The Treatise on Dragons
Evgueni Tortchinov
| think Nathan of Gaza's division of
supernal Lights into thought-less and
thought-some is of the great
methodological importance. It marks two
contradictory tendencies within the
Absolute Itself:
e Its will to reveal Its essence through
creation (will to appear) and
e Its will to conceal Its essence in the
eternal blissful rest.
The first one was designated by Nathan as
the "faith of the Serpents" and the secondone -- as "the Holy faith". And until the
Redemption these two ways both are the
ways of righteousness. The controversy
between these two modes of the Absolute
Will reflects not only in the Messiah
(AMIRAH, i.e. Sabbatai Zevi)'s mind but in
the creation as such as well in differents
kinds of relidious attitudes (which
themselves are the manifestations of the
intentions of the Absolute). For example,
in the history of religions / philosophies we
can find two types of pantheism. Both
proclaim that the God is the only reality but
the first one tells that all phenomena /
creations are just pure illusion and only
God (impersonal apophatic Absolute)
exists (e.g. Advaita Vedanta). It is the
reflection of the thougt-less Lights’ will and
"the faith of Serpents”.
The second one proclaims that all thecreations are the steps of the Divine
manifestations (like Divine modes or
attributes) and that the Universe is
included in the Divine pleroma, the fullness
of the God (e.g. Ibn Al-Arabi's Sufism or
Jordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza's
philosophical systems). It is "the Holy
faith".
But the contradicton within the Absolute
Will has to be solved through the highest
synthesis of thought-less and thought-
some Lights. In Nathan's Kabbalah the
solution takes place within the Heart of
Ze'ir Anpin, the sefirah Tif'ereth which
produces the Precious Tree (Ilan Yakir),
composed of both Lights. This mystical
Tree emanates the streams of Lights
(Mana Yakira) updown filling the creation
with bliss and connecting 1. the "Serpents"
/"Thought-less Lights" within their sourcein the Absolute (En-Sof) and 2. completing
the perfection of the creation by the
supernal emanations.
This process finds its expression and
symbolical presentation in the integration
of previously split Messiah's mind. Due to
this completion of the process the
Messiah becomes the representation /
incarnation of the God of Tif'ereth (YHWH,
God of Israel) which is "the God of His
Faith" and His Son. In other religious
traditions we also can find this idea of
integration.
For example, Mahayana
Buddhism proclaims the principle of the
unity of Prajna (Wisdom, intuition of the
emptiness of existence, sarva sunyata)
which is the Female passive principle, and
Upaya, Skillfull Means of Compassion --Karuna (Male active principle). Without
Upaya, Prajna is passive and its aim is the
pure emptiness of the Hinayanistic
Nirvana as pure out-of-phenomena-being.
Without Prajna the Upaya is blind and
fruitless. The synthesis of Prajna and
Upaya bears the Bodhi, Enlightment, or
more adequately, Awakening which is the
state of the Buddha outside of the limits of
samsara-nirvana's contradiction. Buddha is
neither in samsara nor in nirvana and He is
in both in samsara and in nirvana at once.
| would be very happy to know your
opinions regarding these issues.