The Kabbalistic Tree of Life
The Kabbalistic tree of life is an ancient and profound diagram that is intimately related with alchemy, tarot, numerology, Hebraic wisdom, and astrology. A basic understanding and orientation to the map of the tree of life is useful to guide us in our inner work.
The key to studying Kabbalah is in the development of intuition, imagination and inspiration, in order to work with these cosmic forces in a practical manner and not get lost in intellectualism.
Practical Kabbalah
To truly know Kabbalah, to practice it, is to walk the initiatic path.
To incarnate the fruits of the tree of life requires an esoteric and psychological work. To move beyond our selfish nature, to love and sacrifice for others, always remembering shekinah, the divine grace, the gift of God.
Each sephirah, each pathway, each dimension, each pillar, is a lifetime of study and reflection unto itself. The focus of this article is the three triads that divide the nine superior sephiroth into three basic levels.
Logoic Triangle
The topmost triad is the logic, or supernal, triangle. The holy trifecta of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, also known as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or Osiris, Isis and Horus.
This triad contains the mystery of the trimurti or the trifecta in Christianity. Chokmah, the Christ, is an unfoldment from Kether, the Father. Binah, the Divine Mother is an unfoldment of the Christ.
Ethical Triangle
The middle triad is the ethical triangle. Revolutionary ethics have nothing to do with right and wrong as we understand it, but always working to have the will of God prevail, to allow the divine influences to guide the lower.
In this triad contains the sephiroth called Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth. Here is the mystery of the human soul united to the divine soul, something that happens at a certain stage of initiation, a wedding of the soul to the spirit.
Samael Aun Weor writes in his book, The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah that while the human soul, which is masculine, works, the divine soul, which is feminine, plays. This is the union of love that everyone on earth is truly searching for.
The sephiroth Geburah and Chesed represent the balance of justice and mercy. Justice without mercy is tyranny; mercy without justice is anarchy.
Magical Triangle
The lowest triad is the magical triangle, consisting of the mental, astral and vital worlds.
The sephiroth called Netzach, Hod and Yesod.
We who have our center of gravity in the physical world can access these higher planes only by uniting our vital force, intention and mind toward the divine. Here is the bridge to access the will of our Being, and the wisdom and love of God. This is the realm of ritual which is an act that vibrates into other dimensions.
Malkuth
Malkuth is the physical plane. Malkuth is a fallen sephirah.
It is the “wilderness” where Adam and Eve (the Lemurian humanity) were cast after they had eaten the fruits of the tree of knowledge and broken the law of God.
There are 48 cosmic laws in Malkuth, 24 laws in Hod, 12 in Netzach, and only 1 law: law of love, in Kether.
In Malkuth we have a much greater struggle against materialism to find the spiritual, which is understood with a study of the tree of knowledge. We stand on the brink of heaven and hell.
Above us is Yesod, the 9th sphere, the vital sexual force, the way off of the tree. Below us is the Klipoth, the shadow realms, where there are more laws, more darkness, more conditioning.
References and further reading
Kabbalah from Gnostic Muse
Dion Fortune, The Mystical Kabbalah
Samael Aun Weor, The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah