that is concealed in the depths of the Infinite Womb. None of this growth and learning would be possible if God’s perfect nature permeated the entire universe, so God withdrew a portion of Itself to allow for the imperfections of Its developing companions, using freedom and choice to grow into their potential. Fortunately, the all-wise Creator established a very effective law to control the possibility for chaos; that law is what we know today as karma: As we sow with our free will, we experience; and as we measure out to others, so it is measured back to us. This law was not established to mete out punishment or retribution, as so many teach, but to provide our souls with the enlightenment and education of experiencing the effects of our free-will actions and thoughts. The Creator’s intent was to help each soul make better choices and become eternal companions to the Creator—consciously and interactively, even co-creators with the Great Creator.
Our wondrous potential is expressed in the Kabbalistic text Hekhalot Zutarti:
What is the man that he is able to ascend upwards, to ride wheels, to descend downwards, to explore the world, to walk on dry land, to behold his radiance, . . . [missing text here], his crown, to be transformed through his honor, to say praise, to combine signs, to say names, to peer upwards and to peer downwards, to know exactly the living and to behold the vision of the dead, to walk in rivers of fire and to know the lightning.
Hekhalot Zutarti, Section 349
The Zohar provides a map of four different planes of consciousness, as do other treatises, old and new. We traverse these planes in our soul-growth journeys. Soul-life experiences occur on these planes, and we may actually have flashes of awareness of these four planes.
In Lurianic Kabbalah (a system containing Indian philosophy, Platonism, and Gnosticism), there are five planes of existence, because they add to the four basic planes the Primordial Being (Adam Kadmon) as a plane of consciousness all its own. See illustration 13. This means that the archetype of the Primordial Being is another plane of experience in our soul growth. The Logos plane becomes a conduit into the Infinite, Ineffable God.
Before we learn about the planes, let’s briefly discuss the Hebrew word olam. Most agree that the word relates to both distance and time, in the sense of “a far distance” and “a long time.” It is so very hard to take our three-dimensional framework and stretch it to grasp fourth, fifth, and higher dimensional realities. Most writers have translated olam as “world” but agree that it could also mean “a plane of unimaginable distance and time.” Even this definition is inadequate, because space and time only exist in our present reality—the third dimension. Fortunately, many of us have come to understand states of consciousness, degrees of awareness, and realms of perception. For example, we recognize the difference between a materialistic person, who mostly lives in the physical reality, as opposed to a person who has a mind that reaches far beyond physicality. We know people who perceive elements of musical experience far beyond normal people—thus possessing a level of perception beyond the norm. We know minds that comprehend the laws governing the universe, while others just live in it, not aware of what is involved. Today we grasp the concept of paradigms, archetypes, and mental constructs; theoretical frameworks of unseen influences upon reality are within our appreciation. All these ideas help us to grasp planes of soul existence and to interpret the word olam in broader understanding.
Now we might quickly use the term states of consciousness, except that the Cayce readings warn that even in higher dimensions, where the physical body is not manifested, there are magnetic-like forces that create vessel-like orbs of being for individual soul-mind entities—a type of “body.” We might think of them as energy fields that form multidimensional bodies.