Qlippoth and Sefirot, RHP and LHP Duality, Non-duality

[whimsicalwarlock]

I want to first clarify, I am not an expert by any means so this is all just an observation that I've made.

I see so many people on here discussing things in the context of LHP or RHP as an exclusive thing or practice that they or others are engaging in. The more i look into this, the more i'm getting the sense that looking at the Sefirot or the Qlippoth as a singular path to take, is unbalanced. It feels as if the two are really meant to be conjoined as one and practiced together as a whole rather than as two separate paths. The two almost seem necessary to be practiced together because from my perspective it seems to sort of come down to the human mind and the way we have a tendency to think in a very dualistic way and that brings me to my next point.

In Buddhists practice there is a teaching that duality is ultimately an illusion and that you cannot actually have "Light" without "dark" and that at its absolute core there actually is no distinction between one or the other and the difference that we perceive isn't actually real.

I'm having trouble understanding how one path is meant to be the "way to enlightenment" if both are possibly only really just two sides of the same illusion and it feels like the RHP/LHP distinction is a sort of moot point when through the lens of non-duality it seems both are necessary in order to ascend. When you consider the non-dualistic mindset it almost seems to make the distinction between both as insignificant and it seems almost self-defeating to consider them as separate things.

I guess what i'm trying to say or ask for opinions on is, Is it just an illusion or imbalanced to only go one way or the other, or is the entire thing as a whole an illusion distracting us from a higher truth that would take us further into enlightenment, or is it possible every single piece is necessary as it all is just one more stepping stone one each persons path to ascension?

Any input is appreciated. Thank you!

 

[iseht]

The more i look into this, the more i'm getting the sense that looking at the Sefirot or the Qlippoth as a singular path to take, is unbalanced.

They are poles at either end of a single system. The Qlippoth exists because the light of the Sefirot exists, when the shattering of the vessels occured the light became trapped and displaced within the broken shards. Enlightenment through this path is then seeing that the two share the same root, they are the inhalation and exhalation of divinity.

 

[Morell]

There are many way to understand the Tree of Life. Not all include Tree of Death. On some paths, there is no Tree of Death, and Qlippoth are shells around Sephiroth themselves.

And it depends on your path. The balance must be there for everyone, though if you want to work with only one of the trees, I assume that is it possible, as long as you are able to keep balance.

 

[Primeboy777]

Balance is Key

 

[HoldAll]

In my understanding of Lurianic Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah, there's no polarity to be found here. The sephirot have their respective opposites within the Tree of Life, and any balancing force should be exclusively sought there, in my opinion. The qliphot were originally thought to be completely evil, and I don't mean darque chic evil, but inimical to life evil. For example, the opposite of a rich meal (chesed) is a frugal meal or fasting (din/geburah); the qliphotic equivalent would be food poisoning or stomach cancer.

I've yet to come across the whole Tree of Death concept in Jewish Kabbalah, if somebody could point me to a reputable source though, I'd be grateful.

 

[whimsicalwarlock]

In my understanding of Lurianic Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah, there's no polarity to be found here. The sephirot have their respective opposites within the Tree of Life, and any balancing force should be exclusively sought there, in my opinion. The qliphot were originally thought to be completely evil, and I don't mean darque chic evil, but inimical to life evil. For example, the opposite of a rich meal (chesed) is a frugal meal or fasting (din/geburah); the qliphotic equivalent would be food poisoning or stomach cancer.

I've yet to come across the whole Tree of Death concept in Jewish Kabbalah, if somebody could point me to a reputable source though, I'd be grateful.

Oh ok, I hadn't considered it from this perspective. I thought of the tree of death as more of a lack of, like understanding negative side of what happens when theres no wisdom, or no understanding or no mercy. I still saw it as a form of understanding i suppose. From that lens, I have a hard time understand what the actual value of the qlippoth would even be then. Through that perspective, it almost comes across as total spiritual blindness or self destruction

 

[iseht]

Oh ok, I hadn't considered it from this perspective. I thought of the tree of death as more of a lack of, like understanding negative side of what happens when theres no wisdom, or no understanding or no mercy. I still saw it as a form of understanding i suppose. From that lens, I have a hard time understand what the actual value of the qlippoth would even be then. Through that perspective, it almost comes across as total spiritual blindness or self destruction

The Tree of Death is a western occult invention of Mathers and crew. The Golden Dawn lineage blended it with Jungian influences and turned it into the polar shadow work map that most people see today.

The Zohar, where this all came from, presents the Qlippoth very differently, just as HoldAll is describing. The Zohar though is full of meandering lines of thinking and thought exercises that don't really form any kind of complete system so this whole area is really quite open for interpretation, particularly when it comes to use in spiritual practice which the writers of the Zohar weren't terribly concerned about. They were more interested in abstract ontological reasoning.

The core premise is that the Qlippoth are containers for lost sparks of light that must be reclaimed and the excess waste of the qlippothic realms should be discarded. Think of it along the lines of alchemical purification, of extracting gold through a purification process.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:48 PM

"The evil persona of a man is in the Sphere of the Qlippoth, and the devils are the Microcosms of the Macrocosm of the Qlippoth. This evil persona hath its parts and divisions, and of it the part which toucheth the Malkuth of the Nephesch is its Kether. Tremble therefore at the evil forces which be in thy own evil persona. And as above the Kether of a Man are his Angelic and other forms, so below the Malkuth of the Evil Persona are awful forms, dangerous even to express or think of."

This passage from Regardie sums up the modern occultist understanding quite well I think.

 

[Suayakoat]

As someone who doesn't know (or get) the Kabbalah too much (seriously) but who has spend a lot of his time and life experience on what I can confidently say is a left path to spirituality I can say that ultimately that Qlippoth and Sefirot thing is either some deliberate illusion the Jewish wisemen chose to swindle the infidels (or potentially their rivals) as to what they are really practicing, or is a sign they themselves don't fully comprehend the Universe, as well as all of existence, for what it truly is! In either ways the mistake stems from the ignorance about the true Nature of the right and left paths and therefore inability to correctly conceive of the forces operating in this Universe. The true Nature of the right path (and therefore devotion to the divine) is to make possible the merger of your Soul with its ultimate Source-call it God if you will. The left path however doesn't exist in opposition to the right path but rather only as its alternative-for its ultimate goal is to become a Source and thus move out of this Universe and into a creation of your own. That is what all of this right/left distinction boils down to, but I don't seem to find it well articulated anywhere in the Jewish tradition (not that I'm that much of a fan of this tradition or well articulated in it to begin with). This is also why the right and left paths cannot be "played" together and there must always exist a duality between them-not because any of them is essentially "wrong" by its definition, but because they ultimately lead to different things and you can't have them both simultaneously. You are supposed to choose freely what is the ultimate fate you want for your Soul and the right and left paths exist to make it possible for you to walk your road in either cases. Or, at least, that is how I view things and this is my honest opinion on the right/left matter.

 

[Voidking]

In Buddhists practice there is a teaching that duality is ultimately an illusion and that you cannot actually have "Light" without "dark" and that at its absolute core there actually is no distinction between one or the other and the difference that we perceive isn't actually real.

I'm having trouble understanding how one path is meant to be the "way to enlightenment" if both are possibly only really just two sides of the same illusion and it feels like the RHP/LHP distinction is a sort of moot point when through the lens of non-duality it seems both are necessary in order to ascend. When you consider the non-dualistic mindset it almost seems to make the distinction between both as insignificant and it seems almost self-defeating to consider them as separate things.

In buddhist and tantric traditions, there is neither light nor dark, light and dark are judgements made by the mind that attemps to grasp the essenceless essence (of things, beings, perceptions etc) in dualistic terms.

What we term as dark is what we repress or are repulsed by, we can label them as aversions, and vamamarga tantra deals directly with that, convetionally labelled as impure. So stricly speaking, there is no dark neither impurity, only the judging mind says so.

 

[Ohana]

I'm just tired of RHP being everywhere. Being everything. If the RHP is inhalation then I rather not inhalate. I rather just exhalate till their nothing left to exhalate.

Post automatically merged: Today at 9:23 AM

(I look back now and this post may be a bit much but I am just kind of tired of it seeming like that this implies kind of no free will. I mean others can do the combo method but saying another person doing something wrong because they don't incoperate both is I don't know)

 

[HoldAll]

The Jewish Kabbalah was never meant for Gentiles. It was developed by orthodox rabbis of a mystical bent who weren't satisfied with the creation story in Genesis and wanted to discover the secrets of their God by looking for the tiniest clues hidden in their sacred books. In the Rennaissance, some Florentine Christian scholars who were equally intent on learning the secrets of their God (and convert the Jews to Christianity by means of their Cabalah in the process) then took some bits and pieces of Kabbalistic lore to form their own system, this time without regard to possible Hebrew-Aramaic puns and allusions to the Talmud but did adopt exegetical methods like gematria, temura, and notarikon. Hermetic Qabala later continued in the same vein. The Jews never forced the Kabbalah on the Gentiles, it was rather the Gentiles who appropriated the Kabbalah for their own ends - Jewish scholars are dismissive of the results (viz. Gershom Scholem's hostility towards Levi, Waite, and Crowley who called their Kabbalistic knowledge 'abysmal'), the rabbis don't even acknowledge them.

I just skimmed through the Qliphot chapter in the Karlsson book, and @iseht is right – the whole attribution of Goetia demons to individual qliphot comes from Mathers' The Kabbalah Unveiled which sees the qliphot as 'anti-poles' to the sephirot and weaves an entire mythic polarity around them. Karlsson does mention Luria and correctly describes the qliphot as 'husks', 'waste' and 'empty shells' in accordance with Luria's teachings but then relies solely on Mathers who most likely made up the Tree of Death out of whole cloth (or got it from Knorr von Rosenroth or other Christian Cabalists?)

Whether you can in fact create an entirely new system (Sitra Ahra romanticism, etc.) that even works on such shaky foundations I don't know.

 

[Ziran]

I guess what i'm trying to say or ask for opinions on is, Is it just an illusion or imbalanced to only go one way or the other

Imbalance is "good" if one needs loft or an anchor.

Balance is "bad" if one's intention is progress or regression.

Balance is "good" for stasis, temperance, and restraint.

I hope this helps.

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:16 PM

FWIW: within the Kabbalistic model, there are only 3 wholly impure k'lipot. All the others are "k'lipot-nogah", translucent-shells, which can be metaphorically illuminated.

Ref: Ezekiel 1:4, the vision of the divine throne, 3 k'lipot surrounded by "nogah", "brightness".

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וארא והנה רוח סערה באה מן־הצפון ענן גדול ואש מתלקחת ונגה לו סביב ומתוכה כעין החשמל מתוך האש׃​

​

And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came from the north, a great cloud, and a fire flaring up, and a brightness was around it, out of its midst, as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.​

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Post automatically merged: Today at 5:12 PM

Here's a map.

On the left is the chain of emanations, emerging in the now famous tree formation. The chain terminates in an inverted "dark" region to convey a lack of consistent order. It's the "sitra-achra", aramaic, the "other-side", which is simultaneously a place and an entity, a "being", an event, something that's ... happening. The white spheres are sephirot. The black spheres are k'lipot. The sphere towards the lower middle, white wrapped in darkness, is here-and-now, the material realm, "assiyah", a place of making and doing.

Spoiler: The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good-and-Evil

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:14 PM

but then relies solely on Mathers who most likely made up the Tree of Death out of whole cloth

there's always been two trees. what I see happening is a lot of embellishment and exaggeration to dazzle and inspire the reader

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:49 PM

both are possibly only really just two sides of the same illusion

The primary distinction is in the linkages from netzach and from hod. In the sitra-achra, the flip side, netzach and hod skip yesod which produces a sort of never-ending-maze. In simple terms, it's null. Conversely, when netzach and hod are soley within and through yesod, there's a way out.

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:54 PM

@Morell , @HoldAll , in case you didn't get a notification, please see above.