The following (text only) is taken from Chapter Five of
The Secret Garden of the Soul - An Introduction to the Kabbalah by Allan Armstrong. First published by Imagier Publishing in 2008
It is probable that the earliest system of spiritual development in Israel took the form of emulating Moses’ ascent of the sacred mountain of Sinai. This ascent is described in the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Pentateuch, which forms part of the oral tradition put into writing during the Babylonian captivity. It describes how the Jewish people, led by Moses, escaped from the land of Egypt. This narrative can be read as a metaphor concerning the passage of the soul out of the mundane world, which is the body and the animal nature; thus Egypt represents the bondage of the soul to the demands of the animal or instinctive animal nature—the mundane world.
The Pentateuch consists of five books that among other things describe:
1. The creation and fall of Humanity
2. The wandering of humanity on the world
3. Humanity’s enslavement and liberation from Egypt
4. Humanity’s entry into the wilderness and the pilgrimage to the holy mountain
5. Moses’ ascent of the holy mount
6. The covenant between God and humankind
7. The re-alignment of humankind with the divine law
8. Man’s entry into the Promised Land
The Creation may be understood in metaphorical terms as the creation of the human soul, an immortal being whose only vesture is a garment of pure spirit, or perhaps of light. In this state the soul exists within the presence of God (Paradise), all needs fulfilled by that divine presence. Here time and space have no place; all share in the unity and omniscience of God.
The fall is a descent into the material world of duality and all that such implies where the soul experiences birth and death, pain and suffering, the needs of the flesh, and the need to work to survive; but worst of all, the soul suffers the separation from the presence of God and the darkness of ignorance that comes with it. Consequently the wandering of the people of Israel in this world signifies the soul’s growing awareness of this transient world. In its fallen state, the soul knows nothing and has nothing, other than what the senses show and bring to it. Thus it engages with the world it perceives via the senses, and to which it is driven by the incessant demands of the animal nature of the body.
It is probable that the earliest system of spiritual development in Israel took the form of emulating Moses’ ascent of the sacred mountain of Sinai. This ascent is described in the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Pentateuch, which forms part of the oral tradition put into writing during the Babylonian captivity. It describes how the Jewish people, led by Moses, escaped from the land of Egypt. This narrative can be read as a metaphor concerning the passage of the soul out of the mundane world, which is the body and the animal nature; thus Egypt represents the bondage of the soul to the demands of the animal or instinctive animal nature—the mundane world.
The Pentateuch consists of five books that among other things describe:
1. The creation and fall of Humanity
2. The wandering of humanity on the world
3. Humanity’s enslavement and liberation from Egypt
4. Humanity’s entry into the wilderness and the pilgrimage to the holy mountain
5. Moses’ ascent of the holy mount
6. The covenant between God and humankind
7. The re-alignment of humankind with the divine law
8. Man’s entry into the Promised Land
The Creation may be understood in metaphorical terms as the creation of the human soul, an immortal being whose only vesture is a garment of pure spirit, or perhaps of light. In this state the soul exists within the presence of God (Paradise), all needs fulfilled by that divine presence. Here time and space have no place; all share in the unity and omniscience of God.
The fall is a descent into the material world of duality and all that such implies where the soul experiences birth and death, pain and suffering, the needs of the flesh, and the need to work to survive; but worst of all, the soul suffers the separation from the presence of God and the darkness of ignorance that comes with it. Consequently the wandering of the people of Israel in this world signifies the soul’s growing awareness of this transient world. In its fallen state, the soul knows nothing and has nothing, other than what the senses show and bring to it. Thus it engages with the world it perceives via the senses, and to which it is driven by the incessant demands of the animal nature of the body.
The wilderness is a vast place neither in heaven nor on earth. It is the great unknown that must be crossed, symbolized in all of the great epics quests and journeys from Gilgamesh to the present. To the soul the wilderness is a vast astral region that is only accessed when it leaves the world of the senses. It is a world wherein many lose themselves. However, God led the people of Israel through the wilderness (as a pillar of fi re by night and a pillar of smoke by day) to holy Mount Sinai.
A mountain signifies a high place in consciousness; such heights are not to be understood literally but metaphorically, for they represent levels of consciousness not available to the sense-bound soul. In comparison the wilderness is a low place in consciousness that extends metaphorically to the four directions; north, south, east, and west, but no height, for it is the world of the senses. The heights are symbolic of the heavenly realms, and Mount Sinai represents the high places of consciousness that the soul must ascend if it is to have any possibility of spiritual regeneration.
Thus it is said that Moses (the will) is called by God (inspired) to ascend the mountain (to the heavenly realms). It is an ascent in consciousness beyond the world of the senses—beyond the world of the imagination, and even beyond the realm of abstract thought—into the presence of God, who establishes a new covenant with the soul. It is an interesting arrangement that requires of the soul that it recognize and accept the omnipresence and unity of the divine, that it turn away from investing the transient with power, and that it understand that all providence is from the divine, and that there is no need to hold on to the desire for possessions. It is essentially an arrangement that requires of the soul a realignment with divine law, for only then will it be able to enter the Promised Land—the presence of God—and fulfil its destiny. This, broadly speaking, is a Kabbalistic interpretation of the human condition set out in the five books of The Pentateuch.
The Kabbalah introduces the student to a deeper meaning of these books, the contemplation of which enables the beginning of spiritual understanding, and at the heart of which lies a teaching concerning the soul’s path to freedom from the influences of the mundane world. This path is an interior journey into the depth of one’s being; it is a difficult journey full of pitfalls, yet, when all is said and done, it is a path worth following, for at its terminus lies the emancipation of the soul ...
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Details: The Secret Garden of the Soul, by Allan Armstrong;
ISBN: 978-0-9558415-0-7
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