The Kaballist talk about 4 worlds in their version of the ten worlds theory. The ten worlds of kaballa are metaphysical, they are about what is behind phenoemena. I'm not really interested in propagating their Kosher version, but I am interested in using their power for the sake of creation. To me these worlds map to all three thousand worlds. In a sense I think that they kind of make 12,000 worlds out of them. But we only experience 3000 because only while we are alive (actualized) do we actively experience all three thousand. They are metaphysical worlds. They map to the 3000 worlds of Buddhism but not in a one to one manner. Instead, like the three thousand worlds they interpolate with one another and thus define the world around us.
Pure concept comes from the world of "Atzilut" or emmanation. Pure concepts are pure because they are completely abstract. Love, hate, white, black, red, yellow, blue; are all like primary colors. Pure concept is neither good nor bad. "Good" itself is a pure concept, but the term itself gives no way to measure it.
The Kabbalists link the concepts of the four worlds to the image of an upside down tree whose roots are in heaven. Pure concept (Atzilut) is rooted in heaven itself. What comes before thought is pure, but abstract. The trunk, stem of life, is in creation. The branches are formation and the leaves are actualization.
The kaballists tried to sit on their ideas because they come out of an esoteric tradition, because they weren't really interested in sharing them, and frankly because they are powerful ideas that are easily misunderstood.
Emanation in a sense also includes the "light" of life and enlightenment that flows from heaven directly to all of us. As leaves of life, we have the power to flow that light back to the tree of life. All things are interconnected.
To make this world, in actual fact, a better place pure concept has to be turned to "creation" and that requires growing links and definitions between pure concepts. The word "conservatism" implies something to conserve. The word "radical" implies changes that go to the root of a matter.
To apply abstract concept in a meaningful way requires either creation or destruction. Both are the Janus faces of creation. Creation is the constructive route. Destruction is usually the root of evil, although as Schumpeter demonstrates it usually requires destruction to make the way for better creations.
No pure concept is beautiful by itself, and simply mixing ideas doesn't produce creation. Creation involves work. If we want Kosenrufu, world peace, a better world. We have to recognize that pure concepts only become reality when we participate in creation; when we make them practical reality.
However, creation implies formation and actualization. Once a pure concept is created, a group initiated, or a crystal started; it has to form a shape and grow into something actual or it remains abstract and unformed.
Turning creative, but still abstract ideas into the rules, governance, and models for workable reality is formation. For a person to talk of "peace and love" is time wasted unless all those terms are turned into creative concepts and given narrative form. To form reality the paradox is that we have to build, act out, and analyze actualizations of that reality.
The other paradox is that pure ideas, when they arrive in the real world, usually define themselves out in different directions, creating metaphysical boundaries between each other. That is the pure idea of "liberty" is only real for everybody if it involves principles of equality, fairness, justice; because the liberties, rights, privileges of the one, can easily infringe on those of another. The world of formation is where these boundaries are scoped out and formed based on lessons learned from individual creations in the world of actualization.
The proof is in the pudding. Sages who sit on mountain tops are doing nothing, unless they gift others with the tools and ideas necessary to apply those ideas in the real world. My heroes are all human beings who acted out their concepts in the real world. People like Gandhi turned concepts like Non Violence into imperfect thought experiments. The way we create is by analyzing the "leafs" of reality, both those that were fully realized and those that were eaten away or degraded; in order to form operational systems that can sustain actualization over a period of years or even lifetimes.
Actualization is always imperfect. We can think of ourselves as leaves, or fruits of pure ideas, but we ourselves are imperfect. We are dealing with a hard shell of ignorance (mara, known as the "klipot" or shell to hebrew speakers) that makes our own soft "sparks" of enlightenment difficult to reach -- even within ourselves. The reason for meditation, mediation, dialogue, and participation in religious groups is to find a way to dissolve (at least temporarly) the "shell" that gets between us and others.
That shell is also composed of disappointments, degraded concepts, the poisons of destroyed dreams, frustrated desires, and hurts that have accumulated over time. Today I am mourning a coworker and friend who is being cremated. He died because his body had an intensely allergic reaction to a drug meant to cure a sickness he had come down with. The first manifestation of the damage that drug did to his body was in his face and skin. Our bodies push poisons to the surface. The "Klipot" or shells represent the poisons that poison us.
In a way the "shell" also represents the material world. We only exist as the detritus of billions of years of creative destruction. Dead stars live in us. A mystical "spirit" allows these dead stars to form a residue that can move, influence its environment and ultimately talk, reason, see, and believe things. Without the "Klipot" there would be no life. Life manifest is a mixture of dead things (the earth) with water (metaphor for life). Like leaves we are green for a time, alive, and then turn colors and fall. The colors are the laws (emanation), definitions, structures (formations), and actualizations that defines us. When we die, the shell is left behind, but the influence goes on.
What makes us real and binds us is that we all share the same foundation. Our Genes, our chromosomes, the patterns in which chemicals interact, all these are at the foundation of reality. Formation occurs because "G-d", "Brahma/Atman/etc..." embody pure concepts that over time have been turned into creations and forms.
To me, each moment is a moment of creation, and to a limited degree you, myself, and everybody around us also participate in creation. We have the choice of chosing life or chosing death, participating in creating a better world or in our own destruction. We don't get to create ourselves out of nothing, but we do get to chose how we participate in this world around us. Do we provide for our brothers? Do we help form laws that are nurturing. Or do we participate in hatred and destruction, or act out of fear and jealousy?
Moses' last sermon involved the exhortation "chose life." The Buddha's last sermon involved the exhortation "work out your own salvation." Salvation lies in working with emanation, creation, formation, in the actual world. To be saved is to be rescued from delusion. It is meant to be a first step on a road to enlightenment not an entry into a fantasy world.
We are each crystals of reality. (Aggregates). Whether we are things of beauty or ugly, evil, deluded, is up to our willingness to tie ourselves to the higher but abstract realities of emanation, creation, formation and actualize those insights. As long as we are able to keep the flow of sap strong, we can directly acquire the energy from enlightenment that is necessary to pass back nutrients to nurture the society and world that is the foundation of our existence. We exist in the world, of the world, and yet not totally of the material world. We embody emanation, creation, foundation and actualization in ourselves as long as we are alive. We can only pass back energy to this "tree of life" as long as we are part of its emanation. Once we are dead, we can't be certain of having any influence over it.
Posted by cholte at January 31, 2010 11:20 AM