The roots of history - Comparing the beginnings

[Celtaur]

The thread on "What does it mean to be Enlightened" has brought up something interesting in the ways of history particularly beginning with post # 5 in this thread, and has me wondering more on not what is enlightenment in it's meaning, but where and when did the first concept of enlightenment begin? What is the history behind this concept? Is it a primal knowing that we are inherently able to attain this state of being? Is it a timeless knowing? The latter two questions may be better illustrated in the referred thread, but the historical beginnings of ancient traditions is very intriguing, or at least their points in history as being established thought.

I know not when Kabbalah began, it's time frame, nor the history of Hinduism in comparison to one another, yet from what I am currently aware, they seem to be of the oldest traditions. I'd like to see a time frame of ancient spiritual traditions from their beginnings. How does the time frame of wisdom from Hinduism compare to the time frame of Kabbalah?

Also, as I have much to learn in Kabbalah, I'm curious on the lineage of teachings of Kabbalah. From what I gather it is the earliest keys of ancient wisdom which were highly influential in the culture of Egypt and it's spiritual traditions. Did it then change and become a more literal adaptation written in allegory for the Hebrews?

I shall read my Bhagavad Gita, which assuredly is a long read, and I'm not sure if some of my answers will be found any time in the near future, however, it would certainly be nice to find out some of this history. I suppose the Gita may teach me more on what the meaning of enlightenment is rather than give me timetables in history.

If I find any timetables in the near future I'll share. If you have any awareness I'd be grateful to learn from you. Any insight on the history of these spiritual traditions would be much appreciated.

[sephir]

Obviously, we cannot be sure that we deal with accurate information when it comes to ancient history, but I believe, more or less it looks like this :



The history of Kabbalah begins with Adam (don't confuse with Adam from Torah). We don't know his real name, however after he revealed the upper governing forces, he named himself Adam (adome/dome דומה = similar to). This name indicates his spiritual level, in other words, similarity to altruistic governing forces he attained. His teaching has been written down probably by his students. Thus the first kabbalistic work appeared, called "Raziel Amalah". The title can be translated as "The Secred Angel". The word "Angel" (malah מלאך) means "force", and it has nothing to do with today's Christianic understanding. Hence, Adam was the first kabbalist, who revealed some of the hidden forces.

Although Kabbalah begins with Adam and his successor Abraham (author of "Sefer Yetzirah"), the entire revealance of the upper forces in scientific way has been done by Moses, author of Torah.

Although the roots of Hinduism and Buddism are questionable, it is worth to notice what is written in Torah. Since Abraham hoped to stop development of egoism, he wanted his teaching to spread out over the World. Torah says, Abraham gathered his students and send some of them out exactly to the place of Hindusim appearance. In fact, the first teachings of Hinduism had nothing to do with religion whatsoever, and they where pretty similar to Sefer Yetzirah, written by Abraham. Although it's just a hipothesis, it has legs...

All I know about Buddism is that this teaching emerged from Hindusim, so in fact, Hinduism and Buddism have the same root.

[Celtaur]

I'm reading the Baghavad Gita As It Is and read this in the first chapter which reflects symbolism relating to the tree of life in Qabalah:

...the real picture of the material world is given. It is said there:

Here the material world is described as a tree whose roots are upwards and brances are below. We have experience of a tree whose roots are upward: if one stands on the bank of a river or any reservoir of water, he can see that the trees reflected in the water are upside down. The branches go downward and the roots upward. Similarly, this material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. The material world is but a shadow of reality. In the shadow there is no reality or substantiality, but from the shadow we can understand that there are substance and reality. In the desert there is no water, but the mirage suggests that there is such a thing as water. In the material world there is no water, there is no happiness, but the real water of actual happiness is there in the spiritual world.

[sephir]

Thanks for the quote, it sounds indeed interesting. There is a strong reason of mentioning the water in this context, and it's not a randomly chosen comparison. If you want, I'll try to describe in detail what exactly water refers to in Kabbalah, but it's going to be a long post...perhaps worthy of new topic.

[Celtaur]

Thanks for the quote, it sounds indeed interesting. There is a strong reason of mentioning the water in this context, and it's not a randomly chosen comparison. If you want, I'll try to describe in detail what exactly water refers to in Kabbalah, but it's going to be a long post...perhaps worthy of new topic.

Absolutely. I would love to read your description on water according to Kabbalah. I hadn't much considered it in the tree reference in the Baghavad Gita.

[Maura]

...Although the roots of Hinduism and Buddism are questionable, it is worth to notice what is written in Torah. Since Abraham hoped to stop development of egoism, he wanted his teaching to spread out over the World. Torah says, Abraham gathered his students and send some of them out exactly to the place of Hindusim appearance. In fact, the first teachings of Hinduism had nothing to do with religion whatsoever, and they where pretty similar to Sefer Yetzirah, written by Abraham. Although it's just a hipothesis, it has legs...

All I know about Buddism is that this teaching emerged from Hindusim, so in fact, Hinduism and Buddism have the same root.

When I think about 'Abrahamic Faiths' Christianity, Judaism, and Islam come to mind...or is this a different Abraham as well as a different Adam?

[Celtaur]

When I think about 'Abrahamic Faiths' Christianity, Judaism, and Islam come to mind...or is this a different Abraham as well as a different Adam?

You are correct as far as I'm aware, this is the same Abraham.

You may find this thread of interest discussing Adam.

[Mohandas]

Obviously, we cannot be sure that we deal with accurate information when it comes to ancient history, but I believe, more or less it looks like this :



The history of Kabbalah begins with Adam (don't confuse with Adam from Torah). We don't know his real name, however after he revealed the upper governing forces, he named himself Adam (adome/dome דומה = similar to). This name indicates his spiritual level, in other words, similarity to altruistic governing forces he attained. His teaching has been written down probably by his students. Thus the first kabbalistic work appeared, called "Raziel Amalah". The title can be translated as "The Secred Angel". The word "Angel" (malah מלאך) means "force", and it has nothing to do with today's Christianic understanding. Hence, Adam was the first kabbalist, who revealed some of the hidden forces.

Although Kabbalah begins with Adam and his successor Abraham (author of "Sefer Yetzirah"), the entire revealance of the upper forces in scientific way has been done by Moses, author of Torah.

Although the roots of Hinduism and Buddism are questionable, it is worth to notice what is written in Torah. Since Abraham hoped to stop development of egoism, he wanted his teaching to spread out over the World. Torah says, Abraham gathered his students and send some of them out exactly to the place of Hindusim appearance. In fact, the first teachings of Hinduism had nothing to do with religion whatsoever, and they where pretty similar to Sefer Yetzirah, written by Abraham. Although it's just a hipothesis, it has legs...

All I know about Buddism is that this teaching emerged from Hindusim, so in fact, Hinduism and Buddism have the same root.

It sounds like you are quite a learned scholar of the Qabalah (Kabballah, Kabalah, Cabballah, Cabala...) It's nice to hear your point of view regarding the history of this ancient and holy teaching. There are several debated theories of which I am aware, concerning the receiving of the Qabalistic teachings.

The one I tend to subscribe to is that Archangel Metatron is the great being to whom the original teachings are accredited. They were first dictated on a plane much higher than that of humanity, then down to Adam, Noah (who passed it to the builders of the Pyramids and the ancient mystery schools) and later Moses. It is said that there was a time when the teachings were lost or perhaps veiled in obscurity and that was when Moses again received them first hinted in the schools of Egypt then later through direct revelation from on High.

The Adam you mentioned, being one different than in the Torah, I am not familiar with nor could I find any reference to he nor 'Raziel Amalah'. In the paradigm with the teachings being attributed to Metatron, I understood that it was in fact the Adam of the book of Genesis, being the first man who received the original framework. The book of Genesis having been written by Moses, the later one to whom the teaching was again revealed. As for the other Adam and his successor Abraham (also not to be mistaken with the father of Isaac and Ismael, I assume), Perhaps you could elaborate on these individuals, it may prove a valuable key to my own learning.

The Sephir Yetzirah or Book of Formation (translation from the original Hebrew available by Wynn Westcott) is a grouping of the principles of creation of this Universe and also humanity into twenty two parts which are at the same time alphabetical and numerical, the Hebrew Alphabet.
To my knowledge and what is, I believe widely accepted by Jews is that the original recipient of the Sephir Yetzirah and therefore the one credited with the receiving of the twenty two letters is in fact Abraham, whom I had assumed to be Father Abraham. The origins of written Hebrew go back some three thousand years or more, yet the Sepir Yetzirah, according to Westcott was put into writing around 200 C.E. So it is very possible that the actual writer took on the name Abraham to give credit to the recipient of the revelation long before, same goes for Adam(s).

We must remember that in all ancient religions there was an oral tradition which far predates the subsequent compilation and committing to writing of any of the scriptures of mankind. In Hinduism, for example there is a time spoken of (Sat Yuga) when people had much more focused a mind and the power of memory was many times greater. There is a story of one king who, being cornered in his palace by enemies who would surely destroy the holy scriptures entrusted to him, recited the four Vedas, each to one of four sons, one time only during one fateful night. In the morning the Raja surrendered his kingdom, along with the books to be destroyed and his sons escaped to carry on the tradition from memory.

In my opinion, the "fall" into writing which the lineage of visualization and true embodiment of the all of the ancient teachings underwent (and this embodiment/visualization implies much more than the term "oral tradition") was the real beginning of misinterpretation, misunderstanding and even perversion of those teachings

As for the position of the emergence of Hinduism on your time line, I would most humbly beg to differ. The Rig Veda is by far the oldest of the four Vedas and was written in an archaic form of Sanskrit and is widely accepted by linguists and historians alike to be the single oldest source of Indo-European writing (Indo-European being the genre of language to which Latin, Greek and later forms of Sanskrit also belong). It stands to reason, though some may disagree, that these later languages have their origins in this ancient Sanskrit of the Rig Veda, making this Veda more than five thousand years old. Who is to say for what length of time before this that the oral tradition (or embodiment/visualization, as I prefer to call it) was passed from master to disciple, master to disciple and so on.

Some scholars site the mention of horses throughout the Vedas as a sign that they were written after the Aryan invasion of India (1700 B.C), there having been no horses or chariots in India prior to that. However, considering the fact that the Rig Veda is written in this most archaic form of Sanskrit, which may well predate the establishing of Varanasi (said to be the oldest inhabited city in the world), it is possible that the Riga Veda came with the Aryan conquerors and their horses and chariots to India and may well have been written long before the invasion. Again, the origin of the tradition of embodiment/visualization which, no doubt existed long before the Rig Veda was written or the dating of that tradition is anybody's guess.

I believe that the oldest known religions may well be remnants of the highly advanced civilization which thrived on our planet much longer ago than our modern history accepts. Perhaps they were the pyramid builders, descendants of Atlantis.....? But that's another thread.
Mohandas.

[sephir]

It's interesting what you are saying about Hinduism and Buddism - I know almost nothing about this area. Although I don't really like to delve into history (just trying to stay away from what is unverifiable), I'm of the opinion, that Kabbalah is coming from people. Saying so I'm basing on two reasons :

1. I realize that Kabbalah might seem to not be written by a human being, as at first sight it contains unusually profound, and perfectly logical contents, having nothing to do with we have ever known. In other words, the first contact with Kabbalah usually makes people think that it's absolutely abstract teaching, even though it appears to be absolutely logical. Missunderstandings made Kabbalah to be surrounded with a variety of guesses and speculations on it, thus creating religions, esoteric traditions, philosophies, that have been based purely on imagination.

As a matter in fact, it's pointless to look for any relations between Kabbalah and our World. Kabbalah focuses on something we do not sense (call it Spiritual World if you want). There is nothing common with Esoteric, Astral, Meditations, and this sort of things, though many others think otherwise. This is why Kabbalah is a source of confusions, as we can't relate it to anything we have ever seen, heard, felt etc. Hence I can realize where the theory involving angels comes from.

There is no other way to comprehend what Kabbalah is really about than acquire another 'sense', which first and further kabbalists developed. As we know, we cannot sense things being different than we are. Similarly to the radio, we have to "vibrate" alike some external wave in order to notice its appearance. The additional sense that Kabbalah develops is altruistic quality within a human being, so that a man gradually starts feeling an additional reality surrounding him. Sudenly, one discovers that as a matter of fact, there is nothing else than altruistic forces, that create an illusion of our world. This sort of perception turns an abstract teaching into a precise science. There is no way to understand what Kabbalah is about untill you start feel that reality the same way Kabbalists do. Before it happens, Kabbalah remains an abstract teaching, that cannot be understood in a proper way at all.

As a kabbalist, I'm convinced it's possible to develop that additional sense on one's own. Today is an extremely hard thing to do, but 5000 years ago, when the egoism level used to be on an inconsiderable level, it was rather a natural thing to do, than a weird teaching coming from a winged guy. I have no doubts that Kabbalah was gradually developed, starting with a tiny spiritual discoveries (described in first kabbalistic books). As a complete science Kabbalah was fully formed along with Torah, which in fact entirely describes the Spiritual World. Further kabbalistic books revealed nothing new - Kabbalah's development following Torah appearance consists in improvement of notation and adapting the kabbalistic method to the current egoistic level. So it's not that Kabbalah suddenly appeared in the World being entirely formed as a science.

2. Another reason that makes me doubt in the theory you brought up is that I have neither seen any angels nor archangels in my life, so for me it's fiction.

warm regards

[Celtaur]

I love the discussion here. Referring to point 1 by Sephir in the above post - From what I am reading in The Mystical Qabalah (so far), the realization of this sense is brought about much like an equation in algebra. We have some of the clues in the form of symbols and associations through the tree of life, and through much learning and experience, our perception develops not of the mind but from something beyond the mind. Through the association clues the unfolding begins - Here we begin to grasp the hidden mysteries through a newly acquired sense.

I am now perceiving the physical world as the complexity of necessary symbols, an emanating model as a tool for the mind to begin its journey towards understanding that which is veiled. For me, it reconfirms as above so below.